Game Log: Unexpected Evil

[Judging__Eagle]

Turns out most of the party is made up of evil characters.

Human Wizard 9/Conduit 1/Stranger with the Burning Eyes 1

All starting stats went to mental; Int is highest; should be a 32 with an item

Started with Child Necromancer for the boost to Necromancy caster levels. Picked up Spell Penetration, and Greater Spell penetration.

Is currently using a Troll as their body.

I'm going to recommend getting Cursed items, so that they travel from body to body, or at least a weapon like that.

Teifling Monk 11

Wis, Con, Int, Cha

Picked up Extra Arms, Two Weapon Fighting, Carrier (Filth Fever 1d3 Dex, 1d3 Con; Con Based DC).

Fighting Styles:

Frying Dragon: Air Walk + Shoot Fire from mouth as a standard action
Hidden Tigger: Complete Concealment + Make a target Helpless if they fail a Reflex save (Wis-Based DC).

The names were come up with as a joke. After the various options were looked over.

Sahuagin Malenti 2/Barbarian 9 Vampire

Str, Con, Int; straightforward stat arrangement.

Feats are still undecided; Picking up size boosts is an easy way to go for a simple beatstick build.

This is for a first time player, so I'm helping them come up with some basic options that are nevertheless effective.

Human Rogue 1/Soldier 10

'filler' character; role is healer really. Maxed out int, UMD and wands/scrolls.

Int, Con are the main stats. Dex and Cha get some more.

It's a sneak build.

Right now the Monk and Barbarian are also maxed out on hide and move silently. The Wizard can just cast invis on themselves, or steal the body of a creature with decent hiding ability, or... have it's Token carried by an other PC, and then use their at-will Magic Jar to take over a new body.

I'm not sure what the group will deal with, probably Giants for a start.

Maybe some undead in a massive masuoleam.

The Temple of Elemental Evil is something that I've never seen or used; but I might make a dungeon around an idea of someone Calling elementals to form an army.

[Judging__Eagle]

Last session:

Sieging a Fire Giant invasion's fortress.

-Fire Giants (I think I used about 20 in the adventure)

-Hobgoblins (nuisance monsters, they can't hit the PCs at all; and the PCs ignore them; which is what I actually like. I completely loathe GMs that artificially raise the CR of a creature just so that it is "more of a challenge". Unless there is a reason to increase the CR of a creature, the base MM entries are what should be used imo. If you need tougher monsters, just use higher CR monsters, and explain it in a reasonable manner. Armies of dozens of CR 10 Hobgoblins are fucking insane, and unbelievable; since they are all adventurers, and have no fucking reason to work with giants who are no longer able to actually bully them around.

-siege and bows; ballista and longbows; manned by hobgoblins; they couldn't hit the PCs; so I used the "mass archery" rules from Heroes of War; make the PCs make reflex saves to take less damage; most of them could make the saves, or have DR that it doesn't matter

-Stone golems; the players avoided them, but that was expected, the golems were placed in an area where they could tangle up the PCs and have everyone rained on by ranged attacks

-Cloud Giant [died like a chump due to Magic Jar]

---

Got a new character today, going to help the player stat them up.

They wanted to play a succubus, but really, any pretty fiendish female character is what they want to play. Erinyes fit the bill, and don't have as much "flavourl" baggage as a succubus tends to have, making it easier to give the player more freedom with their character.

I'll... just seriously copy the MM entry, give it gear, and let them play. They're completely new, and if I find problems, I'll just change the character.

Levels in True Fiend, or Conduit of the Planes will fill in the level gaps between the CR of a PC Erinyes, and the level of the other PCS, 11.

[Judging__Eagle]

Session today:

New PC: Erinyes

I just copied the MM entry straight out for this session, and will fine tune it by adding gear, doing skill calculations, etc. between now and next time we play.

-low hp
-high saves
-averagish stats; nothing in crazy territory; her stats will go up by +5
-Charm Monster at will.

Player sitting in and running a monster: MM 4 Mivilorn

-huge, acheronian 'war hound'
-big grapple, large str and bit attack
-tons of HP; being pummled by CR 11 Elder water elementals didn't really scare the player
-not a lot of attacks

The Erinyes player decided to test run Charm Monster. On the players. She's new, and probably didn't realize that it's a pretty aggressive/offensive action. Everyone is a friend OOG, so this wasn't taken very seriously.

