40K Friday - Slow Motion & Kings of War 4th

 

The miniatures side of things is fairly slow here right now.  I'm still working mainly on the Blood Angels stuff I mentioned before but it's not a super-high priority as we aren't playing  much and there are a lot of other things going on. My online interests have been fairly intensive lately with constant events in Star Trek Online, a big long event in World of Warships, and now WoW Legion Remix coming out (it's a lot of fun, like the remix for Pandaria last year). I'm also having to do more prep for the Temple campaign as big things are happening and it's more than just easy monster swap-outs at this point. I have friends painting Space Wolves and Votann so progress does continue.

Beyond the direct 40K work I've been watching the Kings of War 4th Edition updates as they have come out and it all seems positive in general but I'm just not motivated to dive back in. Edition changes are seen by companies as a way to draw new players in but it's also a reason for existing players to just stop. If all of the books I've picked up in recent years are now not valid, well, I can just not worry about the new stuff and when we get the very infrequent itch to play KoW we can just play one of the versions we already have. 

Also this: "We also have the chance now going forwards to make some armies more “Mantic” and less generic ..." yeah, that's the problem. I came to the game looking for ways to use some old school Warhammer armies and maybe some old Hordes of the Things armies and so the more world-specific you make it the less useful it is for me. I get it from a company perspective, how it benefits you, but it's not what I'm looking for. Having a mix of generic and Mantic-specific factions is great - it means someone can bring their fantasy human army in as Kingdoms of Men while someone else could play Trident Realms or Nightstalkers which are two Mantic-specific very cool armies. The more they drive to phase out the generic part the more it damages their game in my opinion. 

I mean who wouldn't want units of frog-men with frog-cavalry? That's a cool army!

I'm sure I'll play around with it at some point but right now the interest meter is low.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 17 - Ambush!

 

"According to Mighty and Illustrious, Xyzzifax"

Our Heroes:

• Braeden (Human Ranger) played by Battletech Terry
• Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve
• Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon
• The Mighty Xyzzifax (Human-ish Wizard) played by Blaster
• Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will
• Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David

 All are level 4 at this point. We begin on Day 51 of the campaign.

The party sleeps, telling stories, with Minion Kentor cooking more of his disastrous chili, which once again incapacitates minion Malice.

This has become the accepted cover story when a player is absent - bad chili renders them out of action. Inigo misses most sessions so he doesn't get a specific cover story. It's just assumed he's lurking somewhere nearby with his own agenda and just pops up now and then.

In the morning, Xyzzifax attempts to utilize his new artifact, the crystal ball of true sight! Attempting to scry their old foe, the hobgoblin (or was it a bugbear?) chief from the moathouse, and finds that he has been killed. Good, such fate befalls all who dare cross the mighty Xyzzifax.

As the group reenters the tower, they proceed through the trapdoor, and continue exploring. A secret door opens into a small passageway with an ascending staircase.

The party finds a broom.

Minion Samson touches it.

The party holds their breath but nothing bad happens.

The party proceeds through the passage and up another trapdoor which opens into a circular shaft, covered in very old spider webs. The room is searched, but no spiders are found.

A singular passageway leads off. Minion Bubo surveils the passage, finding a door, and another passage to a room with statues of monsters.

The party moves up to investigate the door. The door opens into a triangular room, with eyes depicting various negative emotions of hate and fear painted on the wall.

A stairwell, and 4 doors are present, with a fire pit and large gong dominating the center of this strange room.

Party approaches from the south. The gong is in 314, giant is in 318, and the rest are scattered about the other rooms.

Minion Kentor hears deep voices behind one of the doors, but fails to recognize the language. Minions Lantor, Braedon and Samson move up to quietly cut down the gong, wrapping it in Xyzzifax’s cloak. More low voices are heard at 2 more doors, although Minion Braedon listens at the final door; and hears snoring. Xyzzifax advises his minions to quietly enter this door first, and dispatch the evil that no doubt lies within.

Xyzzifax unlocks the door, and upon opening it, the party sees a hill giant sleeping in the corner, and a dire wolf that is awake and alert, gnawing on a bone! The wolf howls, immediately waking the giant and alerting the forces of evil to their presence. The party retreats back into the triangular room, with Xyzzifax loosing a fire bolt at the dire wolf.

In short order, all hell breaks loose.

In mere seconds, all 4 doors are sprung open, the giant and his wolf being joined by 2 bugbear chieftans, 6 bugbears, and 4 ogres, the shortest of which is some sort of shaman.

