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11:52, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Adventure Work Bench.

Posted by DM KindredFor group 0
DM Kindred
GM, 251 posts
Mon 26 Feb 2007
at 20:07
  • msg #1

Adventure Work Bench

Kana flinched at the blow; not from the pain the wound caused but at the damage done his magnificent armor.  Hadn’t the bastard cut an exposed bit of flesh like every other enemy? Oh no, this excrement of his mothers lower intestines had to cut through Mage-glass to get a piece of him.

He looked to his friend to see how they fared and witnessed a horror more traumatic than any he had yet experienced. When he was a boy he watched the death of his parents at
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:04, Thu 22 Mar 2007.
Myky
player, 46 posts
Thu 26 Jul 2007
at 22:40
  • msg #7

Eberron

Get an Opponent
Our opponent will be the Cult of the Dragon below.

Have a Plot
Zoratass is powerful spellcaster in the service of the Dragon below. He has located the tomb of his Raksasha lord and seeks to free him.

Hook the Heroes
 - Hey fool, your cousin is stuck in a cave in!
 - One of the faithful comes to Allus to lament the loss of her son to the construction site.

Breadcrumbs
Scenario A
The heroes will first encounter Zoratass at the construction site. He treats his workers well and seems honest in his dealings. He’s the classic absent-minded wizard though. It seems he is using the laborers from the town as a gesture of goodwill since he is a new resident. He also uses labor from across the Graywall and they seem much more suited to the task; a horde of minotaurs, ogres, gnolls and other monsters from Droaam . Zoratass has finished building the above ground part of his complex and secured it against intrusion. He is now focusing on the belowground features, namely the dungeon.

This is the intro adventure; the PCs will in fact be called to the site when a cousin/loved one of theirs in trapped in a cave in. Subsequent investigations should show that the cave in was staged:
1) No monstrous humanoid was caught.
2) The area was secured beforehand, the human foreman is sure of it.
3) It happened in the deepest part of the complex where humans are not encouraged to go as their inferior vision makes them a liability in the dark; it’s cheaper to use races with dark vision. Other minor accidents occurred when ever the foreman sent them there.
4) The foreman is at his wits end, he is short staffed and the wizard has restricted his workforce further by declaring that he won’t pay for the equipment needed for them to see in the dark. So the foreman got some mundane torches and sent them, to assist the monsters who were against the help for what he though was foolish pride in their ability.

This section is the area where the Raksasha prison is located.

Scenario B


Locations
 It will be set in Breland in the town off Galethspyre on the western shore of the Dagger River. Breland's 7th Army, still in winter quarters in Galethspyre, immediately began preparations for a forced march to bolster the Graywall defenders, Brelish Army officials said on Zol.

Little Pieces

I once found some advice that stuck with me in an old Dragon magazine column: Never write more than you actually need to. In fact, you should purposely avoid writing everything out in order to leave some mystery in the situation and some opportunities for expansion in other directions.

This advice is especially valuable in writing adventures. When you're working on a scenario, write only what you need for your next session, and let the rest wait. That way, when your players choose an unusual course of action, the adventure can't get too far off course.

Writing only what's necessary at the time has another benefit as well. It allows you to break a large, intimidating project down into more manageable chunks. When you finish one step, you can focus on the next, and then the one after that, and so on, until you're finished. Don't feel that you have to answer every question raised in the adventure right away.

This message was last edited by the player at 18:46, Sun 29 July 2007.
Myky
player, 47 posts
Mon 6 Aug 2007
at 02:54
  • msg #8

Re: Eberron

House Denieth maintains a large Defenders Guild enclave in Galethspyre, because the town is a major staging area for caravans journeying into Droam. And so the young Tyrdus found himself there looking for work. He had traveled here looking for work but the brusque Denieth guards had turned him away for no other reason than the way he looked.
Myky
player, 48 posts
Tue 7 Aug 2007
at 19:52
  • msg #10

Re: Eberron

Nothing at all man, its cool I got dis.
Ny
player, 4 posts
Tue 7 Aug 2007
at 21:57
  • msg #11

Re: Eberron

Cool.
Myky
player, 49 posts
Thu 9 Aug 2007
at 21:27
  • msg #12

Re: Eberron

Hey Lewis, link up here nigga, lets do dis:

link to "MnM test play"
DM Kindred
GM, 253 posts
Mon 10 Sep 2007
at 22:24
  • msg #13

Re: Eberron

Zion sat astride Swift surveying the landscape below him. He was high above the town of Stormreach nestled on the northern coast on Xen’drik, surrounding by wild jungle and marshes. It was in this frontier town, the official port city in Xen’drik used by the Races of Khorvaire. It was in this town that he was meeting his contact. Morgrave University had sent him on a mission and it was here that he would receive his orders. He spotted the University’s outpost and smiled. It was small by Khovairian standards but it still had all the amenities a modern outpost needed, including an aerie for his mount.

 Zion flew Swift straight down towards it at a breath taking speed. He pulled up short right at the entrance;  Swift furiously beat his massive wings to brake in time and hovered in front of the aerie a moment before landing inside the door and waddling to the stall Zion steered him toward. The Shifter leapt from the back of the mighty eagle and begun the arduous task of unsaddling the bird. The saddle was a leather contraption of buckles and straps designed to hold the rider in place no matter what manner of stunts his aerial mount pulled during flight, but if you asked Zion it was made that way to frustrate the rider when he had to saddle or unsaddle his mount. Never the less; Zion had the saddle off in no time with the practiced ease of one who was long used to the task.

He left the aerie soon after and went to find the Elf he was told to contact. He knew the job included him searching for some manner if plant but he did not yet know the exact variety he would be searching for. He often did this sort of thing for Morgrave and was even given a job of head gardener at the university. His knowledge or plants and animals were astounding and Zion has traveled the world to learn about and catalog new varieties for the university. That was his business and business was good!


Fuck it!
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:45, Tue 18 Sept 2007.
Vash
GM, 3 posts
Tue 11 Sep 2007
at 00:52
  • msg #14

Re: Eberron

*reads posts*

...those two sound familiar....
Zion
player, 1 post
Tue 18 Sep 2007
at 21:33
  • msg #15

Re: Eberron

Scotty:
Just wondering, is this going to be a dungeon crawl type game? I want to play a cavalier but it doesn't make sense to to it if ilol never be on a horse...



I dont think so. My character has a mount as well. It's a freaking bird man so if I can ride you should be able to... except over ravines and stuff, you're screwed there.

What say you Tae BO?
Zion
player, 2 posts
Tue 18 Sep 2007
at 21:48
  • msg #16

Re: Eberron

Fuck it I not writing that story about what happened during my solo play. Fuck that shit, its too hard. I will write a new one staring me and Lewis. Scotty too if he gives some details.
Scotty
player, 74 posts
Wed 19 Sep 2007
at 00:24
  • msg #17

Re: Eberron

I'm going to be a cavalier and ride a pegasus mount... That way I can fly too bitch! Anyway I can still handle a crawl or two since my character's base class will be fighter. With a lot of weapon feats mounted feats anmd armour feats
Scotty
player, 75 posts
Wed 19 Sep 2007
at 00:26
  • msg #18

Re: Eberron

and flaws too...
Vash
GM, 4 posts
Thu 20 Sep 2007
at 21:21
  • msg #19

Re: Eberron

Ah.

So anyway, what are the adventure elements that you guys want to see in this game? What elements do you feel are overdone, and just plain dead and tired, needing to be taken out behind the barn and shot? What did you always want to do, but never got the chance in any game previously? Where do you want this game to go?

Let me know.

I can tell you I plan to try out an aquatic expedition at some point, so you have been warned.
DM Kindred
GM, 255 posts
Thu 20 Sep 2007
at 21:44
  • msg #20

Re: Eberron

I want a game that allows me to use my skills and class abilities to some extent. I also want a game that we actually play. I want to have to use my brain and i want combat maps and I want to start right now. I dont care about anything eklse but starting. The rest will come in time.
Vash
GM, 5 posts
Thu 20 Sep 2007
at 21:45
  • msg #21

Re: Eberron

...as you say, good sir.
Zoul
GM, 123 posts
Fri 15 Feb 2008
at 13:35
  • msg #22

Re: Eberron

What to have on-hand for quick asian cuisine
1. Fresh ginger
2. Garlic
3. Cornstarch
4. Scallions
5. Soy sauce
6. Peanut oil
7. Rice
8. Chile oil
9. Hoisin sauce
10. Dark sesame oil

There's nothing better than a well-stocked pantry. Keep these items around and you'll be in great shape whenever you want to whip something up.

1. Canned tomatoes
2. Chicken, beef or vegetable broth
3. Dried pasta
4. Canned beans (black beans, navy, pinto, kidney, garbanzo)
5. Canned tuna fish
6. Dried fruits
7. Olives
8. Good quality breadcrumbs
9. Salsa
10. Rice

Pots and Pans
The kind of pots and pans you buy depends on your own personal preference. Generally, stainless is the most versatile, though both hard-anodized and nonstick have their fans. Look carefully at cookware sets — while they're often a great deal, they may not include exactly what you need. Our ideal set-up includes:

9-inch omelet pan
12-inch skillet
8-quart stockpot with a lid
1.5-quart sauté pan with a lid
1.5-quart saucepan with a lid
3-quart saucepan with a lid

In addition to that, you might want the following:

9-inch cast-iron skillet
Roasting pan and rack
Ridged grill pan
5-quart Dutch oven
Steamer insert for saucepan
Casserole dish

Pantry
Keep these items on hand for easy meal preparation.

Spices (Basic):
Kosher Salt
Whole black peppercorns
Red pepper flakes
Dried herbs, like oregano, bay leaf, whole nutmeg, and thyme
Ground cinnamon
A spice blend such as
Chili powder
Curry powder
Herbes de Provence or Italian Seasoning
Five-spice powder

Spices (Upgrade):
Ground cumin
Ground coriander
Paprika
Fennel seeds
Ground cardamom
Allspice

Condiments (Basic):
[all of these go in the fridge once open]
Ketchup
Mustard
Hot Sauce
Jelly
Salsa
Soy sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Real maple syrup

Condiments (Upgrades)
Asian chili pastes
Sesame oil
Fish sauce
Hoisin sauce
Chutney

Dry goods (Basic):
Vegetable oil
EVOO
Vinegar
Chicken broth (canned or in paper containers)
Nut Butter
Honey
Pasta
Canned tomatoes
Rice

Whole Grains, such as:
Oatmeal, Bulgur
Canned Beans
Dry goods (Upgrade):
Polenta
Couscous
Canned chiles (pickled jalapenos, chipotles in adobo)
Jarred anchovies
Tomato paste
Bread crumbs

Baking:
All-Purpose Flour
Baking Powder
Baking Soda
Sugar (White & Brown)
Vanilla extract
Chocolate Chips

The Right Tool for the Right Job
A well-equipped kitchen makes cooking easier and more fun. Get our recommendations for:


Knives:
When you're buying a knife, the most important thing is how it feels in your hand. If you're particularly enamored of a certain style of grip, then buying a block is your best option; if you prefer a different grip for different styles of knife, then purchase your knives individually.


Paring knife
Serrated knife
Chef's knife (either French-style or Asian)
Carving/Slicing knife
Kitchen shears


Utensils and Equipment:
Utensil-wise, the kind of pans you have dictate the kind of utensils you should be using. Nonstick pans demand plastic utensils; wood and metal can be used on hard-anodized and stainless pans.

Cutting boards (ideally more than one)
Spoons (regular, slotted, and wooden)
Metal spatula (sometimes called a turner)
Rubber spatula
Can opener
Box grater
Rasp grater
Pepper mill
Vegetable peeler
Whisk
Tongs
Instant-read thermometer
Salad spinner
Colander
Ladle


Small Electronics:
Blender (stick or countertop)
Food processor
Toaster or toaster oven
Microwave
Slow cooker
Pressure cooker
Mixer, handheld or stand
Baker's Goods:

If baking is your passion, consider adding the following:
Two (9-inch) cake pans
Mixing bowls
Measuring cups and spoons
Cookie sheets (both rimmed and flat)
Cooling rack
Springform pan
Pastry brush
Rolling pin
Loaf pan
Pie pan
Removable-bottom tart pan
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:45, Fri 15 Feb 2008.
Zoul
GM, 161 posts
Tue 16 Dec 2008
at 20:42
  • msg #23

Re: Eberron

This tavern was like any other in Halagard; bright with permanent daylight spells, filled with the boisterous laughter and the cheerful chatter of its inebriated patrons. Human, Elf and Half-Elf serving girls took orders here and Unseen Servants delivered hot food, sparkling wine glasses and overflowing mugs to tables jammed with waiting patrons. The tavern is packed to max capacity and you are seated at a table with strangers and perhaps an acquaintance or two. The tables are round and large enough to comfortably accommodate ten patrons, with a rotating glass server forming an inner circle where the meals and beverages are placed by the Unseen Servants who deliver them. Light breezy music hums in the background. It is a relaxing melody filled with woodwind and stringed instruments in the foreground and light percussions in background. No real band played, but rather magic had been employed in its creation. Conjuration was the speciality of many Wizards in this city and its influence could be seen any and every where.

