My Roll20/Discord replay of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is continuing very enjoyably. The characters are more involved with the factions than when I’ve previously run it, and they’re doing other side quests as well.

I’m going to keep them involved with the factions and other quests not related to the main plot of Dragon Heist for longer. Having a complex city life can make for great play, especially when the characters get used to interacting with the city’s personages.

As I’ve noted before, the main change I’ve made to the adventure is to remove the gift of a run-down tavern. Instead, the characters have free room and board with the Yawning Portal. This keeps them in the adventurer mode (rather than suddenly shifting gears to be business owners) and also means they’re in a place everyone goes.

Seriously: there’s a LOT of NPCs visiting the Yawning Portal and having the PCs there all the time is so useful.

I’ve also instituted a quest board. The D&D Essentials Kit implements the quest board nicely, and I’m using a similar idea here. There’s one difference – not all the quests are level-appropriate! I’ve warned the players, so they know to pay attention to the descriptions (and the rewards).

Here are the three quests that were on the board for this session:

“Seek adventurers to recover lost goods. Inquire with Sewena at the Costumer’s Hall, corner of the High Road and Spendthrift Alley in the Trade’s Ward. 50 gp reward!”

“Adventurers needed to help guard a shipment of fine goods on a delivery to the Wayfarer’s Inn on the High Road (expected three-day journey). Contact Brackvort in the Yawning Portal. Reward: 100 gold pieces.”

“Wanted – Adventurers to help with a wilderness situation. Ability to create fire recommended. Contact Lubos of House Brossfeather for more details. 500 gold piece reward!”

The last? That would have been a tough mission for level 2 characters to engage in! But it’ll stick around until they think they can cover it.

When you add those potential quests to the faction-based quests available to the PCs (there were three active quests at the beginning of the session, for the Harpers, Order of the Gauntlet and the Gray Hands), they had a lot of choice as to what to do next.

My development of the new quests was light – each took only a few paragraphs – but there was enough there so I could expand according to which the PCs did and what interested them in the quest.

In addition, I also determined a few random encounters for them on the streets of Waterdeep. Falling tiles from a decrepit building. Was it an attack? It seemed not – but the characters have been interfering with the plans of criminal guilds, so it could be possible. And then they interposed themselves between a High Priest of Mask and a city watchman who had seen him steal something. He, of course, denied it. How do you deal with that? I didn’t know, and so let the situation unfold as the players intervened on the side of order (while the rogue of the party talked in thieves’ cant to the priest!)

I haven’t made this clear to the players yet, but they’ll likely discover it soon enough: Not all the missions they’ll be asked to do are on the side of law and weal. There are some quest-givers that may be trying to deceive them!

With so much going on, it’s tremendously important to connect a lot of this. Thus, when the group met with Sewena to help recover the goods, they found they’d been taken by the Zhentarim – one of the major factions in the story of Dragon Heist. They apprehended the Zhents responsible and gave them to the city watch – and the watchman they gave them to happened to be the person who was later confronted by the High Priest of Mask. The mission for Mirt? It led to the Yawning Portal, and a character they’d met before – as well as one new one (both of these Zhentarim). Things link together.

Certainly not everything will but keeping a view to the feuding forces of the Xanathar’s Guild and the Zhentarim is going to be useful as the strands come together for more of the plot. I’m not sure exactly how I’ll integrate it yet, but it’ll be another session or two before I do.

The post Running Dragon Heist: Factions and Quests appeared first on Merric's Musings.

It has been about a month since the last game I played with people face-to-face. Although I spent a week or so not playing games, I am now back to my regular schedule of three games a week. And the primary tool that I am using for these games is Roll20.

Roll20 is a virtual tabletop that allows you to display images, handouts, maps, and suchlike to the players, as well as handling rolling dice, tracking initiative, and providing a surface for a battle-map and tokens.

It also has video and audio chat functionality, though most people I know have said “don’t do that” – use Discord or another app for voice. After struggling with Discord for a while, I have gone to Skype. The first game we played with that app last night worked a lot better than Discord, but everyone differs in which program works best.

Now, while Roll20 is useful for providing tokens and a battle-map, the function that I am finding most interesting is the journal.

What is the journal? It is a collection of pictures and text organised into handouts and folders that you can share with one or more players.

The journal has proved very useful in the sandbox-style games I am running. For both the Phandalin and Waterdeep campaigns, I keep a folder of active quests, which detail what the goal is and what the characters have learnt so far. Another folder holds completed quests. There is a folder for non-player characters, one for player characters, and yet another for locations.

Writing journal entries is a level of preparation above what I usually do, and it requires time. Though I tend to improvise more than prepare, running games on Roll20 has caused me to change my approach somewhat.

With the quests, I also put GM notes in the handout (only visible to me, of course). These are my adventure notes. They are typically not that detailed but are enough to run the encounter.

You can see some of the ways to use the journals – including full notes and hyperlinked entries – in some of the free adventures available on Roll20. Running The Lightless Beacon (a free Call of Cthulhu scenario) gave me a good look at advanced journal use. I would advise that if you are starting, you load up one of these modules and see how they use and organise journals.

Character sheets for the players and DM characters also exist in the journal. Even if you do not use the Roll20 character sheet (perhaps you use D&D Beyond and the Beyond20 integration extension), you can store the token for the character in the entry. After you assign control to that player, they can drag it onto the map. Otherwise, you need to copy them manually whenever you go to a new page.

What basic tasks should you learn to use the journal effectively?

• Create folders
• Create characters
• Create handouts
• Move handouts and characters from one folder to another
• Add art to journal entries
• Add tokens to characters
• Share journal entries with players
• Cause a journal entry to pop-up on players’ screens (that’s the “Show To Players” button)

The structure of the folders is up to you. I currently have these folders for my Waterdeep game:

• Quests
  • Completed
• Locations
• Player Characters
• Non-Player Characters
• Factions
• Handouts

Yes, you can nest folders!

One of the exciting aspects is that I can see exactly how my preparation gets used in the game. I hope that by using the journal, I get a better handle of some aspects of DMing that I have neglected recently!

The post Adventures with Roll20: The Journal appeared first on Merric's Musings.

I have found Roll20 to be reasonably easy to use. I am not everyone, because I have got friends who find it a nightmare.

If you find another system that works better for you, by all means, use it.

Roll20 was not my first choice for a VTT. No, that was Fantasy Grounds. But it just does not work on my set-up. I use either a mobile hotspot or a satellite for my internet, and the port-forwarding requirements for the classic form of Fantasy Grounds are incompatible with that. I understand that the newer (in beta) version of Fantasy Grounds does not require that, but I wanted something that worked immediately without jumping through hoops.

That turned out to be Roll20.

I may go back to Fantasy Grounds in the future, but Roll20 works for me, and that is good enough for now.

However, it is not all smooth sailing, as I have hit rough patches. Importing maps is something I found more difficult. Eventually, I worked out a process for doing it.

The process is this:

• Upload the map into your asset folder.
• Create a new page on which to place it. (That is the blue “page” icon up the top of the screen. Then click on Create New Page)
• Go to the new page (you can name it if you like by clicking its name in the page toolbar on the top of the screen)
• Select the Map and Background layer from the toolbar on the right. (Second icon from the top – the options are Map & Backgrounds, Tokens, and GM Info Overlay)
• Drag the map image from your library onto the page. It will appear. But small.
• Right-click on the image, and select “Advanced” -> “Set Dimensions”.
  • Is the map larger than the page? Click on the Page Toolbar again, then click on the cog next to your page. You can edit the Page size there, as well as the size of the grid.
• Enter the proper size of the image according to your image software
• Now you can drag the map around to place it correctly.
  • Holding down the ALT key while you drag means it does not snap to grid. I find this useful!
• The grid is likely wrong. To fix this, right-click on the map image again and choose “Advanced” -> “Align to Grid”
  • Now welcome to the most frustrating part of the software. You have to select a 3×3 square (5 ft. squares). Many maps do not seem to align correctly even after doing this. Using a map without a printed grid is easier. Or, like me, you might say “close enough”.
  • Zoom in while doing this.
  • Hope a lot.
  • The default grid size on Roll20 is 70 pixels represents 5 feet. If you can make the map that size before importing it, you may find it more manageable.
  • Or not.
• (You can choose to turn off the grid if you like and just place tokens wherever you like. That’s advisable on preprinted maps you can’t get to line up).
• Here’s a tutorial on doing it from someone who has a better idea of what they’re doing: Aligning the Grid

Now you have a map. It may be fuzzy, with the grid lined up poorly, but at least it exists!