Tried on the Cloud Giant, he's a wizard (which she didn't know, the player knew, since she was at the last two sessions, but she is good about not metagaming), , so he passed; he made the spell craft check and tried to Magic Jar her, she made her save and has no Spellcraft ranks, so she didn't know what had happened. Hit the Mivilorn, it failed it's save; and let her ride on it's back. The Barbarian also made her saving throw. The Monk wasn't at the session, he went into T.O. to watch a band at a club during the day.

I basically fucked up, and let her charm a pair of elder black pudding, but seeing as it was basically how to end the fight sooner; whatever. I'll just write up a [Fiend] feat called "No Brainer". The things were getting killed anyway, and all she did was end the fight sooner, by charming one creature, then a second one; the other PCs killed one, and an other got Magic Jarred. Not an excuse, but it didn't upset the fight.

As for the puddings; they got left in their room, since it was near the entrance, and we agreed that an army is going to bog stuff down. I expect a monster ranch/body farm to follow some time soon.

Encounters for this session were:

-5 CR 11 elder water elementals; some got beat, some got charmed.
-Meet a Marid minion and get escorted to meet their client, an elder wyrm topaz dragon; he wants the PCs to retrieve a "magical item" from a Hillgiant Lycanthrope, a Wereboar.
-4 Elder Black Puddings; the Mivilorn bit one of them in half; the Barb followed up and punched them apart; the other 3 were dealt with by spell casters
-Sleeping Fomorian Giant; magic jar'd, the vampire barb got a meal
-2 12-headed Cryo-Hydras, 2 12-headed Pyro-Hydras; did a large chunk of damage to the Barb with one of the Pyro's. Maybe I'll use larger groups of smaller ones, and have them try and dance her; Attacks that deal under 25 damage she doesn't care about.
-Meet the Hill Giant and 4 Razor Boars; negotiate a captured Soul, for the magic item, a Staff of Fire

So far, so good. Really, I'm trying to gauge the PCs power levels, abilities and defenses by using a mix of encounters. Certain things don't affect some of them, certain things do affect some of them.

Stuff like dumb undead, golems, etc. bone the wizard; stuff with high will saves bone the casters; stuff which can keep the barb back (difficult terrain) limits her from charge-murdering things. Things immune to stat damage will limit/hamper the Monk.

The player of the Mivilorn is going to use a Redcap. I'll... let them use the True Fiend PrC; and change somethings around, make it Seelie or Unseelie [bullshit, it's all I can think of for now] instead of the Fiendish subtypes; and have it grant Fey-like abilities, via spheres.

[Judging__Eagle]

So... very evil group, and honestly, it's neither been by design, or intent.

The mivilorn was a random choice, since it was the only CR 11 thing that the reader couldn't ID while browsing by CR listing. I didn't realize what it was, until I saw the page, and remembered the giant fiendish dog-elephant entry.

The Redcap choice makes sense for the player, since they have made reference to "old man strength" for years as a sort of on-going joke; and, well, Redcaps are embodiment of that.

I should probably have the PCs go somewhere, and get chased down by "good guys"; paladins, fighters, rogues, clerics of "human" races.

Since the PCs are currently:

-Giant or Troll wizard with mind control powers [also an Ancient One, who uses Sapphires for his Magic Jar'd souls. His habits will leave a trail]
-Black-armoured vampiress with taloned Gauntlets [got upgraded to Life Drinker weapons, since she's immune to the negative levels; and it's a powerful de-buff]
-Fiendish, 4-armed, thing. .... except he wears a hat of disguise.
-Evil looking winged woman, thing, with some sort of monster following her
-Tiny, wizened looking, man, with a big weapon, and steel boots, no shirt, and a felt cap that is the colour of still blood.

Having people go after them is very likely.

[Judging__Eagle]

Ok, got a new PC,

Scorpionfolk (MM2), Monster of Legend (MM2); Death Knight (Tome);

That's 7 racial HD; 2 more racial from the +2 CR template; and 2 levels in DK.

He picked "cast as 5th level cleric" for his "special attack"; and has fast healing. His Str is high, and his ability to lift the Wizard's Cloud Giant 'body' is pretty impressive. His Grapple checks start at 34; so he can in theory grapple a Roc.