An ethereal menu hovers before you in the very centre of table. It is light and varied with a mixture of dishes featuring local seafood, fruits and livestock as well as a few delicacies. It was complete with an excellent yet affordable wine selection. Although there are few bottles on the wine list with prices must surely be some jest by innkeeper to illicit an amused chuckle from the patrons. The service is surprisingly good with food being delivered so quickly that one would think the chefs conjured up the food instead of cooking it. But The Unseen Innkeep was aptly names as the Inkeeper was not in evidence. The serving girls took all orders including those for room and bored. They saw to needs of the patrons each seemed to oversee a small horde conjured servants in large open common room that was large enough to accommodate twenty tables with room to dance in the centre.

A fat man in his middle years seated beside a younger man with less bulk but is obviously related to elder smiles around the table. He slaps the younger man on the back and exclaims;

My son has just been accepted as an apprentice to Elder Eledric Omanrys himself! Help us celebrate this auspicious occasion! You there; servant girl come and tale our order… yes two Amphorae of… 12 year old Haelru Platinum Seal and two of 42 year old Vulcan Red if you will. Thank you. He introduces himself as Bartholomew Thorpeson and his son Rafael during the few moments it takes the wine to arrive. He pours ten glasses, places them onthe server and then spins it so that each of yu may take one as they pass and then hoists toats and a cheer for his fortunate son.

Come drink! Drink




The Unseen Menu
Wine*, Third Tier                      Cost
Kippya's Temple Nectar (white)         5 cp
Satyr's Delight (rose)                 3 cp
Vulcan Red (red)                       2 cp

Wine*, Second Tier                     Cost
Haelru Gold Seal (white)               4 sp
The Gorgon's Eyebite (rose)            2 sp
Vulcan Fury (red)                      1 sp

Wine*, First Tier                      Cost
Haelru Platinum Seal (white)           3 gp
Satyr's Rose (rose)                    3 gp
Vulcan Rage (red)                      1 gp

Wine*, Private Reserve                 Cost
Haelru Gold Seal (31 years old)        16 gp
Haelru Gold Seal (31 years old)        45 gp
Haelru Platinum Seal (12 years old)    21 gp
Erinyes Ambrosia (234 years old)       100 gp
Praetorian Cellar(1400 years old)      900 gp
Vulcan Fury (42 years old)             30 gp
Vulcan Rage (15 years old)             32 gp

Other Beverages                        Cost
Goat Milk                              2 cp
Cow Milk                               3 cp
Olive Oil                              4 cp
Haelru Sparkling Ale                   5 cp

Food, Soups and Stews                  Cost
Dried Dates                            1 cp
Fish Stew                              2 cp
Fish Stew, with shrimp                 3 cp
Fish Stew, with lobster                4 cp
Fish Stew, with shrimp & lobster       5 cp
Conch Soup                             6 cp
Fruit platter                          3 cp
Grilled fish                           4 sp
Lamp Tripe                             5 sp
Olives                                 2 sp
Pecan Cakes                            5 cp
Pita Bread                             2 cp
Noodles                                1 sp
Preserved Fish                         1 cp
Radish Cakes                           4 cp
Roasted goat hocks                     2 sp
Roasted Sheep legs                     3 sp
Sour Plums                             7 cp

* Wine is typically served in an increment called a "glass" which equals one and a half pints. A carafe contains five pints of wine and costs three times as much as a glass of the same type; a small crystal amphora contains approximately 20 pints and costs six times as much as a glass of the same type. Amphorae are coloured according to the type of wine and the winery from which they come, so that the different types of wine and their respective prices are easily identifiable. Larger amphorae are used for transporting the wine and never for serving it.
Vash
GM, 25 posts
Tue 16 Dec 2008
at 21:30
  • msg #24

Re: Eberron

This tavern was like any other in Halagard; bright with permanent daylight spells, filled with the boisterous laughter and the cheerful chatter of its inebriated patrons. Human, Elf and Half-Elf serving girls took orders here; Unseen Servants delivered hot food, sparkling wine glasses and overflowing mugs to tables jammed with waiting patrons around you. The tavern is packed to max capacity and you are seated at a table with strangers and perhaps an acquaintance or two. The tables are round and large enough to comfortably accommodate ten patrons, with a rotating glass server forming an inner circle where the meals and beverages are placed by the Unseen Servants. Light breezy music hums in the background. It is a relaxing melody filled with woodwind and stringed instruments in the foreground and light percussion in the background. No real band played; rather, magic had been employed in its creation. Conjuration was the specialty of many Wizards in this city and its influence could be seen any and every where.

An ethereal menu hovers before you in the very centre of the table. It is light and varied with a mixture of dishes featuring local seafood, fruits and livestock as well as a few delicacies. It was complete with an excellent yet affordable wine selection....although there are a few bottles on the wine list with prices which must surely be some jest by the innkeeper to illicit an amused chuckle from the patrons. The service is surprisingly good with food being delivered so quickly that one would think the chefs conjured up the food instead of cooking it. But The Unseen Innkeeper was aptly named as the Innkeeper was not in evidence. The serving girls took all orders, including those for room and board. They saw to needs of the patrons by overseeing a small horde of conjured servants in the spacious common room that accommodated twenty tables, with room to dance in the centre.

A portly man of middle years is seated beside a younger man of less bulk but whom is obviously related. He slaps the younger man on the back and exclaims with joy;

My son has just been accepted as an apprentice to Elder Eledric Omanrys himself! Help us celebrate this auspicious occasion! You there; servant girl come and take our order… yes two Amphorae of… 12 year old Haelru Platinum Seal and two of 42 year old Vulcan Red if you will. Thank you.

He introduces himself as Bartholomew Thorpeson and his son  as Rafael during the few moments it takes the wine to arrive. He pours ten glasses, places them on the server and then spins it so that each of you may take a glass as they pass, then hoists his aloft and toasts and cheers for his fortunate son.

Come drink! Drink!
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:31, Tue 16 Dec 2008.
Zoul
GM, 165 posts
Sun 28 Dec 2008
at 16:03
  • msg #25

Re: Eberron

So I took a quiz called What Clan are you? right and you know I just had to be the Scorpion clan. In addition to that they emailed me this letter, its pretty cool check it out:

Loyal vassals,

You have excelled at your training, and earned the right to swear your loyalty to the Scorpion and to the Empire. Remember this day forever, for it will be the second greatest day of your lives. The first shall be on the day that you are blessed to prove your loyalty. Many do not survive this day, but what is life when weighed against the fulfillment of destiny? Ask your ancestors that question on the day that you stand among them.

The Empire is in the throes of chaos. The Lion Clan and the Unicorn Clan wage war on one another, as do the Crane Clan and our oldest allies, the Dragon Clan. We stand on the brink of war ourselves, with the Crab Clan.

Their so-called hero, the legendary Hida Kisada, is a spirit returned through the veil of death. He is an abomination, and he must be destroyed.

This is the task that is set before the Scorpion: to destroy a god made flesh. What took seven Great Clans to accomplish on the Day of Thunder, when the mad god Fu Leng was destroyed, the Scorpion shall accomplish alone. This is what it means to wear our mask. This is what it means to dwell within the shadows. Our duty is to accomplish the impossible, and to do so in such a way that no one can claim that we have done so. Who else can make such a claim?

No one.

Bayushi Paneki


Scorpion Clan Champion



So now I know my characters motivation and goals.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:07, Sun 28 Dec 2008.
Zoul
GM, 168 posts
Fri 9 Jan 2009
at 01:33
  • msg #26

Re: Eberron

she could pick individual notes from the racket glass vials shattering, fire crackling, priceless spellbooks thudding against the walls, furniture clattering as it overturned. A man's grunts spoke of pain and exertion, and a beautiful, bell-like soprano voice lifted in keening chant. Above it all rang a shrill, insanely gleeful cackle that tore at the ears like fin¬gernails on slate.His attacker was a particularly nasty imp with a body the size of a housecat, enormous batlike wings, a yellowish hide, and a hideous face dominated by a twisted and bul¬bous nose.The imp had been busy. The tapestries and drapes showed the assault of its claws, and the ripped edges smol¬dered from its touch. As the imp circled Dhamari, it spat little bursts of scalding steam, cackling with delight at the young man's pained cries.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:52, Mon 19 Jan 2009.
Zoul
GM, 174 posts
Thu 5 Feb 2009
at 15:24
  • msg #27

Re: Eberron

The hallway appears to be secure and as Gwendol and Kara ease into it, Barty bustles past, wand at the ready heading to take the lead. But Old Wizard Guy grabs his sleeve, pulls him back and says.

Let the professionals handle this, we will find Rafael soon enough.
Unhand me coward, I swear Fianor if you don’t let me go I’ll turn you into a Behir and sell you for spell components and scrimshaw parts.
I’d like to see you tr-

His retort is cut short by the appearance of a young human girl stepping into the corridor from the room ahead. Her eyes are opened as wide as they could possibly be and she has crazed expression on her face, baring her teeth in the parody of a smile, albeit a demented smile. She waves at you and cackles (not unlike the
laughter you’ve been hearing) and then beckons for you to come closer…



  | A| B| C| D| E| F| G| H| I| J| K| L| M| N| O| P| Q| R| S| T| U| V| W| X| Y| Z|A1|
--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--
 1|  |  |  |  |  |Gw|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |YG|  |  |  |  |1
--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--
 2|  |Dr|Sy|Ow|Ba|Ka|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |2
--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--
  | A|Exit | D| E| F| G| H| I| J| K| L| M| N| O| P| Q| R| S| T| U| V| W| X| Y| Z|A1|

Cast
Im: Imp
OW: Old Wizard
Dr: Draz
Ka: Kara
Sy: Syntari
Gw: Gwendol
YG: Girl

Should be ok, no debris here. Let me know if the marching aroder is correcta s well please.

The girl is could be no older than 8, but looks more like 6 years old, except for the crazy face, she is an average looking child with black hair and weras a burgundy dress fit for the daughter of a well to do noble.

Zoul
GM, 178 posts
Tue 17 Feb 2009
at 14:27
  • msg #28

Re: Eberron

Draz runs over the heads of those in the hall way, using his natural skill and super-sized body to good effect. He squeezes through the door and disappears inside the adjacent room. The sounds of his swords striking home and bizarre screams of pain and anger fill the air as the Lemures surge forward.

Kara quickly shrugs off her surprise and seizes the initiative and lunges forward with her now gleaming silver headed Ransuer, but the blade slides along the things body as though she were trying to pierce gelatin with a blunt wooden spoon. Gwendols fierce battle cry echoes in hall as his short legs pumps and hurl him forward like an enraged bull. He throws his momentum into his swing and his great-sword blasts through the first Lemure and rebounds of the Kara’s earlier target. Once again it is unhurt as its hide absorbs the blow even as the first sputters down in a puddle of sludge, as the rest of its body covering the walls and it colleagues in pink ooze.  It claws at the dwarf but does not penetrate his Armor, leaving disgusting slimy residue on it.

Syntari’s arrow flies between them with a precision honed over decades of practice, but his timing is just a tad off as his target had already left the spot he aimed at; making him miss it by a hair, but miss he did. Barty begins casting a spell but old wizard guy grabs his hands interrupting the casting.

Are you insane! You’ll destroy half my shop with that spell!
Shut up Fianor; I know what I’m doing!
Not in my shop you don’t! Keep it simple stupid! He suits his words by unleashing five missiles of eldritch energy into one of the Lemures crowding the door. They detonate on impact and reduce it to a puddle of sludge. It seems that more of the things are just dieing to come out and play.