You can just display an image rather than a map. I did this for the opening of our Waterdeep campaign (and I turned the grid off). It allowed me to set the mood and indicated the game had more than just combat. You can turn off the Roll20 grid in the Page settings up the top.

Now, if you want the players only to see part of the map, we need to talk about Fog of War and Dynamic Lighting. That is for later.

One word: Dynamic Lighting requires a lot from the individual players’ computers. I have found it easier to just use the simple Fog of War rather than fiddling about with dynamic lighting effects. Yes, it looks cool, but I prefer everyone’s game to work!

The post Adventures with Roll20: Maps appeared first on Merric's Musings.

Special Delivery is a short adventure by Shawn Merwin for level 1 characters. In it, a patron hires the adventurers to escort a carriage and its passengers to a border barony. It is not set in the Forgotten Realms, but instead in its own setting. I suspect you would have little problem adapting it.

Although there is no lack of action in the adventure, it has a distinct focus on the non-player characters. Any Dungeon Master looking for examples of what to do when starting a campaign would be well advised to study this work. The players get to meet people who should intrigue them. They also get to learn secrets that provide impetus for further adventures.

For me, it helps that I find the little half-elf girl at the heart of the adventure incredibly charming. She is the sort of character that I very much enjoy portraying. Anyone that the players enjoy interacting with is invaluable in enabling good role-playing sessions, and I suspect she would be that.

As you might expect, this is a linear, narrative adventure, where one challenge follows the next as the carriage makes its way along the road. It begins in the capital where a couple of role-playing interactions present the flavour of the city before the trip starts. On the road, there are a couple of combat encounters and some role-playing opportunities. Then, things end with a fight at the destination. I expect it takes one four-hour session to play, depending on how much your players get into the role-playing.

I appreciate the care that went into making the combats varied and exciting, and also that the adventure calls out secrets it raises and does not resolve.

Why doesn’t it resolve these secrets? The reason is that this is potentially the first adventure in a campaign. It is a Pay-What-You-Want charity adventure on DriveThruRPG, with the designer’s proceeds going to the American Red Cross. If enough people buy it, then a second instalment will be released, with the chain continuing as long as there is interest. Potentially this begins a level 1 to 20 campaign, but we will see how far it goes.

I would very happily use this as a stand-alone adventure to kick off a campaign, and then come up with answers to its mysteries myself, but I hope to see more of it released.

Special Delivery is a charming adventure with clever situations and entertaining characters. Highly recommended!

The post 5E Adventure Review: Special Delivery appeared first on Merric's Musings.

Back in AD&D, each class had its own experience point table. Partly this was because the characters gained abilities at different rates, so a thief gaining levels quickly kept it more in line with the abilities of the fighter. And part of it was because that is just how they did things then. Different classes, different rates of advancement.

The most iconic advancement was the fighter, which started off as requiring 2000, 4000, and 8000 for the first four levels. After that, the XP didn’t quite double. And at level nine, the progression became flat.

There is an early note by Gygax that expects characters to reach level 9 after about a year of play, and to gain a level or so every year thereafter! It was a different world! Part of that was that they expected 9^th level characters to retire – and certainly – the game did not support high-level games that well. Not that that stopped people trying!

In addition, in those days, about 80% of the experience points you gained was for treasure.

So, what would AD&D experience point tables look like when applied to D&D 5E xp values?

This is a quick-and-dirty calculation, which assumes that 5^th level is the same point for everyone, and everything else changes around that!

It is not a pretty result!

Right. That makes little sense! How powerful is the wizard under this scheme, anyway? (This is due to the Magic-User’s XP table being VERY unusual in AD&D – in fact, it’s the closest to a 5e progression in the middle levels.)

One of the reasons I am attracted to the older scheme of XP – though it is totally impractical under 5E without completely rewriting how XP awards work – is that the near doubling of XP allowed new characters to catch up very quickly. If you start at level 1 when everyone else is level 7, by the time they are level 8, you are level 6! There is some of that in 5E, but the flatter progression doesn’t allow catching up as easily – and it’s the big drawback with milestones.

I also miss XP for treasure, as it changes the focus of the game. Doing that is not appropriate for all the story-based games these days, but I do enjoy an old-fashioned dungeon delve from time to time!

The post If 5E Experience Tables worked as they did in AD&D appeared first on Merric's Musings.

Exploring the wilderness could be a dangerous endeavour in the early forms of Dungeons & Dragons.

If the random encounter table indicated an encounter with goblins, OD&D suggested that the party discovered 40-400 of them! It paints a view of a dangerous world. Outside of the civilised nations, large warbands of monsters stalk the land.

It was only the humanoid monsters (orcs, kobolds, goblinoids, bandits, etc.) that appeared in such numbers. Other creatures appearing in values of 1-6, 1-8 or suchlike.

The humanoid groups also had leader-types that proved more challenging for the party.

It was comparatively safer to venture into a dungeon, where the level of the dungeon determined the number of monsters. The idea was that as you descended further, the threats likewise became more dangerous – as well as the rewards.

You had no such luck in the wilderness, where a great range of threats awaited the unwary party!

One of the features of the old style of D&D is that it contained a certain level of on-the-fly world-building. It had an interesting statistic for monster: an “In Lair” percentage. The idea was that when you met monsters, you rolled to see if they were in their lair. And so, more of the world was developed. Wise parties likely abandoned the orc caves. Can you defeat 300 orcs and their leaders?

Then the DM could mark the lair on their wilderness map, and design encounters based on that.

Treasures of the Lair

It is a general precept of D&D that wandering monsters do not have money – or, at least, not a significant amount. In the dungeon, that meant you would have to go into the prepared areas where monsters dwelled to find great rewards. (Be aware that in those days gold and gems typically gave 80% of your experience points!)

The greatest treasures tended to be in the wilderness. D&D 5E uses “hoard” treasure and “individual” treasure. This idea also existed in early D&D, but monsters had different types of hoard treasure. A table laid out nine variations of this treasure, which linked to monster types. The greatest treasures – treasure type “H” – belonged to dragons, of course.

In original D&D, this “H” treasure type gave:

• 3000 – 24 000 copper pieces (25% chance)
• 1000 – 100 000 silver pieces (50% chance)
• 10 000 – 60 000 gold pieces (75% chance)
• 1 – 100 gems (50% chance)
• 10 – 40 jewellery (50%) chance
• Four magic items of any type plus one potion and one scroll (20% chance)

Great rewards indeed! But those only appeared in the monster’s lair – had you found it? And could you defeat the great concentration of creatures that might occur there?

Finding the Lairs of Monsters

For the eager adventurer, finding and looting monster lairs is a lucrative endeavour if you are powerful enough to pull it off. And, while mid-level adventurers typically cannot defeat the larger humanoid tribes, what about a lair of 1-8 minotaurs? That seems doable. So, if you run into a solitary minotaur, the greedy adventure might ask, from where did it come?

This occurred this week in my Phandalin game. Yes, I am running fifth edition. However, the game is turning more and more into a sandbox with a lot of player-driven content as we progress.

The party found an owlbear, and they were interested in tracking it to its lair. My on-the-fly method was to roll the “In Lair” chance for each new hex as they followed its trail to see if they had found it yet.

Further thought afterwards showed that this might have meant the owlbear had travelled a very long way from home – which was quite unlikely. Contrariwise, a band of orcs could potentially be hundreds of miles away from home. I think I may need to consider those factors more.

In any case, the procedure I adopted was to require an additional check to follow the trail each hex entered, with the DC of the check increasing the further along the characters travelled, as the trail became older and harder to find.