He picked up TWF, b/c let's face it, everyone does so.

Shields need to be reworked; mostly b/c in real life shields are OP. Right now, no one has a sheild, yet.

---

I'm still using a heavily modded version of 3.X D&D; I don't use most of the trash that WoTC published in the last 10 years, but I am using a 300 page rulebook (500 pages when I put in the PHB spell casters, and the core list of spells; the spells make up about 200 pages ). Mostly because I can't abide games where players are "tricked" into making shitty/sucky/boring characters, and most commercial game designers actively suck at making games that are remotely fair.

One game is my "unexpected evil" (player characters) campaign. Everyone made a character with my help (they told me what they wanted to do, or leafed through a monster manual or three; and we built their character together); and all of the characters read like the line-up of enemies that players might face in an other type of game. They read like a rogue's gallery of baddies.

The characters are things like:
-"Vampire Malenti Barbarian" (Sahaugin 2/Barbarian 9)
-"Fiendish Monk" (Aasimar Monk 11)
-"Evil Bracelet" (Wizard 9/Coundit of the Planes 1/Stranger with the Burning Eyes 1)
-"Legendary Scorpion Death Knight" (Scorpionfolk 7/Monster of Legend 2/Death Knight 1)
-"Succubus Lady" (Succubus 7/True Fiend 4)
-"Redcap Samurai" (Redcap 2/Samurai 9) [Yes! A redcap. He's hilarious, this tiny little man who obsesses about having odd numbers in his group, and odd numbers of coins and items].

Seriously, I'm surprised that they made what they made characters who are similarly aligned, independantly of the other players. Some of them seriously flipped pages in a monster manual at random, or said things like "I want to be a mermaid.... can I be a vampire too?". The players in that game have finally been able to figure out how hardcore a level 11 character in D&D is; things like "kill the leader of an army of evil giants" or "destroy an evil magical tower" are things that they realize they can do.

My other game is more of a "rifts" type of setting. I'm not actually using Rifts, b/c it's not a balanced system, and thrives when players know they will have unbalanced characters. High tech is just magic that's understood by someone in a lab coat. People want different flavours in their games, and when you get down to it, a "laser sword" and a "magic sword" aren't that different. Neither is "Cyber-eyes" or "Goggles of Seeing". Same effect, different flavour.

This is mostly for completely new people to RPGs, and evil bastard that I am, I've helped them make truly crazy characters in the higher end of the game (level 14).

Most of the PCs are things like:
-"Nymph Druid" (This player wanted a variation from her usual "melee brute" characters; So they asked to make a "girly character"; Except she forgot that Druids turn into giant dinosaurs and bears, and have giant dinosaur and bear pets, so they get their chocolate and strawberry ice cream; or something)
-"Yakfolk Thaumaturge" (steal bodies, command Genies, cast spells from Wizard/Cleric/Druid spell lists)
-"Sahaugin Storm Lord" (Take one WoW Murloc, give him a thematic class, throw in a magical fish in a necklace aquarium, and a trident, for good measure)
-"Human Bard/Rogue/Fighter" (Every party needs its healer and trapsmith; that's this NPC's jorb)
-"Street Samurai Cyborg" (William Gibson has always left deep impression on me on what the future could look like; this character is part Afro-Samurai, part Shadowrun/William Gibson Street Samurai, and has a flying Sports Car(pet); a re-skinned intelligent flying carpet)
-"Magical girl, and giant winged red panda-fox-nine-tails thingy" (Always tell your players they can play whatever they feel like; then find a way to make it work. This character is summarized with "Love, love, power!" and a giant fiendish red panda with wings, and breathes lighting bolts)
-"Gundam Pilot" (Take one Wizard 14; add an Iron Golem; make it Huge, make it hollow (for say, a pilot); make it fly (Fly? Yes, the spell); give it a Resiliant Sphere (force field); strap on wands of different blasting spells (Scorching Ray, Fireball, Wall of Stone/Iron, Web; etc.; presto! one "high tech" Robo-Mecha stereotype filled out)

This group is a bit more J-Anime inspired than some of my other groups, but it's not like western thought hasn't influenced a lot of Anime and Manga in the last 60 years.