Ha ha ha this is funny! Why I am seeing comments about Chinese Jamaicans from people who don't live here and don't know what the fuck they are talking about. Half my friend's are Chinese, their parent or grandparents immigrated to jamaica and they were birn and raised here. They are no different than me who most people who are not jamaican would consider black. Jamaicans know seh mi brown still so everyting criss (My paternal grandmother came from India and my  maternal grandmother is cuban... what the hell am I? jamaican you fucks..
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:18, Wed 04 Mar 2009.
Zoul
GM, 185 posts
Mon 23 Mar 2009
at 15:14
  • msg #29

Re: Eberron

 Ok we have some bastard (Procopio Septus perhaps?) obtain an artifact that allows one to summon devils for a predetermined amount of time. They cannot be banished except through death. He is using it to launch an attack on the city and discredit the king, stating that he can no longer keep the populace safe. He will state that he foretold this would happen but he was laughed at by his peers in the royal court... who's laughing now bitches.

Part two would be to find proof of this to aid the king.
Zoul
GM, 187 posts
Wed 25 Mar 2009
at 14:06
  • msg #30

Re: Eberron

Kari has +1 Glamered Elven Mithral Chain shirt.

Mithral Chain shirt 4800 gp
Ac: 4+(1)
Dex: 6
ACP: 0
ASF: 10%
Spd: 30 ft.
Wgt: 12.5 lb. metals.
Note: Glamered
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:18, Wed 25 Mar 2009.
Zoul
GM, 202 posts
Sat 15 May 2010
at 04:01
  • msg #31

SWSE

They came for you in the night, just as you left the safety of your temporary sanctuary to handle some business on the streets. It was obvious that they had been watching you for some time judging by the ease and precision of your kidnapping.

Somehow, someone has learned of your secret, but they don't know enough. Somehow the the newly dubbed Emperor has learned about Doctor Kavorta's greatest creation and he dearly covets suck technology for himself.

They knew you were his aide and after his death, the assumed you are the only one who has the key the wealth of knowledge he left behind. So they tracked you down and captured you, hoping to extract the information he so dearly wants... of only they knew.

So far they have not discovered that you are the very thing seek, butt it will only be matter of time before they do. The ship you half way across the galaxy, your final destination unknown. Gagged and hooded, you are taken from brig to shuttle to... somewhere. You are told that a special someone will be here in a few days to question you and until you are enjoy the all hospitality the Empire has to offer.

The small prison block where you are being held is unlike most Imperial detention centers, because this prison block features an open but secure area where the prisoners share a living space, instead of having individual holding cells.

The space is filthy, you and your fellow prisoners are treated poorly. You have fared better than most because of your unique... physiology. Indeed, your physical charms were equally unique, strangely perfect, flawless one would say, as though you were molded by a master sculptor.

Your analytical mind noticed which of the guards were most attracted to you, which were soft on you and slowly you gained his trust. It wasn't easy in a crowded cell, nor was it easy to fend off often times aggressive attentions of your fellow inmates, but you managed. You only had a few days but with a few brazen actions and no small part of intrigue and subterfuge, you were determined to pull it off.

Then finally, a few days ago, he came for you in the dead of night. It was easy for the others to believe he had amorous intentions but in truth he was charmed by the idea of running away with you to start a life together in a quiet corner of the galaxy.

He lead you to a storage room in the back where he retrieve the equipment that was taken from you when you were... arrested. Moments later, he lead you to the northwest corner of the building, where a ventilation grate barely hangs on its bolts. He obviously had loosened the bolts before, so that it was easier to pry free, giving the you a way out of the prison facility.

The both of you have been on the run since. You learn that his name is Arron.
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:34, Mon 17 May 2010.
Zoul
GM, 203 posts
Tue 12 Oct 2010
at 15:13
  • msg #32

Intrigue system, fuck this gonna be teduious

Intrigue

Bold deeds and heroic acts live large in the minds of the young and naïve, but behind them, behind the endless ranks of knights and soldiers, are the true movers and shakers of the land. The swords and those who wield them are potent weapons, but they are tools all the same, used and discarded as need be. The ones who guide these weapons are those playing the game of thrones, the political machinations that can ignite a war or bring peace to a ravaged land. Intrigue and its masters hold true power in the Iron Kingdom, and their cunning is just as deadly as the greatest knight in the Iron Kingdoms.



Intrigues have two essential components: the exchange and influence. Exchanges are the framework in which the intrigue unfolds, while influence describes the objective of each participant in the exchange.The ExchangeAn intrigue is broken up into loose units of time called exchanges. An exchange is not a fixed amount of time: One exchange might last just a few seconds, while another might extend for hours. The Narrator assesses the time that passes during each exchange based on the amount of time spent roleplaying, while also accounting for the circumstances surrounding the intrigue as a whole.During an exchange, each participant has a turn to act. On a turn, the player rolls ability tests or performs some other maneuver to shift the intrigue in their favor. Once each player has had a turn, the exchange ends and either the intrigue resolves or a new exchange begins.InfluenceThe aim of every intrigue is to gain enough influence to compel your opponent to say, reveal, do, or act as you wish. Whether you’re trying to change a person’s mind, pass yourself off as someone or something else, or even just get them into bed, the process is the same. In a way, influence functions a lot like damage. As with combat, you roll a conflict test—using Deception or Persuasion, rather than Fighting or Marksmanship—against your opponent’s Intrigue Defense. A success generates an amount of influence applies to your target’s Composure. When Composure reaches 0, your opponent is defeated and the victor chooses the outcome.Intrigue StatisticsSeveral abilities describe your effectiveness in an intrigue. What follows is a summary of the game’s intrigue statistics and the methods for determining your derived statistics.Intrigue DefenseThe first line of defense against influence is your Intrigue Defense, combining your perceptiveness, intelligence, and social standing. Your Intrigue Defense equals your ranks in:AawWareness + CcunningG + Sstatus + Ccircumstantial BbonusesExample: Nicole’s noble has Awareness 3, Cunning 4, and Status 5. Adding up her ranks in these abilities, her Intrigue Defense is 12.ComposureComposure is your ability to withstand the pressures of negotiation and persuasion. When an opponent successfully influences you, reduce your Composure by your opponent’s influence. You are not affected adversely unless your Composure falls to 0, at which point you are defeated.CcompPosure = Will rank x 3Example: Nicole’s noble has Will 4, so her Composure is 12.DispositionDisposition is a particular outlook as it relates to your opponent in an intrigue, describing whether your character sees that person in a good light or bad, intends that person harm or wishes to help them. Disposition establishes the parameters about how you intend to play your character during the intrigue. Moreover, your disposition acts as a form of “armor,” protecting you from your opponent’s influence. It’s far harder to convince a person who hates you to “Some battles are won with swords and spears, others with quills and ravens.”—Tywin LannisterInjury RecoveryactivityEexampPleDifficultyLight or noneNo fighting, riding,
or physical activityRoutine (6)ModerateTravel, some physical activityChallenging (9)StrenuousFighting, riding,
hard physical activityFormidable (12)Wound RecoveryactivityexampPleDifficultyLight or noneNo fighting, riding,
or physical activityChallenging (9)ModerateTravel, some physical activityHard (15)StrenuousFighting, riding,
hard physical activityHeroic (21)
18 18Intrigue help than a person who loves you. Thus, whenever your opponent applies influence to your Composure, you first reduce the amount of influence by your Disposition Rating (or DR). Disposition also interacts with your efforts at Deception and Persuasion, by providing modifiers to your test results. It can be difficult to mask your disdain when trying to befriend a long-time enemy, just as it’s hard to deceive someone you love. The effects of disposition on your words, body language, and other elements of the intrigue cannot be understated. You might armor yourself in scorn, but find yourself powerless to change your thinking about those around you.There are seven ranks of disposition, much like the ranks of abilities. Three are favorable, three are unfavorable, and the seventh is indifference, neither favorable nor unfavorable. Descriptions of each follow while the relevant Disposition Rating and modifiers to Deception and Persuasion tests are given on the Dispositions table.DispositionsDispPositionDRrDecepPtion MmodDifierPersuasion Affectionate1–2+5Friendly2–1+3Amiable30+1Indifferent400Dislike5+1–2Unfriendly6+2–4Malicious7+3–6AffectionateAffection implies love and adoration, feelings of obligation and strong loyalty such as that shared between most spouses, parents and their children, and so on. A character of this disposition gives into most requests even if the request is to their detriment. Affectionate characters are likely to overlook faults in the person they adore and they would give their lives for that person.FriendlyA friendly disposition suggests feelings of kinship and goodwill, found in most siblings, long-time allies, and members of the same household. Friendly can also serve to define the relationship between knights bound to a common cause and the ties that bind the closest members of the Watch to each other and their commanders. Friendly characters are willing to do you favors and may take risks on your behalf. They won’t betray you, and that’s what counts most.AmiableAmiable characters see you in a positive light, and consider you an acquaintance, but not necessarily a friend. Such characters are unlikely to put themselves at risk for you, but are helpful if it benefits them. An amiable character may betray you, but only for a good reason. IndifferentAn indifferent character has no strong feelings toward you, one way or the other. He may be convinced to help you, following orders out of duty, and may consent to other favors if he gets something in return. Indifferent characters won’t take risks to help you unless suitably compensated.DislikeDislike indicates a general unfriendliness, a certain uncomfortable frostiness. Whether this disposition originates from distrust, reputation, or some past misdeed, the character will not take risks for you and may entertain conspiracies against you.UnfriendlyUnfriendly characters simply do not like you. These feelings may be grounded in good reason or not, but regardless they hold you in disdain. Such characters will not seek to actively hurt you, but they won’t interfere with those who would and can be convinced to conspire against you with little trouble.MaliciousMalicious characters actively work against you, doing whatever they possibly can to harm you, even if it means putting themselves at risk. Malicious characters would wage war against you, harm your family, and do just about anything else they can to destroy or discredit you. Such characters are your direst enemies.Starting DispositionAt the beginning of an intrigue, all participants set their starting disposition. The default is indifferent when dealing with new characters, but players are free to choose whatever disposition they like for their characters. The choice of disposition should always be based on what the character knows about their opponent, past encounters with the character, and their feelings regarding the character’s behavior.While it may be tempting to think in game terms, weighing the mechanical benefits of each disposition, avoid doing so and try to choose honestly based on how you think your character would feel. Your character’s disposition may also have unforeseen consequences. For example, if a representative of another house engages you in intrigue and you automatically set your disposition to malicious, you’re bound to make an enemy of that character by your rudeness and hostility. Conversely, simply defaulting to affectionate when trying to persuade another character is risky, as it leaves you open to manipulation. In short, consider how your character ought to feel and pick a disposition that best fits your character’s perspective.Evolving DispositionsOver the course of an intrigue, a character’s disposition is bound to change. The events of an exchange, coupled with roleplaying, allow players and the Narrator to adjust their characters’ dispositions in response to what happened during the previous exchange. At the start of every new exchange, each participant may improve or worsen their disposition by one step.The only exception to this is when a character was successfully influenced on the previous exchange. Such a character cannot worsen their disposition towards the influencing character during the next exchange, although they may improve it.Intrigue SequenceWhenever a social situation arises that cannot be resolved through simple roleplaying alone, an intrigue occurs. Such encounters can include negotiations and interrogations, but can also represent seduction, forging alliances, provoking attacks and a variety of other actions. All intrigues follow the same sequence of steps, described in detail in the following sections.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:17, Thu 14 Oct 2010.
Zoul
GM, 215 posts
Fri 20 May 2011
at 14:27
  • msg #33

Re: Intrigue system, fuck this gonna be teduious

The westerlands lie near the upper central-western portion of the Seven Kingdoms, just below the Neck. It is west of the Trident, north of the Reach, and spreads from Lannisport on its southern edge to Ironman’s Bay in the north. The goldroad and the Red Fork make for useful southern and eastern boundary lines. The land in this area is mostly mountainous and hilly, with rich valleys and farms providing food to the rest of the westerlands, mostly nuts, berries, turnips, and similar crops as well as sheep, cattle, deer, and goats. The fisherfolk add to the westerlands’ self reliance by providing bountiful catches.

Gold mines dot the landscape of the westerlands. In addition to the mines at Golden Tooth and Casterly Rock, there are also working mines at Castamere, Nunn’s Deep, and the Pendric Hills. Many of the people who’ve made their living working the lands of the region have been slowly moving into the cities that spring up around these mines. While there’s no shortage of smallfolk to farm and fish, the work and fortunes available in the cities may eventually draw so many people it will negatively affect the westerlands as a whole.