In older editions, only rangers had a tracking skill – although I would not be surprised if a few DMs gave a similar ability to the characters based on background or the desires of the group.

My players did not find the owlbear lair – it was too far away, and they had to continue on their river voyage!

Lairs in Fifth Edition

While the use of randomly occurring lairs helps world-building in 5E, one of the key reasons to explore them – treasure – is not the draw that it was in early editions. Yes, players enjoy getting money and magic items, but there is not that much on which to spend money, and players find magic regardless.

Then too, the idea of amassing mercenary forces to deal with these threats – a portion of the wargaming background of Dungeons & Dragons – isn’t so prevalent. Though, if you examine Matt Colville’s work (especially Strongholds and Followers), you begin to approach a version usable with this edition.

For me, the interest as a Dungeon Master of this world-building comes from the adventures it then provokes. Even if the players don’t want to beard the orc chief in his lair to gain the treasure, other quests can present themselves. Rescue the captives. Stop the attacks on merchants. Prevent orcs gathering into an army to ravage the land! Or perhaps even form alliances with the orcs against greater threats to the land.

Sample “In Lair” percentages and number appearing in the wilderness & lair:

• Goblins (50%, 40-400)
• Hobgoblins (30%, 20-200)
• Ogres (30%, 3-18)
• Trolls (50%, 2-12)
• Giants (30%, 1-8)
• Ghouls (20%, 2-24)
• Manticores (25%, 1-8)
• Dragons (60%, 1-4)
• Gnomes (60%, 40-400)
• Bandits (15%, 30-300)
• Treants (nil, 2-20) – an unusual listing, which may be due to Treants having no lair treasure !

The post I Track the Monster to its Lair! appeared first on Merric's Musings.

The plot of my ongoing World of Greyhawk game revolves around the nations of Ket and Veluna. This was not the intention when I started the campaign in the City of Greyhawk all those months ago. I expected to do a lot of delving into Castle Greyhawk and then bring up a threat from Iuz that the party would have to stop.

It hasn’t worked that way! Because, as part of the initial moves of Iuz, the characters found themselves exiled from the city.

Many of my campaigns tend to work that way. I don’t have an end point I work towards. Instead, as the players and the world interact, I discover and introduce plot lines which then take over the game (if found interesting).

Exile from Greyhawk

The characters were exiled, but where to? One of the characters was Sir Nil, a paladin of St Cuthbert. I decided that the Arch-Clericy of Veluna worshipped that deity, and sent him there. That also put them close to the Vesve forest – from which another character, a monk of Xan Yae hailed – and let open the possibility of stopping Iuz from invading the forest at some point in the future.

Unfortunately, the player of the monk had to stop playing, leaving those plot threads not as strong. The characters had set up shop in Brusinton, a little border town which lay close by to Ket, one of the major Baklunish kingdoms.

I am quite fascinated with the struggle between nations and cultures in my version of Greyhawk. It isn’t for everyone, but I saw a chance to put some of my thoughts to the test. In Brusinton, the characters were doing a lot of minor quests – I’d set up various options for them to try (or they’d generate their own) – and the ones they didn’t engage in were as important as those they did.

In particular, they failed to deal with some raiders on the road to Ket. I’d earlier revealed that the High Priestess of Xan Yae would be travelling along that road (on her way to Greyhawk, where there’s a strong following to that goddess, something I set up in a campaign in 1997!) And so, with the “bandits” not dealt with, the surprise news came to the players that the High Priestess’s caravan had been attacked and she had been killed!

I emphasise that I hadn’t planned this in advance. I just took the opportunity as it presented itself. The upshot of this was that Ket blamed Veluna for not securing its roads. Veluna blamed the bandits and said it had no responsibility for their action. And, with that, Ket declared war and started looking for allies.

The Struggle of Nations

Part of what I find so interesting about this situation is that there is no “right” side. Both Ket and Veluna are nations you’d be perfectly happy to live in. Neither are “evil” – both hew to neutrality, although my version of Veluna tends a little more to Lawful than Ket does. Whatever that means!

However, the characters – finding themselves supported by the local lord in Brusinton and doing quite well off thereby – are supporting the war effort against Ket. Initial skirmishes reveals that the Ket (aided no doubt by the priests of Xan Yae) had forged an alliance with the Shadow Fey. One group of characters went to disrupt this alliance. They did so, but it took them a year – and we’re before that point at present with the other group of characters.

This group, which consists of most of those who were exiled from Greyhawk, were summoned by the Matriarch of St Cuthbert in Veluna, and told that there was an artefact that could bring an end to this war. And that artefact was in the hands of the djinn in the plane of Air. For the last few sessions (as previously related) the characters have sought that item, and through alliance with the djinn against the Wind Dukes of Aaqa, are now in possession of it.

(This actually saw the party work for both sides; eventually, they gained a valuable item from the Wind Dukes to trade to the djinn for the artefact, but by arrangement and at the suggestion of the characters, the Wind Dukes had enchanted it so it could spy on the djinn!)

However, now they’ve returned with the artefact. What is it? The first part of the Rod of Seven Parts! I may have just launched another MAJOR quest to get me out of determining how to run a war.

Where’s the next part of the Rod? It looks like it’s in Ket! Which, of course means that the party need to travel over a land quite hostile to them. Most of the last session was spent planning and in the initial stages of the expedition – travelling by boat and then crossing the Bramblewood towards Ket. Next session will likely see them trying to avoid patrols as they seek where the next part of the Rod is!

Lessons from Wargaming

One of my other hobbies is wargaming. Of late, I’ve been playing the excellent Volko Ruhnke design, “Nevsky”, which details the fighting between the Teutons and the Russians in about 1240 AD. This is close to the war that will likely be fought between Ket and Veluna. And there are a few interesting points that the game brings up.

The most important is that the armies are incredibly small. At the Battle of the Ice, the most famous engagement, there were possibly only 5000 men on one side and 2500 on the other. In the game, individual lords and the their armies control between 300 and 1000 men, with only occasionally them banding together. So, the scale of the engagements are nowhere near those of the massed battles seen elsewhere.

In addition, feudal service extended only a limited time, perhaps 40 days, extended by plunder or the payment of coin. So, having long extended wars was tricky, or at least the personnel would keep changing.

Finally, there were the aspects of ravaging the land, besieging forts and capturing cities unopposed. Actual head to head battles seem relatively rare (and, through the game’s mechanics, often undesirable.

So, how to incorporate this all into the game? We’ll see. It’s something to consider. In any case, first they must find the Rod!

The post Adventures in Greyhawk: Ket and Veluna appeared first on Merric's Musings.

My Waterdeep campaign keeps going in strange directions. It began as a Waterdeep: Dragon Heist campaign, but it has become a Waterdeep sandbox campaign. The characters keep on going off and doing other quests.

The characters have just spent a couple of sessions out of Waterdeep saving merchants from orcs, then exploring the very unusual dungeon the orcs lived in. The initial caves were fine. Natural in aspect, with perhaps a little widening by orcish chisels.

However, its deeper recesses led to a deserted stronghold decorated with carved reliefs of knights. The characters also discovered a great tapestry (untouched by age) showing the knights marching towards Mount Waterdeep.

The age of the tapestry was evident as there was no sign of the city of Waterdeep on the tapestry. This stronghold was old! Further stairs descended to a crypt in which the adventurers discovered giant rats devouring the body of an ogre.

They considered exploring further, but, feeling that they had been away from the city too long, they then returned to Waterdeep, bearing the tapestry with them.

I am very happy just to let the players do whatever they like. I come up with potential quests and then they choose which are interesting to do. Or self-direct on their own. Though, for the most part, they follow quest hooks I created. I am interested to discover if they will become more proactive as the campaign continues.