Minion Samson is struck down by a mighty blow from an ogre, but is quickly healed by the cleric, and thrown behind the frontline of fighters. Blows are exchanged as the party retreats further to a bottleneck hallway. Xyzzifax reads a scroll of stinking cloud, causing many of the misters to begin retching and reeling, while proving cover for Xyzzifax and his minions.

The ogre shaman summons a spiritual weapon to beat on minion Jaric. Who in turn sends his spiritual weapon after a retreating bugbear chief.

I do love the idea of two spiritual weapons being summoned by opposing casters the zooming around a room beating on things ...

The stinking cloud allows the party to focus their efforts, with the 2 ogres and their shaman, as well as the giant and the wolf retreating as they retch from the noxious fumes. In short order, all but the ogre shaman, a single ogre, the giant, and his wolf are left.

Minions Kentor and Lantor sprint through the cloud, having consumed potions of speed, ambushing the shaman, felling him in seconds with a flurry of blows.

The cowardly giant, his wolf, and the remaining ogre flee from the might of the mighty Xyzzifax (and his minions).

The party elects not to pursue, and falls back to the tower.

This session was mostly one big fight but it started with some cautious exploration and then escalated dramatically from there. A lot of the fun I am having is watching the guys poke around an old school dungeon waiting for death to leap out from behind something. 

Stinking could is remarkably effective in this version of the game. I will need to pay more attention to that in the future. In fact a lot of this campaign is the DM re-learning how 5E-type spells work - often at the expense of that session's monsters. I am making notes for my own lurking spellcasters though so there will be payback one day.

Another thing I am being reminded of is that one of the biggest brakes on combat resolution time is when the DM has to run a bunch of different monsters. In this case I was running:

• A hill giant
• A worg
• An ogre shaman
• Some ogres
• A bugbear chief
• Some bugbears

Numbers-wise it's about 15 critters but there are six different statblocks in there and while I've gotten pretty good at tracking things I was feeling it a bit here with a big, lingering spell effect going off and then having to check saves every round while running all the normal parts of a fight. Templates for AoE spells are a big help here as is the usual benefit of a battlemat where we can just draw things out, and then we also use condition rings to mark individuals as conditions go flying around during a battle. That said as I started adjusting the opposition going forward this was one of the things I looked over - how many different statblocks and how many spellcasters did I want to manage in combat?

I'll put up a post about how we manage this next week.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 16 - Dangerous Explorations

 

Our Heroes:

• Braeden (Human Ranger) played by Battletech Terry
• Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve
• Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon
• The Mighty Xyzzifax (Human-ish Wizard) played by Blaster
• Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will
• Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David
• Malice (Human Bard) played by Grognard Mike
• Inigo Vulnstack (Elven Rogue) played by Invisible Paddy

 All are level 4 at this point except for Inigo. This account is mainly written by Malice. We begin on Day 44 of the campaign.

Over the strenuous objections of Sir Kentor, the party returns to Hommlet. Malice suggested we turn some of the treasure into scrolls of Raise Dead. It takes us the better part of a day to make the journey. When we get to town, Sir Kentor goes to see to the village girl he is courting, and Malice heads to the temple of St. Cuthbert. Jaric heads to the inn, and Xyzzifax and Inigo are there! The base price for a scroll of Revivify is 500, and a scroll of raise dead is 1150. Terjon haggles with Malice, its going to take him five days to create the Revivify scroll for 800 gold, and 7 weeks to create the scroll of Raise Dead for 2000 gold.

Azin is a travelling sky merchant, a dealer in unusual items and rare artifacts that is talking with Inigo at the Inn. He travels between Dyvers and Greyhawk, and he is now adding a stop at Hommlet, as doing business with us interests him. At present time, he has anklets of alacrity, a returning charm, a reciprocating pole arm, and a ring of swimming. We purchase the anklets of alacrity and give them to Xyzzifax. We also purchase the returning charm and Sir Kentor uses on his hammer. After those purchases, Azin lets us know he has a bag of tricks, and boots of striding and springing, and wings of flying. We trade the +1 leather armor to him, and Xyzzifax trades a pair of magical daggers and a magical mace, as well. We purchase the Wings of Flying, and it goes to Jaric. And, Malice ends up with the Cloak of Elvenkind. Finally we purchase the boots of Striding and Springing for Sir Kentor.