The small towns sometimes dry up when the gold does, which means that there are fewer castles and forts in the westerlands compared to the other regions of the Seven Kingdoms. Because mining has been so important to the history of the westerlands, many cities and towns have grown up around mines only to then be deserted when they stop producing ore. This has left the mountains and valleys dotted with ghost towns as nobles and their smallfolk move on to new mines and new cities. That pattern continues, but the Golden Tooth, Casterly Rock, and other major mines still produce ore enough to keep the Lannisters and their nobles wealthy and busy.

The city of Lannisport has grown to be one of the largest cities on the continent, placing third behind King’s Landing and Oldtown. This port city has always been a center of commerce for the region and it attracts travelers from all over the Seven Kingdoms and beyond.Lannisport sits along the coast of the Sunset Sea where the river road, goldroad, and the sea road meet, just to the west and in full view of Casterly Rock. This port city is one of the major ports of the Seven Kingdoms and the largest city in the westerlands by a wide margin. Compared to other cities in Westeros it’s smaller than King’s Landing and Oldtown but larger than Gulltown and White Harbor. So many visitors and traders make their way here and intermingle with the local farmers, herders, and fisherfolk, it makes the city a wild mix of the familiar and the foreign that people usually only expect from a place the size of King’s Landing. The wealth in the city means there are a number of skilled workers including excellent jewelers, goldsmiths, and blacksmiths.

The city of Lannisport experiences the typical level of Law throughout much of Westeros; crime is common but not out of control. And yet for an enterprising man, there are many opportunities to to line one's pocket with gold if one is brave enough to take the risks involved. The dark alleys of Lannisport are the haven of muggers and theives. Pickpockets and cutpurses ply their trade daily on its streets, while burglars and extortionists try their hand at acquiring the excellent work and hard earned profits of the city's jewelers, goldsmiths, and blacksmiths.

Unlike some of the cities across the Narrow Sea, Lannisport has no guild or organization of thieves. The city's criminal element are more or less independent agents, however several prominent figures have risen in the community and they control the crime in different sections of the city. They take a cut of all the activity in their area and keep the level of crime under control to avoid undue attention. Sooner or later they make contact with anyone working in their territory and have a reputation for cruelly enforcing their will. One such man is known to you, his name is Maiyo Vierro.

Maiyo Vierro is rakishly handsome and has an easy smile, a small, neat beard and moustache, and shiny black hair worn in a topknot. His eyes are intensely green and his wolfish smile bright white. He is a known Braavosi merchant, swordsman, and rogue. He is charming, witty, intelligent, and devoid of scruples. The oily Maiyo rose to the top of a Braavosi black market ring through sly treachery, and he deserves his reputation as a skilled swordsman and clever rogue. Maiyo assumes the air of a charming importer and exporter of “quality Braavosi goods.” He also has a thriving side business in poisons, weapons, and a heinously strong Braavosi whiskey called cheldarro that the King once considered outlawing, after a particularly harrowing night and painful next morning. He has a reputation as a man who can procure anything you desire, for a price.

(“Maiyo Vierro”)
Braavosi Rogue
ABILITIES
Agility 4 Quickness 1B
Athletics 3 —
Awareness 3 Notice 2B
Cunning 4 —
Deception 3 Act 1B, Disguise 2B
Endurance 3 —
Fighting 4 Fencing 2B
Knowledge 3 Streetwise 1B
Language 4 —
Status 4 —
Stealth 3 —
Thievery 3 —
Attributes
Combat Defense 10 (9)
Intrigue Defense 11
Health 9
Composure 6
Destiny 1 Point
Benefits: Connections, Lucky
Drawbacksckscks: Lascivious
Armsms & Armor
Soft Leather Armor: AR 2, AP –1, Bulk 0, (Movement 3 yards)
Braavosi Blade: 4D+2B, 4 damage, Defensive +1, Fast
Left-Hand Dagger: 4D+2B, 3 damage, Defensive +2, Off-Hand +1
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:45, Sun 22 May 2011.
Andredi Mizzrym
GM, 34 posts
faerunian Drow
Super Killa
Fri 20 May 2011
at 22:30
  • msg #34

Re: Intrigue system, fuck this gonna be teduious

Zoul
GM, 220 posts
Sat 11 Jun 2011
at 17:06
  • msg #35

Tales of Westeros and beyond.

The Year is 293 AL (Aegon's Landing)... 10 years have passed since Robert's Rebellion.

As had happened so often in the past, Robert Baratheon’s kingship failed to live up to its early promise. Embittered at Lyanna’s death, con¬sumed by hatred of the Targaryens, and trapped in a loveless political marriage, Robert soon turned his back on the throne, immersing him¬self in drinking, whoring, hunting, and gaming. Sensing weakness, the wily Lord Balon Greyjoy of Pyke declared himself King of the Iron Islands and dispatched his brothers Victarion and Euron to burn the Lannister fleet as it sat at anchor in Lannisport harbor four years ago. Balon’s triumph was short-lived, for his son Rodrik was slain on the walls of Seagard, and his fleet was sent to the bottom of the sea by the combined forces of Stannis Baratheon and Paxter Redwyne.

King Robert and his liegemen unleashed their hosts upon Pyke, shattering the fortress walls and taking the city after a ferocious battle. All his sons slain save one, Balon was forced to bend the knee and ac¬cept Robert as lawful sovereign. His son Theon was sent as hostage to Winterfell, where he grew up in the company of Lord Eddard Stark and his children. Though defeated, Balon Greyjoy never gave up on his desire to become King of the Iron Islands, and he still seeks a way to fulfill his ambition. The ambition of the Greyjoys and their subsequent fall was sharp lesson for the people of Westeros. For now King Robert’s throne is safe, but the Game is still being played, now more skillfully than ever before.

A great tournament is being planned in King's Landing by order of Queen Cersei. All manner of nobility are invited to attend the affair, and champions from each House are likely to meet once more upon the tourney grounds. This presents you and your House with an excellent oppourtunity to increase your wealth and prestige as well maneuver yourselves into a more powerful position in the Game of Thrones.

Meanwhile, events are unfolding across the Narrow Sea that may forever change the political climate of Westeros and put an end to all your careful planning and Machinations...



The tourney announcement arrived by raven or courier from King’s Landing; the message is simple:

To the noble houses of Westeros: greetings in the name of King Robert Baratheon. His Royal Highness has declared a tourney shall be held in honor of the Crown on the fields of King's Landing to begin two weeks hence. All vassals of the Crown are invited to attend and do honor to their names.





The Tourney is Queen Cercie's idea; she hopes to goad Robert into entering the Melee and then manipulate the players into killing him on the field.


(http://www.greenronin.com/phpB....php?f=29&t=7470), useful link
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:35, Sat 11 June 2011.
Zoul
GM, 223 posts
Tue 1 Nov 2011
at 21:45
  • msg #36

Planet Fall - HU 2E

Some thousands of years ago, when our forefathers were still primirtive; some Extra Terrestrials decended to our planet and because misunderstanding, lack of technology, out forebears thought these some Extra Terrestrials must be some gods.
Zoul
GM, 225 posts
Tue 16 Oct 2012
at 03:54
  • msg #37

Writing Your First Adventure

If you are ready to design your first RPG adventure, or learn how to improve the adventures you've already got, you've come to the right place. The "Adventure Builder" will cover all the bases, from hooks to background to traps and treasures.

This time out, we'll cover the foundation you need to build a great adventure. It's not the background, the stat blocks, or even the main villain. It's monster selection, and figuring out the size and style of the adventure.

How Big is Your Design?

A common rule of thumb among the Wizards of the Coast design staff is that a typical group of adventurers will level up after about 13 successful encounters of the party's encounter level (EL). That's a great number to work from, especially if you want to design a large adventure that spans multiple levels.

In an adventure with dozens of encounters, the party will level up half-way through. Since the party will be tougher and more capable from that point on, the adventure you've planned for them needs too scale up as well. It's better to scale up the second half of the adventure appropriately, but if you don't want the PCs to level up midway through your epic you can prevent it by keeping your number of encounters small or by lowering their EL (to reduce the XP per encounter).

At the same time, just because you map an encounter doesn't mean that it will be played. Some areas are never explored, after all, and not every encounter leads to combat (some are resolved or defeated through stealth, magic, bribery, or roleplaying). So if you do want the PCs to level up after your adventure then you'll need more than 13 party-level encounters to provide enough options and fallbacks if the party doesn't follow the expected path.

So, not too many encounters and not too few. As a general idea, you want to prepare about 20 to 25 encounters for your party per level of advancement. If you prefer mostly lower EL encounters, perhaps closer to 25 to 30. If you run marathon play sessions every weekend, you might want to prepare 40 to 50 encounters ahead of time, and assume the second half will be at a higher level. If you run short game sessions, you'll want to make sure that the adventure breaks into small sections of 3 or 4 encounters with a satisfying conclusion to each.

Now you know how many encounters you should prepare. What should be in those encounters? And what mistakes should you watch out for?

Common design mistakes

There are four fairly common errors in beginning adventure design. When I worked on Dungeon magazine I saw them constantly, and the errors haven't changed.

1) too much useless backstory
2) slow starts
3) random encounters
4) too many encounters

Each of these is easy to fix. Here's how you do it.

Simple Backstory: Most DMs and designers hate to hear it, but much of the time lavished on history and background is wasted energy. Players never find out who dug the tomb, how the wizard was betrayed by her apprentice, or why the assassin guild changed sides and disappeared. Working on backstory doesn't improve the gameplay experience for anyone but the bards and scholars obsessed with legends or lore. Unless it connects directly to action in the current timeframe (and the PCs have a way of learning it), skip the involved history. Save that for sourcebooks.

This is not to say cut it all. Details of which faction can be turned against another, which guard might take a bribe, or what the villain ultimately plans to do if the party doesn't stop him are all appropriate. Make sure your backstory is recent and relevant; avoid anything that starts "Thousands of years ago..."

Start the Action Quickly: When players arrive at the game, they are looking to roll some dice. You can start the action immediately and draw the players away from pizza and other distractions by giving them what they want: a short, simple combat encounter to start off the game. Ideally, the encounter is pitched at an encounter level (EL) no more than one level above or below the party's level.

The best of the "start in midstream" kick-offs are aimed at all the PCs when they are together, and raise questions that lead the party to the adventure hook. For instance, the party might see raiders attacking an inn where they had planned to spend the night -- survivors of the attack tell the party about the black knight who leads them. Or a teleporting extraplanar threat might appear during broad daylight and accuse a cleric of breaking his vows -- and threaten to sacrifice his corrupt church elders to a greater power. Where these encounters go ultimately isn't the most important thing: they can be a little tangential to the plot, as long as they get the party thinking of the right sort of threat.

I'll discuss this in more detail next time in "Adventure Hooks.".

Don't Be Random: Time is precious, so be careful how many tangents and red herrings you include in your design. In particular, random encounters might be fun, or can be useful to get a dawdling party going, or to work off that frustration players sometimes get where they just need to have their characters kill something, but they don't usually make your adventure any better. If they are tied into the core adventure, then they shouldn't be random at all; those clues should be built in to the design. If they aren't tied in to the adventure core, then you are just wasting game time on an encounter that doesn't advance the mission or the story goals for you or your players.

Trim Excess Encounters: If you create too many encounters and you don't play every day, players forget what their mission was, or start to lose hope of making progress. They wind up grinding through so many nuisance encounters that they lose sight of the important clues, or they don't talk to the important NPC, or they don't search the critical room for documents -- because they are too busy grinding through combats. If the encounters are just there to fill up space on a map, they might as well be random. Leave some rooms empty to speed up play.

Encounter Selection: Fitting Together a Cast

The real challenge is balancing encounters to present a variety of challenges for every member of the party. The adventure, after all, is a chance for the heroes to triumph over opposition (or fail miserably and go home).

Selecting for a Coherent Look and Feel

Story, setting, and immersion are all easier to pull off if your monsters fit a theme. That theme might be "united tribes of humanoids" or it might be "desert raiders", but either way it cuts out many choices. Avoid the kitchen sink approach of just taking creatures that match the party level. Instead, make good use of the EL chart in the Dungeon Master's Guide (page 49) to create encounters of small groups, pairs of monsters, and single creatures.

In particular, consider linked encounters for your cast. A guard dog or a sentry might be a much lower EL encounter from a combat perspective -- but if the party fails to use a silence spell or a sneak attack to take it out quickly then it could make later encounters more difficult.

Balancing by EL and by Class

The Dungeon Master's Guide offers direct advice on how many easy, challenging, very difficult, and overwhelming encounters a typical adventure should contain (see page 49). Hint: not many overwhelming encounters.