Other fascinating items the characters discovered in the orc caves included:

• the spear of an orc priest that turns into a snake, and
• a map to part of Undermountain that shows the burial location of an old Knight Commander of that ancient order

The map is interesting: It depicts part of the first level of Undermountain. One room is marked as the burial place of that ancient knight, with script indicating he was buried there with many grave ornaments Whether of this ancient king’s possessions remain is uncertain, for the first level of Undermountain has been MUCH explored over the years,

For this campaign, I am grabbing stuff from EVERYWHERE. I have many, many Forgotten Realms products, including a lot of boxed sets for Waterdeep, so there is a lot of source material to work with. And then I keep making more stuff up. Was there an old order of knights depicted anywhere in Ed Greenwood’s work in the area? Who knows – and who cares! Let’s have fun. Canon doesn’t constrain me!

The characters are now going to talk to the factions they are purportedly helping. They may need to do some explaining as to where they have been and why they haven’t been dealing with the problems caused by the feuding Zhentarim and Xanathar’s Guild!

The advancement in this campaign is relatively slow. We’ve been using XP, because they’re MUCH easier when you’re doing a bunch of quests that don’t link to a main storyline. The campaign features a lot of exploration and discovery and quite a bit of combat, though role-playing features from time to time.

The wilderness is dangerous – their third level characters were chased by almost a dozen ogres tonight (they escaped the pursuers!) – and they will likely be happy to be home. As they’ve been gone for a couple of weeks, it’s time to refresh the quests.

I am keeping my preparation on Roll20 relatively simple – with maps that have pre-drawn grids, I turn the grid-snap off on Roll20 rather than trying to align it. Occasionally the map is just an exploration tool and we use Theatre of the Mind for combat (with the Roll20 initiative tracker). Tokens are whatever I can find.

The campaigns I am running are giving me a lot of chances to explore other styles of running Dungeon & Dragons rather than the strong plot-focused adventures of recent times. I’m hoping to bring up strongholds, research, and other world-building activities as the players get a chance to be creative. That’s D&D: the game can be whatever you can imagine!

The post Tales from my Waterdeep Campaign appeared first on Merric's Musings.

The latest session of my Roll20 Waterdeep campaign saw the third-level party finally return to Waterdeep after a longer period away from the city and get back into some of the faction quests that actually related to Dragon Heist!

They’d discovered a map showing an ancient treasure stored in the first level of Undermountain, but Onyx the Paladin realised they still hadn’t dealt with the gangs of Zhentarim and Xanathar’s Guild roaming in the Field Ward, a quest given to them by Mirt the Moneylender – it’s the first of the Order of the Gauntlet track of quests.

In addition, some research on the tapestry they’d found indicated it belonged to an order of Knights of Helm that had tried to build a kingdom in the North before Waterdeep was founded, only to be destroyed by trolls. There is no major temple to Helm in Waterdeep, but they learnt that the great cathedral in Helm’s Hold just to the south of Neverwinter (about 9 days travel away) might be interested in paying a premium for it. But that was for later.

Trouble in the Field Ward

After a day spent recuperating, the characters headed off to the Field Ward. This group is doing a good job of working on non-combat skills, so Xeon the Rogue did some research about the area using his contacts first and discovered the area where the Zhentarim gang was going to target. The characters were able to surprise them and confront them before things got worse. (As the group had delayed for 15+ days before taking the job, things were definitely worse in the city!)

The adventure calls for three successful Intimidation checks to persuade the gang to stop it because the Order of the Gauntlet is keeping the peace now, but the characters were rolling poorly. When we get to a situation like this, I give advantage on checks when players say the right thing (or even give auto-successes), but the players’ role-playing was not that convincing. Eventually, I decided that the Zhentarim gang would attack, and we moved into combat.

It was a tough fight, and T’ak the Bladesinger was down unconscious before it was done. However, each time the characters knocked out a gang member, I allowed a character to make another Charisma (Intimidation) check to demoralise the gang. Onyx was the first to drop one, but his rolling remained poor. It was Xeon who was successful, and the characters then explained to the cowed gang what the new order would be.

With that, they had calmed things down in the city, and they could start paying attention to other things, like Midwinter!

The Passage of Time

While keeping a good track of time is something recommended and urged by Gary Gygax in the old Dungeons & Dragons books, it is something that I have been traditionally very poor at doing. However, with the games on Roll20, I am using the Journal function a lot more. So, for this session I roughed out how events in the campaign had progressed so far, then noted down the days as people did things. Let us see if I can keep it up!

Here is the timeline so far:

• Hammer 1. Campaign begins. Troll in Yawning Portal. Volo recruits the PCs to find Floon.
• Hammer 2. Floon and Renaer rescued. Volo rewards PCs with free room and board at Yawning Portal.
• Hammer 5. Contacts from various factions. Missions over next few days.
• Hammer 12. Travel to Wayfarer’s Inn to make with delivery. Learn of orc caves.
• Hammer 13-17. First trip to orc caves. Rescue merchants and return.
• Hammer 20-25. Second trip to orc caves. Find lower level.
• Hammer 28. Return to Waterdeep
• Hammer 29-30. Dealing with gangs in the Field ward.
• Midwinter.

One of the other aspects of the campaign is that players are interested in other things than just adventuring. Traven the Ranger wants to learn new skills through training, Onyx wants to research the Far Realm, and T’ak wanted to find a colour-shifting cloak (his player has been reading the Wheel of Time recently). All of those would be dealt with shortly.

The Bookshop and the Gazer

On the day after midwinter, T’ak received a message from the Harpers: a bookshop owner had been forced from their shop by the incursion of a strange creature! Could the characters help?

They certainly could, and soon enough they learnt that a strange orb-like creature with many eyes had invaded the shop and trapped the shopkeeper’s cat!

How to deal with it? T’ak sent his familiar in, a lizard named Yoshi, and scouted ahead. He got a glimpse of the creature on an upper floor, and so the group decided to send Xeon in on his own. Rogues being good with stealth and all that!

Xeon rolled very well for stealth. Given that the gazer – for that was the beast – had few hit points, I expected Xeon to take it down easily. He is playing an assassin, after all. Except, after he rolled a 21 for initiative, the gazer rolled a 22! It was surprised, but by the time Xeon’s turn happened, it wasn’t surprised any more.

Not that it saved it for long. Xeon attacked, it got one attack of eye rays, both of which Xeon resisted, and then Xeon attacked again and slew it. At which point the other characters could act. It was all over!

One mission for the Harpers down, and the group got a spell book as a reward, much to T’ak’s delight. Especially as I decided to put a spell from the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount in the book.

Downtime Activities

It was now time for the players to go into the non-adventuring activities they had been talking about. Using Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, I adjudicated the following activities:

• T’ak searched for a colour-shifting cloak. He spent 5 days looking, spending 100 gp in the process, then made a Charisma (Persuasion) roll. A natural 20! He discovered both a colour-shifting cloak for 600 gp and a potion of speed for 450 gp. Alas, he did not have the money, but he put a down-payment on the cloak, so the seller would hold it until he returned.
• Onyx consulted sages for clues on the Eldritch Realms he was so interested in, especially since the encounter last session with the Chuul. 50 gp later, he discovered two pieces of information:
  • Chuuls are the servants of the Aboleths, a race of underdark-dwelling fish-creatures, that once ruled a vast empire with their mind-control powers.
  • The vast empire was known as the Abolethic Sovereignty. Recently, reports from Neverwinter indicate that agents of the Sovereignty are active there, beneath the ruined town.
• Traven trained in a tool proficiency – many more weeks to go!
• Xeon spent time with the Gray Hands researching reports of a thief causing trouble in the area.

Money was again becoming an issue for the characters.

Into Undermountain

As a result, the treasure map they had found in the orc lair last week seemed very interesting. So, gaining the aid of Yagra of the Zhentarim, they descended into Undermountain in search of treasure!

They did well at overcoming threats, but not so well in discovering treasure.

Onyx thought he had found a wonderful item when he took a magical sword, but it was cursed! He will need a remove curse spell to wield any other item!

Three fire beetles attacked, which I played as a wandering encounter in the dungeon. The group was terrified of them, but bravely fought on. They were very surprised when they learnt how few hit points they had!

Finally, the group were ambushed by grell! (More creatures from the eldritch realms for Onyx!) Xeon had scouted on ahead, but with the disadvantage for darkvision in the dark coming into play, he failed to spot them, even after throwing a torch into the centre of the room they were hidden in! As he returned to the party, one sneaked up behind him and attacked!