This is the first appearance of Azin in this campaign. he is an NPC that first turned up in my 3rd edition Greyhawk campaign featuring Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and it seemed appropriate that he reappear here. He is partly here to provide a source of outside news and possibly rumors but he is mainly here to be a trading post for magical items and truly exotic things. Operating out the village means there is not a great way to do anything with excess magic items and super-expensive stuff without a trip to Verbobonc at least. In 3rd edition there was a need to be able to trade out and upgrade magic and I thought it would be interesting to try that option here and see how much the players would use it. Short version: They like it a lot. I'll post a separate entry on how I make it work in this campaign.

While we’re in town, Malice turns over the books we found to Xyzzifax, expecting that they were the spellbooks of the wizard that we killed. He prepares comprehend languages, and learns that the books are gibberish, not actually spellbooks. We return to the temple, and once again we use the trap door in the temple, and take the secret door to deep within the dungeon once more, after sharing stores and a meal.

Our explorations begin in the wizard’s room. Samson begins by checking over the secret door to the south, making sure its not trapped. Sir Kentor opens his awareness to supernatural forces, and he still feels a jawdropping evil. Samson presses forward, looking for the next secret door that must obviously be there. Then, Xyzzifax follows the pair of them. Sir Kentor finds the expected secret door, and Samson confirms that it is free of traps. Then, he opens the door, and reveals another partial hallway – or at least a room the size and shape of hallway.

This long room is full of all manner of magical apparatuses, a long workbench and a fireplace, barrels full of gear. Bookstands and unopened tomes, a green cup, an iron box, several . A cabinet holds a set of various treasures, and magical accoutrements. Sir Kentor moves into the room, towards his feeling of great evil. Xyzzifax sends Bubo forward as well, and he lands on the desk.

Xyzzifax steps into the long room, and activates his magical sense. The cabinet glows, as do the books. An iron box glows. The bottles of potion glow. There’s a glow coming from a leather case. A crystal ball is magical as well, and a statue as well. But, he doesn’t note any creatures with spellcasting ability. A quick discussion between Xyzzifax and Sir Kentor says that both the desk and the iron box detect both magic and evil. Bubo is scampering on the desk that is detecting evil, and nothing seems to be happening. Then, he hops down to the chair.

Sir Kentor pours some acid on the desk, and again nothing happens. Malice prods Samson, and he finally goes into the room, a little bit reluctantly, and touches the desk. He can tell it is enchanted. Sir Kentor pulls out his hammer, and smites the iron box. Xyzzifax pulls Bubo back as the empowered hammer smashes down, but the blow glances off and impacts on the desk. Part of the desk is sheared off, and one of the books falls over, and there is a flash! A massive devil appears!

He is a tall, red, spikey devil. In a reflexive action, Samson swings his armor clad fist at the devil. He hits! And it looks like he managed to actually cause some pain! But, striking the spikey creature manages to puncture his hand, though the wound isn’t terrible. Xyzzifax steps into sight of it just long enough to send some magic missiles down range, and then pull back around the corner. Malice shouts Lantor forwards, and for Samson to retreat, and Inigo needs to get into a shooting position. Lantor swings with the mighty greatsword, but it is unfortunately non magical, so the wound is not as bad as it could be. It is like the spines move to react, and Sir Lantor is barely injured by it.

The devil claws at Sir Lantor, and slaps at Sir Kentor with his spiked tail. Sir Lantor parries with the greatsword, but is still impaled by a number of spines. Sir Kentor reacts with a slash of his own, but the devil avoids the blow. But, that was enough to keep the devil’s tail from finding its mark, but instead slamming into the paladin’s shield. Braedon rushes to behind Sir Lantor, and places his hand on the fighter’s shoulder. He is now protected against the devil! Jaric calls forth a Spiritual Hammer, and it slams into the devil, sparking with radiant energy. Then, he hurls his own and axe towards the devil, but the throw is off balance, and it thunks loudly into the cabinetry. Inigo shoots the devil with a non magical bow, still, his aim is true.

Sir Kentor calls out loudly, judging the devil, and calls that he will be send back to hell. Then, he slashes at the devil with the Mighty Verminax, as holy energy rings around it. And that blow is enough that the devil is obviously wounded by the blow. Samson fires his crossbow at the devil, but the non magical bolt doesn’t look like it does that much. Xyzzifax once again steps into sigh, and sends a trio of magic missiles into the devil. Malice calls out in the black tongue, trying to lock the devil in place. But, its infernal power is too great, and it resists the spell.