While this breakdown is good advice, it's not complete. You'll want to be sure that your 20 or 25 encounters include encounter variety by class as well as by EL. That is, make sure to include each of the following types of encounters, to give every class and every player a chance to shine.

1) Two Skill Encounters: These are creatures or obstacles that can be defeated by stealth or skill, such as guards, castle walls, cliffs, informants, or low-hp creatures that can fall to a single sneak attack.

2) Four Pure Combats: You need some no-negotiation, straight-up combats that play to the fighter classes. Think orcs, wolves, ogres, giants -- or dragons. Consider tactics first here: ambushes, charge, bull-rush, something to make it more than just attack rolls and damage rolls.

3) Two Magical Challenges: Include two magical challenges that require a knock, a fireball, or whatever other strengths your arcane spellcasters have. They might be lore-based challenges, such as knowing the weaknesses of an extraplanar creature, or they might require the use of Concentration or Spellcraft to manipulate a magical object or unravel a mysterious warding.

4) One Divine Challenge: The divine caster in the party is more than just a medic, so give him or her something to do with at least one undead turning, Knowledge (Religion), or nature-knowledge encounter (if your divine caster is a druid).

5) One Puzzle or Trap: This could be as simple as finding the key to a tough lock, deciphering an ancient script, or finding a secret door with Search, but you should include traps and puzzles for your party to solve. If the party doesn't have a rogue in it, use Knowledge skill checks as a substitute.

6) Two Roleplaying Encounters: Social skills play an important part of the game too, and bards don't like to just sit and do their stuff in the background. Provide at least two roleplaying encounters that can be defeated by the right social skills, bribes, exchange of services, or clever conversation. Examples include a scholar with a clue that the party needs to bypass some defenses or wardings, or a devil who will ally with them against a common foe.

7) One Mook Encounter: This should be against foes of at least 2 CR less than the party, and ideally 3 or 4 less. Think kobolds, bandits, skeletons, wild animals, or any other group of many foes that play to Cleave and area-effect spells. It's fun to see heroes cutting a swath through hordes of foes.

8) One Polder: "Polder" is a Dutch word describing land reclaimed from the sea, but here it's a more general term. As described in detail in Dungeon 135, polders are safe havens for adventurers, places where the party can regain strength. Think Rivendell in Lord of the Rings. Your polder could be a xenophobic elven tree city, a magical rope that generates rope trick spells as a charged item, a bound archon who wards a treasure, or a dwarven merchant caravan. If the party wishes, they can heal up to full strength and level up.

9) One Bigger Fish: To keep the blood flowing, you should have one overwhelming encounter that the party can't handle without serious risk of a total party kill. This could turn into a roleplaying bit of Diplomacy, a chase, or a stealth challenge, depending on how the party handles it -- but they should see that not every encounter in every adventure should be fought.

10) Big Finish: A grand finale encounter with all the trimmings: villain, minions, and a room or terrain that provides interesting combat options.

That list of recommended encounter types covers 17 encounters out of the 20 to 25 in your adventure, but you could easily double up on any of those categories. For example, if you know that the players like intense combat you could set up the remaining encounters as pure combats. If you know that your arcane caster is itching for a magical duel -- or that the rogue will always try reconnaissance first -- prepare those kinds of encounters.

Tailoring an adventure to show the heroes in the best light means more fun for everyone. Making an adventure that plays to the party's weakness might be fun for you, but will only frustrate your players. Don't take away their spells, sneak attacks, or combat items very often -- those are the tools of heroism and the key to fun. Instead, give those strong points a challenge and a chance to shine.

To further tailor an adventure, consider some special encounter types if you have, say, a mounted knight, an archer, a monk, or a paladin in the group.

1) A mounted encounter
2) A ranged attack encounter
3) A chase (see Dungeon Master's Guide II page 57 for chase rules), either hunting or being pursued.
4) A single-combat encounter or challenge from an honorable foe
5) Another class-specific encounter, such as one that requires bardic song, barbarian tracking, or fighting a ranger's favored enemy.

Conclusion

Adventures work if they are fun and easy to play, and give every kind of hero a chance to shine in different encounter styles. The most important part of design isn't the details of a stat block, but the type and variety of opponents and encounters.
Zoul
GM, 226 posts
Tue 16 Oct 2012
at 03:55
  • msg #38

Re: Writing Your First Adventure

Compare the following two starts to an adventure:

"You meet a guy in a bar and he tells you about a dungeon outside town."

"During the midnight watch, someone shoots an arrow into your camp. There's a note attached, written in Elvish."

One is old news, and won't get much of a welcome from players. The other likely will have them asking questions and being drawn into *whatever* follows that arrow: a threat? an offer of parley? an alliance? Regardless, it immediately launches the action and the adventure.
The adventure hook is what kicks off the action, and what brings the players into the game. In fiction, it would be called the "inciting incident." Without a strong hook, your adventure becomes a matter of players going through the motions dutifully because "that's where the adventure is this week." With a strong hook, the PCs will be curious and will start planning their actions, aggressively moving the game forward for you. A weak hook means that you'll have to push the action forward with big "Adventure Here" signs.

Pick a Motive

There is no one perfect hook, just as there is no perfect lure in fishing. Different fish respond to different flies, jigs, and worms; different groups and even each different player responds best to different rewards and motives. Playing with a group will give you an idea of whether a particular player or character is likely to respond to the pleading penniless merchant, the scholar with a mystery, or the rich landowner offering rich land.

The six most common motives are listed here, with a typical NPC comment and sample hooks.

1) Curiosity: "No one knows what's down there. It's never been explored." This hook works very well for certain players who love the unknown. Lost cities, ancient tombs, hidden mountain valleys, deadly fey forests, maps to Atlantis, all fall into this category.

2)Fear/Survival: "If you don't stop the raiders at the oasis, we'll all die!" The beauty of this hook is its immediacy. There's a threat, and the heroes have a chance to shine. It doesn't work if it's overplayed, such as telling low-level PCs to fight a demon lord or the like. Typical examples include raiding giants, a swarm of formians or other insects, aboleth or drow slavers, or the clichéd invasion from another plane.

3) Greed: This is the classic hook for simple adventures. "Loot that tomb, and you'll buy able to buy all the magic and supplies you'll ever want!" This hook usually works, but it's a lazy way to start an adventure for most designers. To make it more memorable, at least try to make the treasure under discussion more interesting than gold. This motive also includes wages ("I'll pay you to do this job for me"), although wages are probably the worst of motives for real heroes. Money is useful, but boring. Real heroes just want it to fund their next set of heroics. Typical examples of this hook include a mysterious guide to the city of gold, a long-lost dragon hoard, an unopened tomb of mage-kings, or looting rich princes of the Church. You might also consider an emperor's patronage, a gift from a magic ringmaker's workshop, or even the tried-and-true promise of pirate gold.

4) Heroism: Some people want to be noticed and admired; others just want to do the right thing. For heroes, it's usually about being remembered for their deeds. "Bards will sing of your glory if you just hold the pass for a day." This sort of hook works best for parties that care about what their peers think of them, but it doesn't really work for rogues and tricksters. Typical examples include saving the weak from slavers, holding a fort, bridge or pass against a mob, tournaments of skill, and single combats to the death. This hook type is amazing for certain characters who are looking for a blaze of glory -- you should make sure that a spectacularly good death against swarms of unrelenting evil is available for those who seek it.

5) Loyalty, honor and duty: "The dwarven ancestors smile on those who escort the caravan through the mines." Sometimes, a race, class, or prestige class comes with some underlying assumptions about a code of conduct. You can exploit this to ask a monk to undertake a mission for his sensei, a paladin for his church, or a dwarf for his clan and chieftain. Players can, of course, refuse such quests, but they usually don't, especially if the mission is one their character naturally gravitates toward. The loyal PC pulls everyone else along in their wake. Typical examples include carrying sacred scrolls to a new temple, a pilgrimage, lifting the siege of a clan holding, restoring a bride's honor, or proving the innocence of a relative.

6) Revenge: "They killed your brother and stole your father's sword!" This is best used in a long-running campaign with a recurring villain, and can be neatly connected to existing plot threads. It's even more effective if the crime that calls out for revenge happened when the affected characters were on watch, or in charge. Typical examples include vendettas and revenge killings, kidnappings, capturing a criminal, stealing back the stolen goods or idols, horse or pegasus rustling, and arson.

Make It Personal

The best hooks tie in to the existing characters, such as hinting at a holy sword for a paladin, at an ancient lost invocation for a warlock, or at a chance to shine in the eyes of a high priest and congregation for a cleric. If any players have a character background that describes their friends, mentors, or family, you can use that background to make a hook more powerful -- by threatening the character's nearest and dearest. Be ruthless, too -- if the party doesn't act, the threatened danger happens.
The hook needs to offer something to the players who are most likely to seize the day and go for it. If your party leader is playing a halfling thief, greed is the right path. If the party leader is a paladin, noble quests and heroism. If you don't know what type of adventure the players want most, ask. They'll be happy to tell you.

You can also combine hooks, to suit more than one player's strongest motives. If a paladin and a greedy halfing are the party leaders, you might try "You must destroy the evil temple to lay the spirits to rest -- and their treasury is rumored to be very rich indeed."

Make It Concrete and Tough to Refuse

Interested in a wealth of ready-to-use hooks? That's where our Steal This Hook series comes into play, offering adventure hooks for Forgotten Realms, Eberron, even d20 Modern settings.
You want your hooks to be specific, and you want them to be very hard to turn down. Vague, overused, or clichéd hooks don't interest players because they have heard them before. Some overused hooks that lack compelling detail include:Kidnapped princesses and children

Meeting a stranger in a tavern
Requests from the mayor or head villager
Evil insane wizards
Sudden invasions of squicky evil things: undead, demons, whatever
Finding the map to a dungeon
The hooks that work best are often those that don't REQUIRE the party to respond. Instead, they play to the character's status, power, or skill -- they involve some flattery. Some NPC thinks the heroes, no matter how low their experience level, are worthy of respect, people that will step up in a pinch: in a word, heroes. Their requests or pitch make it clear that they think the PCs are competent and valuable allies. For example:A merchant asks a big favor from an old family friend

A dwarf, elf, half-orc, or barbarian tribe or clan asks whether the PC can escort a clan troublemaker into exile. Nobody says no to family.
A gnome claims he has a few coins from a long-lost dragon hoard
A secret message is smuggled to the party from an innocent prisoner
A scholar asks for advice, or help collecting "just a few botanical samples" from his wizard, druid, or bard friend.
A paladin asks the party's warriors to help judge a tournament (where a coup is planned)
What the second set of hooks has in common is a concrete task or a mystery that encourages further exploration, without falling back on fantasy staples that are worn pretty thin. People respond well to requests for help, to greed, to a chance to win praise or notice, and to the new and unusual. They respond badly to demands, to repetition, and to random desperation.

Stacking Hooks

The first hook isn't necessarily the last hook. In fact, the first hook may be nothing but a way to get the action started. Once the adventure is underway, the PCs may soon learn that what they thought was a bit of tomb-looting can become a matter of survival because they have unleashed a new danger. The effort to escort a dwarven caravan from mines to foundries out of loyalty may become a revenge adventure once it's clear that the foundry has been raided and the clan chieftain killed by giants.

Why do I call these hooks rather than plot twists? Because the second hook is available for those times when the party decides to ignore the first one. If they say "Oh, I'll send my henchman on escort duty", that henchman can return from the mission with the news of the dead clan chieftain -- which then becomes the new hook. If that doesn't get the dwarven hero involved, nothing will.

Hooks That Fail

Some hooks just don't attract any interest from the players. They ignore the guy in the bar. They don't want to help a group of elves because their new member is a dwarf. They decide to follow up some other clue from a prior adventure, or they're just not drawn in by the shiny bauble you present to them.

Don't try to force it. Let it go.

Players know when you are pushing them in a certain direction. If the hook's really no good, they resent being pushed into it. If the hook you dreamed up doesn't work, it's better in the long run to let the party ignore it.

But what about the game? If you really want the PCs to choose the adventure you planned, then you need a better hook for it. Make one up and keep the play moving. On the other hand, if you feel comfortable winging it, run a different adventure using existing villains or a simple mission such as travel from point A to point B. The players may find a clue or treasure along the way that leads them back to the main adventure --- possibly without knowing that they're just taking a longer route to it. Or you may find that the hook you make up on the spot intrigues you too -- and that's what you prepare for the next week's session.