This could have gone very badly. Grell are tough, and we had a 3^rd level party! But my rolling was bad, the party’s rolling was good, and soon the grell were defeated.

With that it was time to end the session. It was Alturiak 7, and a lot of winter remained. But with the XP gained from the expedition, they had achieved 4^th level!

We may get back to the main Dragon Heist plot at some point, but no hurry! (For those interested in timing, that was slightly over three hours of play using Roll20 and Skype).

Resources used in session: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything; Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount; AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide; Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

The post Waterdeep Tales: Zhentarim and Undermountain appeared first on Merric's Musings.

One of the things I wonder when I read a new class option is this: Should I be worried if it seems balanced?

The trouble with any addition to a game system is it provides a wonderful new way to break the game. Just ask the makers of Magic: the Gathering, who have been having a rough few years as they push the boundaries of the game, sometimes with unfortunate effects.

Sorcerer: Slaad Symbiote, a 5E archetype for the sorcerer, begins with good flavour: you’ve had an Slaad egg implanted in you, but instead of taking you over, it becomes your familiar, grants you power, and occasionally teleports outside you to do wacky stuff. Well, it mainly fights or relays your spells, but those are a good start.

One of the really odd things about the class is that, with the exception of the slaad going out and attacking, it is curiously lacking abilities that work actively or alter your powers. You get the following:

• Immunity to disease
• Advantage on Death saves
• Advantage on saves against magic
• Ability to heal yourself
• Ability to speak Slaad
• Ability to survive hostile environments

All very flavourful – although I note that if you use the resistance to magic ability, you gain a level of exhaustion. For an ability of limited use, this seems too much of a penalty. I also note that I’d prefer the ability to be activated as a reaction triggered by making a save rather than something you activate with a bonus action – imagine if you activated it and never benefited from it!

Unfortunately, most of those abilities disappear when your slaad symbiote is acting as a combatant or familiar. I like the tension between using the abilities and gaining your symbiote as an ally, but I think the powers need more interest to make the tradeoff worthwhile. Will you notice losing these abilities? I suspect, for the most part, not.

The concept is great, the abilities are well-written, but I prefer it if the symbiote affects how your magic works. Probably with a healthy dose of chaos!

The post 5E Supplement Review – Sorcerer: Slaad Symbiote appeared first on Merric's Musings.

Here are the latest updates on what’s going on in my Waterdeep campaign. We were down a player this session, with work taking the rogue away, so the players hired a sidekick to accompany them into Undermountain. That trip could have gone better!

Previously in our Waterdeep Campaign…

Hammer 1. Campaign begins. Troll in Yawning Portal. Volo recruits PCs to find Floon.

Hammer 2. Floon and Renaer rescued. Volo rewards PCs with free room and board at Yawning Portal.

Hammer 5. Contacts from various factions. Missions over next few days:

• Meet Maxeene and Hlam.
• Deal with scarecrows in Undercliff.
• Recovered a shipment for the Order of Master Tailors, Glovers and Mercers that was stolen by the Zhents

Hammer 10-12. Accept job to deliver enchanted cloths to the Wayfarer’s inn, three days south of Waterdeep. Travel to Wayfarer’s Inn to make with delivery. Learn of orc raids and kidnapped merchants.

Hammer 13-17. First trip to orc caves. Rescue merchants and return. One merchant is Lords Alliance.

Hammer 20-25. Second trip to orc caves. Find there is a lower level – old stronghold of Helmic Knights

Hammer 28. Return to Waterdeep

Hammer 29-30. Deal with Zhent gangs of in the Field ward who were causing trouble.

MIDWINTER

Alturiak 1. Help Uza regain her shop

Alturiak 2-6. Research and downtime activities:

• T’ak looks for glammerweave – find Glammerweave (600 gp), and a potion of speed (450 gp) for sale. Pays deposit on glammerweave.
• Onyx – investing the snake spear (and eldritch stuff) (learnt 2 lore).
• Traven – training
• Xeon – research & meeting Force Grey

Alturiak 7. Undermountain. Fight grells and find cursed sword. Return to the Yawning Portal. Go to Savra and get remove curse.

May 17^th Session

Alturiak 8. Meet Sir Ambrose Everdawn, a paladin worried about a necromancer in the City of the Dead.

Alturiak 9-18. Patrol of City of the Dead. Met one group of skeletons, but no necromancers.

Alturiak 19. Rest.

Alturiak 20. Into Undermountain. Traven killed by poking something he should not have.

Alturiak 21-24. Rest and recuperation after Traven raised by an Emerald Enclave boon.

Alturiak 25. Talk to Mirt about Mattrim and his friend, Bonnie.

Alturiak 28. Learn about Abolethic Sovereignty and the Mind Flayers which seem to be affecting Onyx.

Alturiak 30. Meet Bonnie’s friends

• Vlad, the Zhentarim stooge
• Ronnie interested in treasure.
• Lonny wants to eat people
• Gina a seductrix and not particularly trustworthy.

Notes and Comments

I killed a character! Well, it is likely Ed Greenwood killed a character, since he is the one who designed the throne that Traven decided to sit in.

This was something that completely shook the party. They were not expecting it at all. I am curious as to how it will affect their future adventuring. Will they be more cautious?

This demonstrates one of the problems with Undermountain: The easiest level is for fifth-level characters! What do you do before then? Not having it available is unfortunate, as typically dungeon adventures are some of the easiest proving grounds to run for low-level adventurers.

I took a concept from the early days of the Adventurers League: “Faction charity”. This allowed Traven to be raised by his friends in the Emerald Enclave. I decided it used up one of his “boons”.

What is a boon? In this game, a character gains a boon every time they gain a rank in their faction, which can be used for some form of aid. Exactly what sort of aid is something I will determine on the spur of the moment. Having strict guidelines can be great, but I prefer having some freedom to manoeuvre. But we are talking allies, magic items, spell casting: those sorts of things are boons.

The Doppelgangers

One of the faction missions in Dragon Heist requires the characters to assess whether a group of doppelgangers are trustworthy. Like most of the faction missions, it is just an idea rather than a fully blown encounter or quest, resolved with simple Insight checks.

I took the opportunity to provide basic personalities for the doppelgangers, as noted above. I had the party make insight rolls in advance, then role-played the doppelgangers appropriately. This was fun, especially as few could be trusted.

The most interesting detail I added was that Vlad was a member of the Zhentarim, who wanted to get into the Harpers as a spy. Instead, he was noticed by the party, so they will use him to discover what the Zhents are up to!

Which will bring us back to the main plot of Dragon Heist from next session. It is time to move onto the chapter Fireball! However, with Vlad’s information, I am going to ignore the actual fireball, and instead I will move the players immediately into the hunt for the orb and the construct.

Resources Used

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, D&D Essentials (sidekick rules) and AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (for some random encounters in the dungeon).

The post Waterdeep Tales: Timeline and Updates appeared first on Merric's Musings.

I have been meaning to get to this game for two years now.

Designed by Rich Lescouflair, with help from Will Doyle, Christoper Negelin and other fine people, Esper Genesis is a game that fascinated me, but gave me a real problem in reviewing it: I couldn’t determine what the story of the setting was. And that was an issue. I rely heavily on the story aspect of a new game when approaching it, and I was not learning it from the core rulebook. The book describes the Crucibles – strange artefacts that gave psionics to the races of the universe – and some of the alien races, but for the most part you are on your own as to what sort of story and adventure you can create.

So, I turned to the first of the Esper Genesis adventures, Fall of the Eos Keldor, to see what it did. And, at last, I found a group to play it with. In that story, the characters needed to escape from the flagship of the Lorendi Imperium, where they have been imprisoned for a crime they did not commit. Or, as I said to my players last night, for a crime they did commit. Because they were player characters in an RPG.

The adventure is full of action – the characters are in the detention block of the Eos Keldor when the ship is attacked by an enemy warship. As a result, they get a chance to escape! The bulk of the adventure deals with them searching the ship for a code key to reach the hangar bay. Navigating a ship in the middle of a battle is not the easiest of tasks! The scenario has opportunities for combat, exploration, and role-playing, as you would hope.