Sir Lantor crashes down with his powerful greatsword, and once again, even though the blade is not magical, it still is a notable blow. The devil swipes at Sir Lantor, but Braedon’s protections are effective. Both of the knights react, blades scything through the devil. The devil splatters, showering the area in viscera and spikes. It begins dissolving slowly. Sir Kentor gives a brief prayer of thanks. He can tell that the desk is no longer radiating evil, and Xyzzifax notes that it doesn’t radiate magic any more, either.

As an example of where ToV characters are at power-wise this fight with the barbed devil (Ac15, 100 hp, various devil defenses) lasted all of two rounds. Granted there are 8 PC's but they tend to blast through the opposition even when there are only 5 or 6 of them. This will continue to be an issue going forward.

Jaric has his spiritual hammer slam into the iron box. It rings loudly at the blow, but it manages to hold. No new devils immediately appear, either. We give it enough time for the spikes to dissolve, and Inigo parkours over the far side of the room. Jaric treats the wounds of both of the Knights and Samson. Then, Samson touches the box – the box is just a box. Xyzzifax tells people to just calm down, and there are lots of magical items we need to collect before we begin further messing with the box.

Samson moves to the cabinet and opens a set of coffers first. The crystal ball is a crystal ball of true seeing – a legendary item of magic that will allow us to scry, and the scrying user will have true sight (taken by Xyzzifax). The pointed hat has cryptic runes, but is itself non magical. Xyzzifax takes it for himself. The ceramic statue is of a frog eating an insect, and the insect itself is a figurine of wondrous power, the ebony fly. The reddish wood box is an unfolding shrine inlaid with gold, and a black interior with an ebony statue of a spider thing, standing before webbing. We discuss what to do – Jaric may need to consecrate it, and then Samson may be able to disassemble it, and then we would have access to the valuables. Or, Sir Kentor can just smash it. Well, that works, too.

The crystal ball of true seeing - an immensely powerful item to most. My party will end up selling it not too far down the road. Sigh.

There are a number of books that we take a moment looking through, as well as a trio of ivory scroll tubes. Inigo gives them a once over, and assures us that they’re not trapped. There are six spells between them. The books are bound in strange leather, bound in iron, and locked. Xyzzifax makes quick work of the locks, and finds that each of the five are spellbooks. Finally, a long brass wand is not magical, but it has an odd notch on one end. Samson takes that one. And carefully considers it, while looking over the cabinet itself.

As Samson inserts the tip of the wand into just the right indentation, the side of the cabinet opens and there is a magic mirror within. It is a mirror of mental prowess – a legendary wondrous item that requires attunement. We plan to take that back to Hommlet, because adventuring with a mirror is dangerous for said mirror. And maybe us. There are potions of clairvoyance (taken by Malice), mind reading (taken by Malice), speed (taken by Braedon), and an elixir of health (taken by Malice). In the leather case, there is a wand of binding (taken by Malice). The two books that were near the desk are both magical, bound in leather and bronze. One effects your Charisma, and the other your Wisdom. Jaric takes the Tome of Understanding, and Malice takes the Tome of Leadership and Influence.

The mirror of mental prowess - an immensely powerful item to most. My party will actually realize this and use it regularly.

Sir Kentor is suggesting that we not open the iron box – he is concerned that it is a prison. The box is a foot and a half squared. Between the two knights, they can carry it. We have a good amount of discussion about the box, and what we should do with it. After a good bit of discussion, we decide to pull out of the temple, and it is quickly discover that Sir Kentor isn’t even able to touch the iron box. Neither can Jaric. But, Sir Lantor can lug it with him. Malice quickly asks him to try putting it down – which he can, which is great! And then, we leave with it, taking it up out of the tower, and up out of the ruins. We search for a good place to bury it. We’re able to dig down ten feet, and then sink, and then Braedon does all he can to hide it.

Alright, so the tower-trap-door-side-entrance puts characters right into the lair of Falrinth, one of the more powerful wizards in the temple and part of its leadership. So yes, he has a bunch of powerful items waiting to be looted by a 4th-ish level party - if they can beat him, and mine did. The box contains the ORB OF GOLDEN DEATH (!) which if you have run this adventure before you know is tremendously important to actually destroying the temple for good. They are 3-4 rooms into the dungeon and they have this in their possession although they don't know it, have no idea what it represents, are a little bit scared of it, and won't even take it out of the box! So they end up burying it. I can tell you we just played Session #44 and they haven't even thought about it in months but they will probably discover it's purpose and power in the very next session. Then they will likely try to remember where they buried it!