Be a Ham

Part of a successful hook is just in how you present it. Be a ham; get in touch with your inner circus ringmaster. Don't read a dry lump of text in your everyday tone; try a deeper voice or mimic a gruff dwarven accent, gesture a little around the table, throw down a handful of golden chocolate coins from the candy aisle. Players will respond to your enthusiasm with their own.

Conclusion

Most adventures have several hooks written into them to begin with. Knowing which one will work for any given audience helps you ensure that the action starts off strong and that the players keep the action rolling.
Zoul
GM, 227 posts
Tue 16 Oct 2012
at 03:58
  • msg #39

Re: Writing Your First Adventure

It's just a talk encounter. Send the bard to make nice."

If that's the attitude of your gaming group, you may not be designing your roleplaying encounters correctly. What they should be saying is "Oh no, it's a talk encounter. Buff the bard with eagle's splendor, quick!"
Wait, did I say "design your roleplaying encounters"? Sure I did. Just because some encounters don't need stat blocks doesn't mean that they don't need preparation and careful design. If anything, roleplaying encounters are more demanding, because you have to allow for more options than just combat. Preparing a satisfying roleplaying encounter requires some deeper thought about how your players respond to pressure, flattery, and so forth.

The need for careful design is especially pressing for what I call switch encounters, that is, encounters that begin as roleplaying but that could easily become combat encounters. A devil, for example, could want to chat with the party before destroying them; if it learns that they are both seeking to bring down a group of diabolists serving a Demon Lord, the devil might even leave the party alone, since both groups seek the same goal.

For each roleplaying encounter, you need to prepare three things ahead of time: what the PCs can gain from the encounter, what the NPC might accept in exchange, and what skills or class abilities will help them in the encounter.

What the Party Gains

Combat encounters are easy; kill the monster, take its stuff. Roleplaying encounters are tougher; PCs still gain XP for defeating them, but it's also possible that the party will be defeated and not even know it. While the goal of the encounter should be clear to the DM at all times, the PCs may not know at the start whether they are dealing with a passage encounter, a resource encounter, an information encounter, a talk-or-fight encounter, or something else.

Passage: The party gains entrance to a hidden or locked location, learns of an important site, or gains a pass, key, or password that gets them through a gate or into a secret chamber. The whole encounter is, essentially, an unlocking of an area that they can't reach without completing the interaction successfully.

Information: The party gains a useful clue, learns a weakness to exploit in a future encounter, gains access to spells or books that contain crucial information about the plot or the major villains.

Resources: Some good or neutral-aligned characters will offer the party treasure, healing, mounts, magic, or other resources if they believe that the party will serve a cause they both believe in. This could be a magic sword with a bane enchantment against a major monster type, it could be a set of healing potions, or it could be ancient coins to bribe an undead king into serving the party as a distraction while the party slips over the castle walls. In most adventures, there are at least some potentially friendly encounters that offer these sorts of treasures.

Avoiding Combat: Some roleplaying encounters just offer the opportunity to avoid spending precious spells, hit points, and other resources on a tough fight. In these cases, it's always best to signal very clearly that the monster in question can crush the party without a second thought. Alternately, the talking at the beginning of an encounter gives a villain's minions time to surround the party or bring up reinforcements, so that the stakes get higher and higher the longer the party talks -- ratcheting up the tension on the party spokesperson. If the parley collapses into combat, the villain will be in a stronger position than he was at the start. These are the "switch encounters" discussed in more detail below.

Those four categories cover most roleplaying encounters.

Roleplaying Encounter?

One of the strange terms in the D&D game community is "roleplaying encounter," which generally means some kind of talking encounter. However, D&D is a roleplaying game. The Player's Handbook says so in the first sentence: "This is the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game, the game that defines the genre and has set the standard for fantasy roleplaying for more than 30 years." So aren't all encounters roleplaying encounters in a roleplaying game?

Yes, they are.

The word "roleplaying" means "an instance or situation in which one deliberately acts out or assumes a particular character or role" (from www.dictionary.com). When creating and playing a character in D&D, you are always roleplaying because the character is not you.

However, over the years there has grown a mentality in the community of people who play roleplaying games that a "roleplaying" encounter is a talking encounter whereas a combat encounter is a fight. In truth, a "roleplaying" encounter should be called a negotiation encounter or a talking encounter. But, since the majority of the community understands roleplaying to mean talking (as opposed to all the other ways you roleplay your character), this article uses the term "roleplaying encounter" to mean a talking encounter of some kind. Just remember that there are more ways to roleplay a character than merely through talking.

Lies and Treachery

It is ridiculously easy to lead roleplayers astray, as many players don't seem to realize that NPCs might be lying to them. Villains, double agents, and slippery underworld characters might all have perfectly good (or perfectly dastardly) reasons for not telling the truth. For instance, in a talk-or-fight encounter, the villain might be talking only because he needs to stall for time as his slow-moving undead minions arrive on the scene, or while his lancers or crossbowmen move under cover to a flanking position or the like.

In other cases, an NPC might seem to be helpful, but really is pumping the party for information. Are they planning on raiding the necromancer's stronghold? When? Do they know about the secret tunnel? Once the informant has told the party about the secret tunnel, of course, he might go to the necromancer and tell him that a raid is coming, thus selling out both sides -- and making that tunnel encounter much tougher, if the necromancer puts extra defenders there.

What can a suspicious party do? Well, there are defenses such as Sense Motive skill checks and the use of a detect lie spell. The first of these is probably more helpful than the second.

What the Monsters Gain

The creatures or characters that the party is speaking with also have their goals in a role-playing encounter. They might want food, souls, gold or other monetary bribes, flattery, a completed quest, or information of their own. If the monsters don't gain what they want, the encounter ends in failure for the party. This might mean they hear "I can't help you" from the scholar they consult, or it might mean that the giant considers them too weak to bargain with and decides to eat them all instead.

For the most part, I design roleplaying encounters to have three stages: discovering what the monster wants, actual roleplaying between DM and players, and a skill check-driven resolution, either positive or negative. If the role-playing resolution is negative, the result is often combat.

Discovering what the monsters want is usually the easy part; if a PC asks, most monsters will answer. Of course, most monsters will ask for more than the minimum. Whether the party can haggle successfully depends on their style and skills.

Using Skills and Class Abilities for Roleplaying

The skill-based classes and certain prestige classes have abilities such as Bardic Knowledge, Artificer knowledge, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Bluff and the like, all of which can be useful in a roleplaying encounter. But how far should they go in replacing actual conversation between a player and DM?

This depends on what your players enjoy. If a player has sunk skill ranks into these abilities, they should get use out of them. Likewise, characters who have sunk those ranks into something else shouldn't get to talk their way out of trouble if they lack the abilities.

I like a two-pronged approach. First, every roleplaying encounter must include the NPC's Initial Attitude (Player's Handbook page 72). This determines how tough it is for the PCs to talk their way out at all -- and reminds you whether the encounter can be defeated through non-combat means. If the party lacks the skills to sweet-talk an Unfriendly or Hostile monster, then tough luck. They should fight it out, burning hit points, spells, and other resources in the process.

Second, if one or more of the PCs do have the Diplomacy skill or Charisma checks to change a Hostile or Unfriendly monster to have a Neutral or better attitude, talk it out as long as you like, playing up the weasely informer, the moustache-twirling villain or the drooling monster. Have fun with the conversation, but the, at the crucial moment, when the informer says, "Well, I shouldn't tell you this...," ask the player doing most of the talking to make the Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, or Intimidate check, as appropriate.

Set the bar for your role-playing skill checks ahead of time and stick with them. The rough rule of thumb is that the DC should be roughly equal to 12 plus the party's level, so that a skill-based character with maxed-out ranks and an ability bonus expects to succeed 75% of the time -- and a character without skill ranks and no ability bonus succeeds less than 50% of the time.

Other Options

What if the party doesn't contain any high-skill characters, or they flub a crucial roll? There are a few other options. Some monsters will take bribes or payoffs. Others can be avoided through magic or disguises. If there are any items, quests, or information an NPC needs, they may just demand those instead. The party is not necessarily defeated just because a social skill fails.

Switch Encounters: Roleplaying into Combat

One of the best ways to make a combat more entertaining is to set it up as a roleplaying encounter first. The knight who brags he can spit the party members like piglets on his lance, the giant who toys with his food, or the evil wizard who pretends to be their friend before betraying them one night during the midnight watch are all potentially more interesting than merely rolling dice. If the party is going to meet one of these, prepare some dialogue ahead of time -- and set the initial attitude to Hostile.

The trick to a switch encounter is simple: though he is hostile, the major NPC doesn't attack right away. Sure, he hates the party and wishes them ill, but he wants to toy with them first. The encounter looks like a roleplaying opportunity for the party, and it is. Any PC who wants to bandy words, propose single combat, insult their opponent's tribe and family, and so forth has time to do it. The NPC, though, will wait until he's good and ready before attacking -- and will use the time to try to arrange things in his or her favor by summoning henchmen, alerting the (evil or corrupt) town guards, arranging for an invisible assassin as backup, gaining the divine favor of evil priests, and so forth.

One easy way to stretch out the roleplaying opportunity here is to separate the sides. The NPC may do his taunting from a half-hidden position: top of a tower, the other side of a moat while the drawbridge slowly lowers, and or something like that. One member of the party must "keep him talking" while the others make their own preparations.

When the party finally attacks, the major NPC has a readied spell or action (since he's been expecting this) and he may have hidden assets as well, just as the party does. If the NPC has high ranks in Bluff or Perform (Acting), he may have completely fooled the heroes (invited them in to a meal while poisoning their wine). In cases like this, DO NOT ask for saving throws or Spot checks from the party. Instead, ask for Diplomacy and Sense Motive rolls. Determine the required DCs for these as part of the encounter prep. Asking for a Spot check is a big red flag to players that something is going on, and many "break character" and begin prepping for combat when their characters (who failed the Spot checks) would not do so.

Instead, wait and drag the party further into the villain's clutches. Until someone says "He's playing us", let the NPC get away with it. That way, the sense of betrayal is much more real -- because you, as the DM, have fooled the players to some degree as well. Once the players catch on, THEN ask for the Fortitude saves for the poisoned wine, the Spot rolls to see the hidden archers, the Spellcraft check to notice the necromantic spell on the servants, and so forth.

Conclusion

Roleplaying encounters require design and prep work to have maximum impact, and usually the ones that work really well are remembered much longer than most combats.
Zoul
GM, 228 posts
Tue 16 Oct 2012
at 04:00
  • msg #40

Re: Writing Your First Adventure

While a great DM can create an adventure on the fly out of a set of ragged note cards and carefully-chosen random encounters, most of us need a little more preparation -- and a lot more structure.

The hook gets the adventure started (as discussed in "Setting the Hook"), but the plot needs more than just a beginning; it needs a middle and an end as well. How can you build those and know they'll work? What are the best kinds of adventure plot structures?
Well, there are two standard ways to think about adventure structures: linear adventures and matrix plots. Likewise, there are two primary methods of advancing the plot: triggered encounters and site-based encounters. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, and most adventures meld the two. Neither is strictly "better" than the other, but most DMs find they prefer one or the other.

Linear Plots

The beauty of linear plots is that they work so simply, and any group of players, even complete novices, can succeed with it. The party goes through a set of encounters in sequence. These can be encounters sequenced in time or in space.

Chronological Linear Plots

Adventures that are linear through time include things like sieges, rebellions, regicides, or natural disasters, where the events unfold in a logical progression -- but the party either helps or hinders that progression. The party can act only when it has information to act on or when circumstances around the PCs change. As the DM is the gatekeeper of game information, you control the pace of the game. If the vital ship hasn't arrived yet, or the crucial message hasn't reached its recipient, the adventure doesn't progress. The party can make preparations, or do research, or go on other adventures -- but the chronological adventure moves when you say it does. This can be a great help if you are designing, say, an adventure with the first scene played at 1st level, the second major scene at 4th level, and the finale at 6th level, but it's an unusual way for most designers to work. Essentially, a chronological design like this is a one big set of linear triggered encounters (see below), and it's often more linear than it needs to be.

How can you tell that a chronological design might be too linear? The flow chart for the design doesn't branch anywhere; the party just waits for you to provide the action and responds. That sounds worse than it is; the level of control of timing can create memorable action, but it's not what most players think of as a "standard D&D adventure".

Geographic Linear Plots

Linear plots like this are usually either a road adventure or a dungeon. Road adventures or quest adventures are linear because the important encounters happen on a road, river, trade route, or other path. The Hobbit is a fine example, but Lord of the Rings is not because the party splits up and events happen in divergent locations that all affect the end result.