Unfortunately, between the adventure and the core rulebook, I have only a limited understanding of what the Lorendi are. The core rulebook – released in August 2018 – hardly mentions them. This adventure talks about them being a feared “legion”. Obviously, the author has a different idea of what a legion is than me. I see it as a singular – and relatively small – troop, not something that you would then attach “Imperium” to. The core rulebook points you to the Threats Database for more information, but that book was released a year later, and I do not possess it. How many worlds do the Lorendi Imperium control? I do not know. One? More? And this is one of the reasons that I found the game so hard to get into. The classes and aliens are very distinct. It is not a generic science-fiction game. Those differences need to be explained to ground it properly. I don’t really understand the context from the core book; I would have appreciated more detail.

One other aspect of our game that irritated me greatly were the pregenerated characters. They are very lacking in detail, requiring a copy of the core rulebook for each player to look up the powers. With a new game, do not do this. Explain what each ability can do. Assume that the players have no idea what each alien race looks like and provide those details. If you are familiar with the pregenerated characters for D&D I prepare for each PAX Australia, you understand the level of detail I want.

Now, for all this grumbling, you might expect I hated the game. This is not true. This is a game built on a 5E chassis. It does a few things differently – as appropriate for the setting – but it plays like D&D. Which means it is fun.

While the beginning and end of the Fall of the Eos Keldor adventure are strong, it struggles somewhat in the middle. This is partly due to the map, which for two levels is merely a single corridor with rooms attached on either side. It is not the most interactive of maps, and, if the characters know where they are going – as mine did – many encounters can be bypassed. If they do not know their destination, the scenario may run longer than expected. I cut and adjusted the adventure to run in the time we had. The problems derive from structure and perhaps too much stuff, but not from feeling like there is nothing to do. I prefer the option we have.

The scenario ends with a space combat. Of the various vehicle and ship rules I have seen over the years, Esper Genesis is one of the better ones for allowing players to do things. Roles of Engineer, Pilot and Gunner allow multiple characters to participate at once, and with different ability scores contributing to each role the group’s members can likely all find places to go. I ran it using Theatre of the Mind, but I feel that the system would likely work better with a battlemat, due to the amount of manoeuvring possible. While the system is mostly good at allowing the characters to roll a dice on their turn to see if their action succeeds – something I encourage to keep interest up – a few actions don’t use that, which may cause a player to become disengaged.

Reading over what I have written, my thoughts are still scattered about Esper Genesis. There is no doubt that it is enjoyable – for fun was had by all. However, many of the classes hew very closely to D&D equivalents. This class is the paladin. This class is the warlock. While they have differences – and likely more that become apparent at higher levels – I am conflicted about this. Is it the fate of any 5E game to hew to how classes are built in the parent system, or can you make abilities more varied? On the other hand, it made picking up the game a lot easier.

One interesting point: all the weapons in the book are physical. There is not a single laser weapon to be seen amongst them. Laser blasts exist, but as an esper power. How unusual for a science fiction game! I note that I loved the way the game handled burst fire.

Esper Genesis is an enjoyable game, and one that has much to recommend it. But it presents a large number of niggles, which detract from my appreciation on what has been accomplished. For, make no mistake, a lot of love and effort went into the game!

The post Esper Genesis: Fall of the Eos Keldor appeared first on Merric's Musings.

Shadows of Rith Keep is a two-hour, Tier 1 adventure set in the Borderlands of the Forgotten Realms. Released as part of the D&D Adventurers League’s CCC program, it sees the characters on a mission to rid the eponymous keep of undead.

The adventure features two bonus one-hour objectives, one that sends the characters to deal with a young dragon in the area, the other which allows the characters to confront an emissary of the Black Wyvern, a major villain of this series of adventures.

Shadows is a relatively straight-forward scenario, where the goals and decisions facing the party are easily understood. The action in the bonus objectives is a little more freeform and varied and thus requires a bit more from the DM to adjudicate events.

The main scenario consists primarily of exploration – the keep contains fourteen areas, of which four are combats and one a role-playing encounter. All the rooms have items of interest for those who like exploring old ruins. The highlight for me is the role-playing encounter: the ghost of a young girl, who has the potential to tug at the heartstrings of the players. Importantly, she allows you to put a human face to the history of the ruins, that otherwise might seem cold and dead.

I like how the adventure uses time; a few areas are buried, and the adventurers or villagers must excavate them. That allows events to take place over several days and gives space for the bonus objectives to occur. This technique falters a little with the exploration of the courtyard, where it might not be evident that the characters should investigate; it’s easy enough to adjust this, so the party always hear movement behind the collapsed wall and thus are drawn to it.

The presentation and writing of the adventure are done very well, with only the introduction (the Call to Action) faltering somewhat. I note that it’s one of the last vestiges of the Season 8 format left; the main text is easier to read. I continue to question the wisdom of presenting the bonus objectives eight pages after the rest of the adventure text finishes (after the monster stats). I would so much prefer them to flow naturally as part of the adventure but marked as optional.

With links to the history of the area and current events, Shadows of Rith Keep is an excellent adventure. It is rarely doing anything fancy, but it is doing it well, and I much appreciate that. Recommended!

The post 5E Adventure Review: Shadows of Rith Keep appeared first on Merric's Musings.

The D&D Starter Set contains the adventure The Lost Mine of Phandelver, while the D&D Essentials Kit contains the adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak. Both are set in the town of Phandalin, a little town north of Waterdeep that is suspiciously close to the events of several D&D Hardcover adventures. (Hoard of the Dragon Queen,
Princes of the Apocalypse, Storm King’s Thunder, and Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, to name a few).

I have recently been running both adventures combined. Dragon of Icespire Peak is unusual as it does not have much of a connecting plot. Instead, it uses the idea of a town noticeboard, upon which quests are placed. More become available throughout the adventure, keeping pace with the level of the adventurers, and allowing the players some agency over what their characters do. Lost Mine has a more coherent plot, but during the third chapter, the adventurers can gain quests from the various NPCs in town.

I have run Lost Mine a few times, but this is my first time with Icespire Peak. And here is the thing I have noticed: My players have reacted a lot better to having the quests centrally located. There are quests in Lost Mine I have never run because the players did not talk to the NPC who gives that quest.

Meanwhile, I have had a few fellow DMs say that they dislike the impersonal nature of the notice board. They prefer it when the NPCs grant the quests.

Part of this is a difference in style – both of the Dungeon Master and the group as a whole.

It does make me wonder how to approach it. I think my preference is to use a notice board but keep the quest notices as invitations to meet NPCs. For instance, “Sister Garaele is looking for adventurers for a mission of HIGH IMPORTANCE in the wilderness. Find her at the Shrine of Luck!”

That way, you still get the NPC interaction, but everything is centrally located so the players can find it. A few key details in the mission description so the players can prioritise may be required.

There is more to say about sand boxes, directed questing, and whole-campaign quests, but those are for another time.

The post Running Phandalin: Notice Board or NPCs? appeared first on Merric's Musings.

With Fort Knucklebone, the action moves into Avernus proper. Fort Knucklebone is a minor quest hub; it allows the characters to get used to some of the aspects of Avernus and undertake some missions before heading off on the bulk of their quest.

It is worth stating why the characters are here:

Lulu remembers a pair of kenku called Chukka and Clonk at Fort Knucklebone. She met them after she abandoned the Sword of Zariel. She hopes to jog her memory and discover where she left the sword.

Unfortunately, though the characters do not know this yet, Lulu will not remember anything useful when she meets them. But, for now, let the players have hope!

What the Kenku Know

There is an immediate problem. Here is the sum of the information the kenku know about Lulu:

Yes, that is right. They know nothing. If you ask them about Lulu, this portion of the adventure does not provide any further information about their meeting. (Besides, they are kenku. They might not be able to convey the information in any case). But here is a reminder of what other parts of the adventure say about her meeting with the kenku:

Yes, the text never mentions the details of the meeting anywhere else, either!

You have to imagine that, in the time between Lulu losing the sword and Lulu reaching the Emporium, she met the kenku. It cannot be after the Emporium because it is there that Mahadi gives her to Zariel. So, Lulu, who still had all her memories met the kenku, and that is all we know.

If we make a few assumptions, it seems likely that Lulu would not have revealed much. She was looking for a way out of Avernus or allies to help redeem Zariel. Neither of the kenku likely qualified but may have slightly aided her. I do not think Lulu met Mad Maggie, as otherwise, the night hag would have different reactions.

So, once we accept that the kenku are of no help, we replace the “help” at Fort Knucklebone with that of Mad Maggie. If you feel like making the connections between sections stronger, end Elturel with Lulu remembering that the kenku told her their mistress was good with memories – and thus might be able to help Lulu’s condition or something of that sort.

Mad Maggie

The night hag is surprisingly helpful towards the heroes. She wants to learn what Lulu knows, as do the characters. However, there are a few consequences if they let her know. In the first real interaction with a resident of Avernus, the PCs can give her everything she wants without a problem. And, if you desire to run the adventure to as-written, the characters must gain her help.

You can – and probably should – make dealing with Mad Maggie a little uncomfortable. Yes, she looks and acts like a kindly grandmother, but she is not. If, every so often, she does something callous or cruel – say, killing a redcap who inadvertently offends – you can keep the characters aware of her true nature. However, as noted, they still need her help. So, be careful not to cross the line, so they abandon her.

You have the chance during the dream quest to enhance the experience with evocative descriptions. The action itself is relatively simple to depict. Using abrupt changes, even in the middle of combat, such as rearranging where everyone is, can help add to the sense of unreality. You might make a spell effect looks different or have the foes bleed flowers.

The failure state of Lulu not recovering her memories is not permanent. Assuming the characters do not kill Mad Maggie, they can retry the dream quest again and again until they succeed. If the characters refuse to deal with Mad Maggie, you have a bigger problem. The solution is, as the characters leave the encampment to have Lulu suddenly remember where to go. Lulu could even let the characters know that not dealing with the hag was the right option.

Other Quests in Camp

Most of the other NPCs in Fort Knucklebone have a little quest associated with them. None are particularly hard to do, but you may want to think about how you present them.

It is easy to make this very light-hearted. Should you?

That very much is a question for you and your group, and it applies to all of Avernus. You can play this material very dark, you can play it light-heartedly (with perhaps a tinge of darkness), or you could play it in many places in-between. Although the adventure’s tone is worth discussing at the beginning of the campaign, it is something you can address again now. The players now understand the basics of the scenario; you should confirm what sort of game they want from now on.

The quest with Mickey the Flesh Golem has shades of Androcles and the Lion; it would be nice if, at a future moment when the characters are in need, Mickey returns to aid them.

Pins and Needles provide one of the darker quests. If the imps succeed at deceiving the party, then you could have them reveal, after the mission is complete, that they tricked the party into killing the madcap. Without this, you lose the ethical and moral dimensions of their request, although such may be appropriate to your group.

Leaving Fort Knucklebone

Although this section leaves open the possibility of the characters not gaining help from Mad Maggie, you want to give them an infernal war machine. Without one, the encounters with the warlords in Avernus are nowhere near as entertaining.

Likewise, soul coins are necessary to power the blasted thing. You will likely notice a lack of soul coins given out as treasure in the following sections of that. Keep an eye on the players’ supply and add more as needed.

We’ll cover the travel around Avernus in the next instalment of this series!

The post Running Descent into Avernus, part 8: Fort Knucklebone appeared first on Merric's Musings.

Once the characters leave Fort Knucklebone, we are into the section where they cross Avernus repeatedly. From place to place doing quest after quest. I will have more about those quests in the next post, but I just wanted to make some comments on travelling through Avernus.

Infernal War Machines

I assume that the primary way to travel through Avernus is to be by Infernal War Machine. I am not a fan of Infernal War Machines. They are a fine idea, but they tend to play poorly. I realised that the one fight with Infernal War Machines I enjoyed very much happened to be when you were on Fai Chen’s Wagon in Faces of Fortune – so, you were fighting infernal war machines rather than controlling one. And you were not fighting the war machine itself but rather the creatures on them.

The reasons I dislike war machines fighting each other comes down to two things: For the most part, the actions you can take on a war machine are not that interesting. And more importantly, if your war machine is damaged, repairing it is painful. You need spare parts. You need smith’s tools or tinker’s tools. For each hour you work on it, you need to make a DC 15 Dexterity check. And then it repairs 2d4+2 hit points. The game is about adventure – it is not about being a mechanic.

If a Demon Grinder hits your machine with its wrecking ball, it inflicts 40 bludgeoning damage. You start with the Tormentor which has 60 hit points. It does not take long in a battle to realise that this is less fun than it should be.

My advice? In a battle between war machines, make it about the characters and monsters involved. Use the chase rules to give complications that the drivers over the vehicles must overcome – on a failure, provide a penalty for everyone on that vehicle. But instead of the war machines attacking each other, have them target characters.

Is it better to have the characters on foot? Perhaps!

Encounters when Travelling

Descent into Avernus eschews a random encounter table for the description of three warlords the party might meet while travelling. It is worth noting this: Not every encounter need be hostile! The warlord might want to trade, make an alliance, or just swap stories and rumours.

Unfortunately, for most of this, you are on your own. The adventure is rather terrible at making travelling through Avernus exciting or dangerous. There is a chance of getting lost each time you travel. Unfortunately, the destinations are rarely interesting if you are not doing their related quest.

The question might also arise, “If we arrive at the wrong place, can’t we just travel again?” In such a case, I would say “You need to know from where you are setting out to find where you are going.” Or the characters need someone at the location to give them directions to the next. Actually making the location interesting is something I leave to you.

The product Encounters in Avernus – DDAL-legal for those who care about those things – provides 20 random encounters in the wastelands, as well as other material. You might also find inspiration from Random Avernian Wasteland Encounters, which is less professionally produced but has some good ideas. (I particularly like the encounter inspired by Dante’s Inferno). Both of these products give both creatures and context. Meanwhile, Avernus Encounters just gives bare tables of monsters without any context. These latter two products are not DDAL-legal.

It is worth noting that there is a distinct difference between an encounter that challenges characters travelling in an infernal war machine and one for characters on foot. If you roll randomly on a table, make sure to roll again if the result isn’t suitable for their mode of transportation.

Travel Time and Soul Coins

What happens when a group spy an encounter and want to avoid it? Or if they have to flee from one and take another track?

I like having encounters matter. If the group avoids it, then there is a penalty. An easy one to assess is a half-day or full-day extra to their travel. And, as the cost to use an infernal war machine is soul coins, this is a resource that the players need to replenish.

There are just a couple of problems with that:

First, maps are useless in Avernus. As a result, the time taken between areas is purely up to the DM.

Second, the number of soul coins the party finds is also up to the DM, since very few encounters give them as treasure.

My advice? Use the map. Use it to work out how long it takes to travel between locations.

You could use the individual monster treasure to allow monsters to have a chance of dropping soul coins; I would replace platinum pieces with soul gems. Perhaps try this table:

The exact values dropped may need to be adjusted based on how often your party fight. Note that the Warlords have the Soul Coins mentioned in the text.

Potential Encounter Motivations & Types

This is just the start of a list; you can add more types as desired.

The post Running Descent into Avernus, part 9: The Wastelands of Avernus appeared first on Merric's Musings.

Encounters in Theros is a supplement from the Guild Adepts that supports the recent setting hardcover, Mystic Odysseys of Theros. The setting was designed for the Magic: the Gathering game and is based on Greek mythology, although it does many things differently. It is not a literal translation of Greece, although some elements are in common.

The supplement offers 74 short encounters that could be encountered during an adventure in Theros. They are divided into four categories:

• City encounters
• Wilderness encounters (that is, in the forest, plains, or desert)
• Mountain encounters
• Watery encounters (the coastland, sea, islands, and swamps)

Random tables allow you to let fate decide which encounter to use. The authors suggest that you roll to see if an encounter occurs once every 8 hours, with one occurring on a roll of 12 or higher on a d20.