Dungeons are often touted as the perfect linear adventure, especially dungeons that contain choke points such as gates, single staircases, or air shafts that the party must traverse to reach the next section. And they are linear adventures, but in some ways they can often be bypassed by a clever party with disguises and stealth, with teleportation or other movement magic, or simply by digging a tunnel from one section of the dungeon to another. In most cases, dungeons are designed to offer at least a few branching paths for players to explore, to avoid being boringly linear.

Road adventures are really the most satisfying approach to linear adventures, at least for the DM. They allow a DM to showcase his favorite exotic scenery, to throw nuisance encounters at the party, and to grant or take away polders (discussed in Adventure Builder #1 and Dungeon 135). You have total control over the pacing. If you need an important NPC to show up early, just move him one day's travel closer to the party. If the party is too fresh or too stealthy, you can add a weather encounter, bandits, or even just an annoying group of zealous pilgrims who want to travel along with the party. If the party wants to complete the adventure, they have to follow the road. It's the perfect example of a railroad plot, with all its strengths and weaknesses.

The Trouble with Linear Plots

So if linear plots are so wonderful from the DM perspective, why doesn't everyone use them? Well, they do, in books and movies, where the narrative is presented complete and whole and the reader or viewer just soaks it in. But players want to feel a sense of mastery and control: what's the point of being a big shot hero if your actions don't matter and your fate is already totally determined? No group of players wants to walk through a completely linear A-B-C sequence of rooms that ends with some big mastermind encounter. It's logical, it's a progression of suspense and tension, and it's totally unsatisfying. Players want to see their choices (or at least the illusion of choice) affect the gameplay.

So, linear adventure designs need to manufacture the illusion of choice.

The illusion of choice is just what it sounds like: no matter what decisions the players make, they wind up where you want them to wind up. All NPC wizards can translate the Lost Book of Golgamar. Some dungeon caverns are red herrings but the only way to the second level leads through the big boss's room. All taverns contain one of the cardinal's spies. All roads lead to Mount Doom. It doesn't matter what they choose.

But of course, it should never look that way. To the party, choices should matter, and if you hint otherwise, players have every right to be annoyed and frustrated with your game. If you give them nothing but tactical combat choices to make, you might as well be playing a miniatures wargame. They need to have at least some control.

Even if choice is an illusion in your design, it shouldn't always be an illusion of success. Some of their false choices should appear to be failures. But better yet, your adventures shouldn't be entirely linear. They should contain branching or matrix elements as well.

Matrix Plots

Matrix plots are looser plots that don't progress from A to B to C, but may jump around in any order. Three factions fight for dominance in Sigil, the City of Doors, and the PCs may align themselves with one or more of them. A plague threatens a kingdom, but the clues that point to the culprit can be found in any order. Matrix plots may move ahead over time with or without the PCs' input. They are more typical for mystery adventures, city adventures, and horror adventures.

Matrix adventures depend on triggered encounters or site-based encounters. These correspond to the basic encounter types in chronological or geographic linear plots, but work a little differently.

Triggered Encounters

Triggered encounters happen when the trigger is pulled: when the stars are right, when the red lantern hangs from the attic window, when a horned man comes to town, when the murder weapon is found, or when the party goes to ask for help from the seven-eyed wizard. The triggers can be anything, but in a linear adventure, they set each other off like dominos. To meet the horned man, you need the stars and the lantern first.

In a matrix adventure, the order doesn't matter -- and that makes design much more complex. The number of what-ifs is tougher: if the stars aren't aligned yet, does the horned man know when they will be aligned? But if the stars are already aligned, that's unneeded information. The number of permutations quickly grows, which is why I recommend that a matrix plot have just three major triggers, and that everything else be a standard linear element. Go for four major triggers if you feel ambitious, but realize that each trigger is a little like a separate act in a play; it should change the player's goals, or their understanding of the situation in some way.

Once you know what those three elements are, you can design around all the major permutations. Typical triggers are clues (finding a map, meeting the ghost of a dead twin, or deciphering a runestone), time triggers (chimes at midnight, the arrival of a courier), and significant actions (reforging a sword, visiting an oracle). For each of those triggers, I like to have a separate finale scene in mind (see below), but that's probably not necessary. Just make sure that the villain or final battle can take place at any of the trigger locations.

Site-Based Encounters

If you want to, you can think of site-based encounters as plot elements are triggered by location, but that underestimates their importance in game design. Location is EVERYTHING in dungeon adventures, because the map constrains the sequence that players can approach things. To reach the big bad evil guy's ultimate lair, the party must walk the road. This is why site-based encounters and linear plots so often go hand-in-hand: location determines the order of scenes, the progression of the plot, the unraveling of clues. But sites can also be a useful way of organizing your matrix plot; the party often visits places on the map until they run out of ideas. Having a map is a way of keeping the party looking around, even if the ultimate encounter isn't even on the jungle map at all, but hidden deep in a cenote, a sinkhole and sacrificial well deep below the jungle floor.

Simply by making the map of sites go through certain choke points, your design guarantees that the party does what you want --- but in matrix adventures, the locations are each a small part of a larger mosaic. In a perfect matrix design, there's enough little bits of the larger picture scattered around that, for instance, after getting any 5 out of the 8 major encounters, a group of players will have enough information to see the finale coming.

Finales

The three most important scenes in any adventure are the inciting incident (which gamers call the hook), reversals, and finale. The reversal is usually the point at which a trigger changes the party goals, and the finale is simply that moment when the party finally, finally gets to take down the Big Bad. Structuring a finale, though, is tricky.

D&D design at Wizards of the Coast usually assumes that the final encounter has an EL of at least the average party level plus 2, and often as much as average party level plus 4. The trick to balancing this crucial combat, though, is that it's hard to know just how beat up the party will be at the start of it. Overdo it, and it's a total party kill. Make it too easy, and the party walks all over the encounter that should challenge them the most.

This is why minions, summoned monsters, and henchman can be so valuable to designing a finale: they're a catchup factor that lets you dial in the difficulty. If the party is very hurt, they may just fight some of the villain's underlings and retreat, and the finale itself is saved for a second fight (if the party can find the villain again). If the DM is generous, a party that kills the villain demoralizes all the henchmen, and the fight is effectively over -- the minions flee.

If the party is very strong at the end of the adventure, the minions and other secondary creatures keep coming, keep fighting, and bring in more and more reinforcements -- until at last the party takes down their major opponent, and the night ends as a big success. As a designer, you should consider designing the final encounter with a variable number of underlings to make it as tough as it can be, without going over.

Conclusion

Know what kind of design you want at the start, and build to suit: a straight line, a matrix, or a little of each. Either way, the plot should point to a single finale that can be modified on the fly for maximum entertainment at the Big Finish.
Zoul
GM, 229 posts
Tue 16 Oct 2012
at 04:01
  • msg #41

Re: Writing Your First Adventure

 You can spend a lot of time working on stat blocks for an adventure. But you can have just as much fun, and create a much more challenging play experience, if you spend at least a little of your design time working on the environment. After all, in fantasy books and movies, you hear about the bitter stone lands of Mordor or see the flaming geysers in the Fire Swamp of Princess Bride. Not every challenge comes with fangs or a sword.

The environment provides more than just encounter variety; it also gives rogues a chance to show off their skills, gives fighters tactical opportunities in combat, and --- well, okay, arcane and divine casters don't like traps and difficult terrain. Tough luck. They can dispel certain magical traps and hazards, and that's usually about it for the scroll and holy symbol crowd.

As a designer, you gain adventure depth and richness from the environment design work you do. I think about environmental challenges in terms of broad solutions, channeling movement, and story effects. We'll look at each in turn.

Unfolding Terrain for the Whole Party

Hazards and terrain don't necessarily have to look nasty to begin with, and they don't have to use the usual rogue skills to be interesting. The things that look safe may require Survival checks to reveal their true danger. This gives rangers, barbarians, and druids a way to approach terrain hazards. Consider the following:

Crevasses in a snowfield
A natural cliff face that looks like an easy climb until the eagles' fish guts and dropping make it suddenly slick and dangerous
Geysers that erupt every few rounds, soaking everyone nearby
A run of rain-slicked stairs
A river crossing with swift-running flood waters
A cave floor covered in bat guano that acts like quicksand
That last one is a hazard that fighters might have the best luck with, as it could require either a Jump check or raw Strength to escape.

All of the above could be added to existing encounters to provide more options in combat. In fact, most hazards should be built with tactics and miniatures combat in mind: pools of superheated mud for bull-rushing enemies into, a tilted floor around a pit of snakes, and ground that crumbles beneath the PCs' feet (and eventually vanishes entirely). Many of the obstacles and hazards that make combat interesting should be designed with fighter class skills in mind: Climb, Jump, and Swim. A few should always be magical (magical fogs, guards and wards, permanent cloudkill spells, runes, etc), so their auras can be detected and disarmed by the spellcasters.

This isn't to say that hazards and traps aren't for the rogues in the party. Deliberate magical or mechanical traps will usually require rogues and arcane casters to defuse, but anyone with a few Spot ranks can see the teetering boulder and landslide that giants threaten to unleash on the party. A ranger might notice footprints near a pit trap, and a druid might use a warp wood spell to disarm a ballista trap or open a castle gate that is stuck closed. As a designer, you want to avoid making terrain and traps "just a rogue thing".

Channeling with Hazards and Terrain

If a particular direction on your adventure maps includes, say, a magma field or a necromantic fog, the party may decide that it's not worth overcoming that obstacle. In some cases, that's exactly what you want. When you say "there's a raging wall of fire down the left-hand corridor, and echoing darkness to the right," you're making it easier to go one way rather than another. You're channeling the party with not-too-subtle terrain hints.

For instance, a field full of razorvines in one of the outer planes is essentially a quick way for the DM to say "Don't go there." The party might have a fly spell to go over it (more on that later), but it's just not something that the party wants to burn hit points and cures on. When you are channeling the party in a particular direction, it pays to be obvious.

Even being obvious doesn't always work, of course. Sometimes the party sees the obstacle as a sure sign that some great treasure lies in that direction, or assumes "that's where the adventure is." This sort of metagame thinking can burn a lot of time at the table as the party checks out every dead end. You can either let them continue burning resources until they decide it isn't worth it, or give them an out.

The out could be a helpful NPC, a map, or clue that points in another direction, or even just reaching the end of the hazard – with nothing to show for it. Next time, they may spend a little more energy on scouting or research before they take on the Forest of Infinite Brambles or the Death Fog. It's okay for PCs to learn the hard way that some obstacles are just... obstacles. Smart parties learn to avoid expending their energies for unclear goals.

Hazards for Story Effect

 What if you don't want the party to avoid your nasty terrain? Then you'd better make it unexpected, make it exciting in story terms, or just make it clear that conquering the obstacle is worthwhile for them. You can do this with surprise terrain, drama terrain, or luring terrain.

Surprise Terrain: Quicksand and avalanches, rockslides and pyroclastic flows, fields of undead rising up all around, or piercers and green slime dropping from the ceiling --- what do they have in common? The PCs might not see them coming.

Surprise terrain encounters are the D&D equivalent of the "sting" or shocking moment in a horror movie. If done right, they scare the party for a moment, ratcheting up the tension in an adventure, and putting the PCs on their toes for the next one. Note that traps require speed; if you are going to run traps and hazards effectively, you must play them quickly. Nothing frustrates players like hearing "You hear a click, and a trap goes off – wait a second, I've got to look this up." It creates some suspense, but not the good kind. The game is at a halt. People wander off for chips and a soda.

The solution is to do the lookups before the game. Write down the page numbers for special rules like drowning, bull rushing, deep snow, or whatever applies – better still, use bookmarks or copy and paste the sentence you need from the SRD into your adventure. Structure the encounter to be quick and be done. Read aloud one or two quick physical details, ask for the required rolls, then move on. Maybe throw in a blast of music or a sound effect if it matches the encounter type.

How is this "worth it" for a party? It's a fun scare. They might not admit it, but shock value is sometimes part of the fun.

Drama Terrain: Hazards and other "passive" terrain can have a powerful dramatic effect on a party. For instance, the waters of the River Styx can wipe out memory, or a waterfall or cave-in can split the party, or a particular hall may be full of magical echoes and voices from the past. In each of those cases, you've designed in a change to the whole adventure because you've manipulated the situation to change the party's goals. Does a split party continue? Does the scholarly cleric speak with the dead in the hall of whispers – or risk calling attention from incorporeal undead? The description of the terrain affects the party's options enough that it could become a side quest.