The encounters vary from being simple challenges, which can quickly be dealt with and left behind, to adventure seeds that require more thought on the part of the players and Dungeon Master. Some could fill out one or more sessions, but those require further expansion by the DM. One thing is certain: Encounters in Theros is full of inspiring material.

This approach is not without problems. Of some concern is that the random tables are rarely useful. When you make a roll for an encounter on a sea voyage, you do not want to get one that requires the characters to be walking along a coastline. Nor, if the characters are in the open fields, to suddenly require a forest. Furthermore, there is no guidance in Encounters in Theros as to the challenge level of the scenarios. One battle has a wraith and an Underworld Cerberus – likely a challenge for sixth or seventh level characters – while another sets them against a lone Triton Shorestalker – a challenge rating 2!

Better labelling of encounters would help alleviate this issue: a description of the expected environment and the difficulty of the challenge.

However, if you take the product more in the spirit that it is written – as a source of encounters and adventure seeds for Theros – it fares very well indeed. I believe it is unlikely you will use all of it, but that is not necessary for it to be a good product.

A few highlights from my reading of the material:

• An encounter with hoplites chasing an enchanted rabbit. There are so many bad puns you could make, and the encounter offers some interesting decisions as well.
• A young woman desperately attempting to protect her brother from desecration by skeletons
• A debate with a philosopher about topics close to the adventurers’ lives
• An attack by giant-sized animals, which leads onto an entire quest

I am most impressed with one encounter that takes back primarily as a flashback: the characters awake after an event and must then detail for everyone what happened the previous night. Yes, this could be the plot of a comedy film, but the players could also make it a more serious affair. It is a technique that can lead to brilliant results.

Throughout the book, the text makes it obvious that the encounters are in Theros. Many encounters make use of the special characteristics of that world. The influence of the gods is noticeable, and the society evident throughout is different from that of regular Dungeons & Dragons. Of a certainty, there are familiar elements, as many of us know Greek mythology, but the designers have done an excellent job of making sure this feels like a Theros supplement and not just another D&D book.

Encounters in Theros is a great product, and, despite my niggles with aspects of its format, is a worthy companion to Mystic Odysseys of Theros. It is beautifully laid out and edited, and I recommend it highly!

The post 5E Supplement Review: Encounters in Theros appeared first on Merric's Musings.

For some reason, I wanted to design this monster with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons statistics. I have no idea why. And I am sure someone else has done this before me. But I wanted to put it out there.

TETRAHEDRON

FREQUENCY: Very Rare
NO. APPEARING: 1-4
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVE: 4″
HIT DICE: ¼
% IN LAIR: Nil
TREASURE TYPE: Nil
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-4
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Maim
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Surprise on a 1-5
MAGIC RESISTANC: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Low
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral
SIZE: S (rare specimens grow as large as 4″)
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
    Attack/Defense Modes: Nil

The Tetrahedron is a small creature of unusual physiology. Sages are divided as to whether they evolved naturally, were created by mad wizards, or have travelled here from one of the inner or outer planes. What is certain is that those unfortunate individuals who have encountered them never forget the experience.

The Tetrahedron typically lurks on the floor of a cave, although some have been known to find themselves into the bedrooms of the upper world. There it waits for its prey, for it derives sustenance from both blood and the psychic trauma of its victims. It has the ability to quickly transfer itself under the foot of any creature that is moving and, with its razor-sharp point, injure the creature’s appendage. This movement could be akin to teleportation, but the method has not yet been distinguished.

A creature struck by a tetrahedron reduces its movement speed by 1″ each time so damaged, with a saving throw vs paralysation to negate this additional effect. Upon reducing a creature’s speed to 0″, the creature becomes paralysed and the Tetrahedron gorges until it has taken 16 hit points from the creature, after which it disappears to an unknown destination.

Its small size and innocuous appearance allow Tetrahedrons to surprise their opponents 5 times in 6.

Description: The tetrahedron is a four-sided polyhedron apparently made of stone, typically of black, white. or red hue, with arcane markings of gold or silver upon each side. Most are about one inch or less across. It is commonly mistaken for a component of games of gambling and chance.

The post The Most Fearsome Monster (AD&D stats) appeared first on Merric's Musings.

I am in the process of running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for the third time, as noted in previous blog entries. It is a strange product, where the advertising and title do not quite match the contents of the adventure. It is, at least, fully set in Waterdeep – something that causes a lot of problems when a similar naming scheme was applied to Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus.

I prize innovation in adventures, although it does not always work. Dragon Heist tries to allow you to choose a villain, and then creates an adventure for each villain. This makes Chapter 4: Dragon Season one of the most innovative parts of the adventure, as it uses the same locations for several different plots, using something it calls “encounter chains”.

This is also the weakest part of the adventure. Its layout and useability suffer greatly because there’s so much dead information there. One encounter describes the location, then spends two pages describing other events before returning to the encounters needed for the Autumn plot line! It is entirely too much page-flipping or scrolling. Or, if you are clever, flicking between tabs of the browser. Meanwhile, it is meant to run as a fast-paced adventure, but one poor combat and the group need to return to rest and recuperate and – in too many cases – can’t continue with the adventure without a LOT of reworking by the DM.

This is not to say that there are not good parts in that chapter. There certainly are! However, the frazzled Dungeon Master may miss them as they frantically search for the information to keep the adventure going.

I have also been running Dragon of Icespire Peak for the first time. It occurred to me today that the individual quests in that book are very like the faction quests in Dragon Heist. I wonder how Dragon Heist would have looked if it had adopted Icespire Peak’s format?

One of the better bits of Dragon Heist is an encounter with doppelgangers. What is interesting about it is that two different factions are interested in them, and both of the factions want different things. That then allows the players to make choices. Yes, it might cause some discussions between the players, but that is a good thing.

So, could we design an adventure which leans on that? It has lots of two-page encounter areas to explore, and then over that we place a set of quests in those locations – with at least two missions for each location given by different factions?

It seems possible. It seems interesting. And it seems like we would get a lot of things wrong! But that is the point of innovation: By trying something, we learn what works and what does not, and we can do better the next time.

One interesting challenge is then integrating that sort of approach with an ongoing storyline not directly under the characters’ control. This is one of the challenges that Dragon Heist faces – the faction missions and the “heist” story line do not interact very well. How do you get them to work together?

I need to think more on that style of design!

The post More Thoughts on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist appeared first on Merric's Musings.

BOXED TEXT: This medium-sized room (20 ft. by 50 ft.) has a green, leafy tile pattern covering the floor. Four trees growing out of stone pots stand in a row along the centre of the room, ten feet between each one, each between five and eight feet in height. Their leaves and trunks are grey, and they stand unnaturally still.

DM Information: The four trees are made a of a grayish stone that radiates magic; the pots and trees may not be moved and are impervious to damage. The trees are planted in soil which is normal and can be removed – but the trees root extend into the floor below. A character trained in Nature can identify the trees from their leaves; other characters require a successful DC 14 Intelligence (Nature) check to identify each tree.

The trees are unaffected by magic (although a detect magic spell indicates they are magical. If any spell is cast directly on the trees, it is absorbed without having its normal effect, and the tree grows a magical fruit. This fruit can be consumed for the effect listed below. A small bite identifies the effect, but the entire fruit must be consumed for it to work. Each fruit decays after 48 hours, and each tree can only create one fruit per day.

From north to south, the trees are:

• APPLE. This radiates transmutation and evocation magic. The fruit functions as a potion of healing.
• PLUM: This radiates transmutation magic. The fruit functions as a potion of speed.
• PEAR: This radiates transmutation and necromantic magic. The fruit functions as a potion of poison.
• ORANGE: This radiates transmuation magic. The fruit functions as a potion of flying.

Notes: I ran a homebrew dungeon the other day, and this was one of the rooms therein. I set it as a problem on twitter for people to solve – it was interesting to see how people approached it!

The group I was DMing? They walked through the room, happily ignoring the trees, and sought the monsters that lay beyond!

The post The Stone Orchard appeared first on Merric's Musings.