The other way to think about drama terrain is to provide the hams and showboat players with a golden opportunity. If a princess is surrounded by a lake of fire, the paladin may step up to rescue her --- and may fry for his trouble. The important design of drama terrain is that you build in difficulty through both the description and through a series of saves or skill checks. A single Fortitude save and some fire damage might be one way to design the dramatic "wading through fire" scene. But it is much more effective if you write three pieces of text: one as the character approaches the danger (the "Are you sure?" moment in gamemastering), one as the character begins to overcome the hazard, and one to up the stakes. The first of these is pretty familiar, and is something like "You feel the heat of the fire and smell your leather boots begin to smolder. Do you walk into the flames?"

The second is a little tougher. The fire damage is automatic since the character is deliberately walking through it, but once you assign the first round of fire damage, you could ask for a Will save to keep going. Even tough guys and firemen know that walking through fire hurts, and some characters might not be able to push themselves through that. So read "Your hair and eyebrows are charred, your eyes water, and your lungs burn. The end of the fire looks a long way off." If he makes the save after that, he's won bragging rights (and if he doesn't, the other players will mock him).

The final bit of drama is when things get worse. Sure, the character was expecting fire damage (a few hit points off the sheet, no big deal). So make it a bigger deal. "You are sinking into the coals on the floor, almost up to your knees, and the straps and wooden pieces of your armor and gear are catching fire; you can barely see. If you continue, the boots may burn right off your feet." If the PC moves ahead, assign more automatic fire damage for staying and then ask for some item saving throws. If he makes it through that, it's a lot more rewarding than just "You take 10 points of fire damage and walk to the island." By playing up the drama with multiple checks and increasing risk, you've made that fire walk much more memorable.

Luring Terrain: Put a big obvious sign that what they want is beyond a section of oozing gassy swamp, or up on a tall, slick pillar, and watch the party come up with clever ways to bypass all your ingenious, lethal, heavy-on-the-saving-throws design. Luring terrain usually requires three things: an obvious reward, a cost, and enough time for the PCs to decide if they want to pay that cost.

For instance, they might hear that a holy sword is hidden in paladin's shrine, and that both forces of evil and of good want to keep it there (for different reasons, of course). When they arrive, they see that the entire shrine is guarded by archons and the sword itself is contained in a pillar of divine light that burns everyone around it – and they see the fire absolutely incinerate a devil that tries to steal the sword away. Do they want to fight the archons? Maybe. Do they want to suffer divine fire? They'll have to do so or find another way to succeed. The terrain in this case is designed to make the party consider bargaining with the archons – leading to a carefully-designed roleplaying encounter – but the party may decide it's worth going the obvious combat route instead. The paladin's ghost may not appreciate their technique...

The Flight Problem

Many traditional traps in adventures are really targeted at walking intruders: the rolling boulder, the trigger plate, the pit full of acid or the moat full of dire crocodiles. They can be avoided by any flying creature. Even castle walls are subject to this problem once the party includes spellcasters with flight spells.

The solution? Flying traps and trapbuilders who are ready for flying trespassers.

A flying trap uses the same elements as a normal trap: a trigger and a payload. The triggers could be tripwires strung from wall to ceiling and painted black, floating seeds or feathers, superthin spider silk, or enormous soaplike bubbles that pop if touched. They could be area triggers: if a certain square is flown through, the aerial disturbance releases the trap. Or they could be like the swarm of bloodhawks guarding Tenser's tower in Return of the Eight; all the villagers know that flying visitors get mobbed by masses of bloodthirty raptors – only fools fight their way through.

What are the payloads of a flying trap? They could be poison gas, darts, crossbow bolts, or explosives, but those are fairly standard. Why not be more original and use ray spells, or a nasty downdraft that forces a flying creature onto the spikes beneath it, or a hailstorm that ices a flying mount's feathered wings? A normal-looking cloud of deadly poisonous spores. There are just as many things deadly to a flying character as to a walking one.

While one or two flying traps or hazards might be appropriate, don't overdo. If a party is burning resources flying around your cunning pits, webs, and oozes – well, at least they are using their PC resources. Those fly spells and potions won't be available later.

Conclusion

Terrain and traps are more than nuisance encounters; they can add variety, drama and spice to your games. Don't forget to add richness to combat encounters and movement parts of the game by the careful use of terrain and hazards to give each adventure area its own sense of place, danger, and mystery.
Andredi Mizzrym
GM, 43 posts
faerunian Drow
Super Killa
Tue 16 Oct 2012
at 18:45
  • msg #42

Re: Writing Your First Adventure

Myky posted on rpol! *faints*
Zoul
GM, 230 posts
Wed 17 Oct 2012
at 01:29
  • msg #43

Re: Writing Your First Adventure

Zoul
GM, 231 posts
Sun 30 Dec 2012
at 04:45
  • msg #44

Dead Reign

Population 82%: Large
Alignment & Disposition 31%: cautious and guarded community. Mostly good & selfish alignments, mildly suspicious of strangers and newcomers.
Location 99%: Camp is located on an island.
Leadership 92%: The community may come together to defend themselves from the walking dead and raiders but other than that its every man for himself. The place run reasonably well, like a quiet neighborhood.
Fortifications 60%:stout walls
Resources: The community needs to send salvage and recovery teams into the abandoned towns and cities to resupply regularly. Life is relatively good.
Zombie menace 22%: Less than a 100 zombies.
Zoul
GM, 236 posts
Sat 9 Mar 2013
at 18:01
Zoul
GM, 238 posts
Fri 26 Jul 2013
at 20:10
  • msg #46

Re: Dead Reign

24
Prison break
 Touch
Zoul
GM, 253 posts
Thu 12 Mar 2015
at 17:26
  • msg #47

The Ancient Realms

The Ancient Realms
A Forgotten Realms mirror world, Circa 1836 DR
Updates to FR:
 - Technology is more advanced
 - Lightning Rail
 - Flintlock/Magelock Firearms
 - Airships
 - Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Argonth, a floating castle, has docking towers for airships.
 - Applied Phlebotinum: Dragonshards. Chunks of magic crystal used to power everything. Good for everything from making a ship fly, to infusing a random scrub with infinite cosmic power, to making a flying island crash.
 - Mystic Robots and Androids: Steamjacks and Warforged.
 - Artificial Limbs: Grafts. Some of them are biological symbiotes that try to take control of your body. Or make you go evil and Ax-Crazy.
 - Cool Boat: Elemental galleons.
 - Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: Byeshk, targath, and crysteel weapons don't exist in all settings. Take care when borrowing Eberron monsters fellow DM.
 - Doomsday Device: Many Eldritch Machines are this.
 - Dungeon Punk: Almost defines this trope.
 - Fantastic Nuke: Cyre was apparently destroyed by one of these.
 - Fantastic Science: Thanks to artificers and forward looking Wizards and others, we get this.
 - Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
Adar is a mountain land of peaceful monks strongly influenced by Tibet.
Breland may come off as a Fantasy Counterpart America with some traits of Eagleland to some, with its patriotic citizens being characterized as loud and boorish when travelling, having a love of democracy and strong belief in fundamental legal rights, and the presence of a Poor Richard analogue called Beggar Dane as well as having Sharn (the fantasy New York) and a general acceptance of most races and classes.
This (American) troper thinks of Breland as a parallel for modern Britain (rather than medieval England, as is common in fantasy), not America. Breland is, after all, a Constitutional Monarchy with a name that sounds suspiciously like "Britain". And if there's one country that rivals America in terms of democracy, the rule of law, ethnic diversity, and loud, boorish tourists...
Forge of War describes early-Last War Breland in terms that suggest revolutionary France (although with the quirk that the monarch one of the major peoples behind the establishment of the democratic assembly, so there was no deposing and forming of a republic). The Brelish of that time were really enthusiastic about spreading their newly-acquired democracy, and assembled great popular armies to do so.
Aundair is France, Karrnath is Germany, Thrane is Italy (or more accurately the Papal States), Riedra is North Korea on steroids, The Talenta Planes is comparable to Native American cultures, The Mror Holds is Russia, The Shadow Marches resemble Vietnamese rice paddies, Valenar is Tenochtitlan with a touch of China, Xen'drik is every Central American and Darkest Africa jungle trope, the Ancient Rakshasa cities resemble ancient India, Cyre was Greece (or Ireland?), and the Eldeen Reaches is the English countryside with more than a little Montana mixed in.
 - Forgot He Was a Robot: Warforged don't have all the features of full constructs, which leads to this trope
 - Gadgeteer Genius: Artificers are a magical equivalent of this.
 - Goggles Do Something Unusual: Cannith goggles help in magic item creation.
 - Here There Be Dragons: Nuff said
 - High Speed Hijack: While not explicitly given rules in the sourcebook, lots of promotional art and related fiction describes hijacking airships, or the Lightning Rail. It's also one of the encounters in the published adventure "Voyage of the Golden Dragon."
 - Humongous Mecha: Warforged titans.
 - Impossibly Cool Weapon: The double-bladed scimitar of the Valaes Tairn elves.
Drow also get kick-ass chains that are used like scorpion stingers. And three-pronged boomerangs and short swords that can be used like massive throwing knives.
Warforged have an option to graft one-handed crossbows into their bodies.
Yuan-ti in Xen'drik have the serpent bow. It is a longbow with a shortsword blade built into one end. Just imagine Legolas with one of those!
Goblinoids have various chain weapons. And spikes. And chains with spikes on them.
 - Low Fantasy: Compared to other D&D settings, though only in the sense that it isn't High Fantasy. It is often stated that magic is weaker but significantly more common in Eberron than standard settings (to the point that nearly every blacksmith and baker can cast at least a couple spells), not to mention the flying ships, lightning train, intelligent Magitek robots. High-level and Epic magic are possible on Eberron, but fewer characters are of levels capable of using them.
 - Made of Phlebotinum: Eberron's Dungeon Punk world comes to mind as an especially obvious example of this trope. Without that magical-flavored Phlebotinum, everything in that world would fall apart hard.
 - Magitek: Eberron has widespread use of magic, to the point where it is used as technology.
 - Mundane Utility: The Magewright NPC class, which is a kind of Blue-Collar Warlock who only uses utilitarian spells.
 - One-Man Army: By the time you're 5th level, you've seen more than a city guard will have seen a lifetime.
 - The Only One: Most NPCs are low level characters with NPC classes. Thus the PCs are the only ones capable of handling any major disasters.
 - Organic Technology: Daelkyr and their fleshcraft.
 - The Right Hand of Doom: The battlefist.
 - Robot War: The Lord of Blades is trying to start one of these.
 - Rocket Punch: Check the self-forged paragon path. Alternatively, a +1 returning battlefist.
 - Rule of Cool: Warforged and halflings that ride dinosaurs. Bedouin elves with double-ended scimitars. Viet Cong drow who worship scorpions. Elementals making longships fly. Half the setting is based on the Rule of Cool, for Flame's sake!
 - Schizo Tech: Does come up a bit.
 - Science Hero: The artificer.
 - Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Zigzagged. Wizards of the Coast multiplied most distances and dates in the setting by a factor of ten, to give it a more "epic" feel. This results in such oddities as traveling by rail across Khorvaire costing some 10,000 GP, and the Goblin-controlled Dhakaani empire of the distant backstory lasting longer than the entire history of human civilization on earth.\
 - Traintop Battle: One of the reasons why the Lightning Rail exists.
 - Unobtainium: Dragonshards.
 - Wizarding School: A lot of these exist. The school at Arcanix even has floating castles.
 - World of Ham: And it is GLORIOUS!
 - Wutai Warforged: Woo, Waa, flurry of metal blows bitch.
Zoul
GM, 254 posts
Mon 16 Mar 2015
at 00:35
  • msg #48

Re: The Ancient Realms

GUN MAGE STRIKER
Prerequisite: The ability to cast at least one spell.
You have practiced the art of the Gun Magi, casting spells in the midst of combat, while using a Magelock Firearm as an Arcane focus, learning techniques that grant you the following benefits:
• You have +1 to hit and damage with spells that requires a ranged spell attack while wielding an Magelock Firearm.
• You can perform the somatic components of spells, even when you have a Magelock Firearm in one or both hands and you can draw or stow two Magelock Pistols when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one.
• When wielding Two Magelock Pistols, you can fire an Eldritch Bullet as a bonus action with your off-hand pistol. Damage is equal to spell slot used to power the bullet. Cantrip (1D6), 1st Spell Slot (1D8). Add 1D8 for each spell level above the first.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:40, Mon 16 Mar 2015.
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