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| Pobman |
 Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 3:56 am Post subject: Lost City DM report (spoilers will be present) |
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I started Lost City this past Tuesday. Here is my report from session 1:
The party consist of:
A Human Barbarian
A Elven Thief
A Human Warlord
A Dwarf Paladin
all of whom were level 14
The characters had not been played together before, but we have been gaming together for 3 years now, so the interaction in the party felt like they had been adventuring for 14 levels.
I decided to use the Spreading Madness hook.
The PCs arrived in Ekabba and were invited to stay with the Emir, who explained about the aggression that has erupted in the region. As the adventurers are well known throughout the region, he wanted them to investigate what was going on.
They consulted one of the scholars working for the Emir - Roman Lightmagic. Who drew a map showing the settlements that had been aggressive and hadn't. This followed the path of an underground river, but the players didn't get that straight away. Roman told the PCs about the latest outbreak of violence which was near the water source of the city. After some more investigation, the PCs/players worked out that the source of the madness had to do with the water source and worked out that there was an underground river which had probably been tainted.
Examining the map again, they noticed that the aggression suddenly ended with a settlement far away from Ekabba. They decided to travel to that settlement to see if they could work out what the source of the madness was. Taking three camels with them and 2 servants loaned to them by the Emir, they arrived at a settlement that was looking very run down, some buildings were in ruins and the village was unnaturally quiet. They sent the thief in to see what was up and she discovered a few villagers that were left, looking like they hadn't been looking after themselves and were unnaturally aggressive. She also spotted a well, which when she reported back to the rest of the party, they decided to investigate.
I wanted an easy encounter to help the players get used to their powers before it mattered, so they had to make their way through four of the mad villagers (each a level 13 monster).
After a quick fight, they investigated the well and the paladin critted on his arcana check, so he discovered that the well was not touched by anything unnatural but the water had been.
The party left the settlement and explored the region eventually coming across:
"A weathered wall and the corner of a roof, both built from massive limestone blocks, stick out from the leeward side of a large dune. The structure seems to be tilted at an odd angle; a set of thick bronze shutters covers an opening in the wall."
And that's where we ended the session. 
I didn't want to start them with discovering the Lost City, hence the build up. A lot of it I was ad-libbing throughout the session, but I must be getting better at that as I don't think the players realised this. Now the interesting stuff can happen (i.e. stuff in the adventure) and not stuff made up by me on the spot!
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:17 am Post subject: |
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Kobold Overlord
Joined: 30 Dec 2007
Posts: 4986
Location: The Mines
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I like the long lead-in that really grounds it in your world. There wasn't a way to tailor that for everyone in the adventure itself, but you clearly took one of the hooks and ran with it!
And I think it's smart to limit the build-up to a single sessions. Otherwise, things can drag.
Thanks for the writeup!
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| richgreen01 |
| Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:53 am Post subject: |
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Cool way of getting the PCs into the adventure! Looking forward to reading more.
Cheers
Rich |
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| Pobman |
| Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 3:42 am Post subject: |
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Thanks guys. We only play fortnightly, so the next report won't be posted until next week. I think maybe the players will start doing write ups as of next session as well.
| Wolfgang wrote: |
| I like the long lead-in that really grounds it in your world. There wasn't a way to tailor that for everyone in the adventure itself, but you clearly took one of the hooks and ran with it! |
It's definitely a plus for me, that there was room for DMs making the adventure fit into their games, and having hooks that inspired rather than detailed encounters.
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| metatsu |
| Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 10:52 am Post subject: |
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| My memory is getting a little hazy, but I used the visions hook in the form of an ancient giant book (appropriately sized) sitting in the Ekabba libary and dreams a local priest had in regards to the domed city. At the same time I told them about the uneasy truce between Ekabba and the rival giants. Once they deciphered the book they learned about the crown, and they tricked the giant chieftan currently in charge to learn more about Faez. Once they arrived at the Oasis I used the tainted water a secondary plot, and it also demonstrated how hard water may be obtain in the desert. But the major difference is one of the characters had the forsight to obtain a sand skiff from the Dark Sun book. It made travel easier, and less of a hardship. |
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| richgreen01 |
| Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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| metatsu wrote: |
| But the major difference is one of the characters had the forsight to obtain a sand skiff from the Dark Sun book. It made travel easier, and less of a hardship. |
Like the sand skiff! Think I'll try and use a few Dark Sun elements for the lead-in when I run it. Nice to get some use out of those books as I'm unlikely to run a DS campaign.
R |
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| Pobman |
| Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 5:45 am Post subject: |
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Session 2 - The Phoenix Tower
Featuring:
Kildar the Dwarven Paladin (played by Toby)
Qeulena the Eladrin Thief (played by Jen)
Dorn the Human Barbarian (played by my wife)
Erik the Human Warlord (played by Shane who is Jen's husband)
At the end of last session, we left the party at the side of the dune where they had discovered the top of the tower.
This session began with the thief having a quick scout around the dune, before they used the Barbarian to enter the room. They decided to leave their two guides with the camels and adventure into the room below.
Sometimes I forget how relatively inexperienced I am as a DM and I think I definitely could have run this session better. The adventure details the odd floors of the tower, so I thought "I'll scatter the treasure throughout the even floors thought and detail them myself." This may have been fine if I had described the rooms rather than drawing every. single. level. My wife told me afterwards that she kept thinking there was going to be a fight when I drew a room and was then disappointed when she had nothing to hit. 
The players seemed to enjoy the skill challenge on level 7 despite the thief stepping on what she thought was a rock, falling and taking some severe damage. There were no teleportation or flight powers, so they needed good old fashioned physical strength to get across.
Over the course of exploring the tower, the players slowly learnt about the Giants formally inhabiting the city. I didn't draw the last few floors as I felt I was dragging things down a bit and the players seemed to have learnt all they needed to from the rooms with the info in - like the fresco, the players loved that room and spent a lot of time in there examining things and making notes.
Eventually they got to the room with the glass Golems in. They had split up so 2 of them would go down each set of stairs, so they were separated when they entered the room. I had bought two minis for this with the money I got from my article in KQ, and had been itching to use them, but I didn't put them on the map until the fight started as I didn't want to give away the fact they were about to get into a fight.
And boy was it a tough fight. The Golems got a surprise round AND I rolled a 19 for initiative. I used the action Points straight away as well, getting the Thief into negative hit points before she had even acted (which also wasted all her abilities for acting during the first turn). I wasn't sure how to adjust a 2 monster fight for 4 players so just carried on regardless. In hindsight dropping the monster's HP by 20% would probably have been a good move on my part, although I don't think it would have made much difference to the outcome.
The fact that all 4 players were melee weapon wielders meant that every single attack was draining the HP of each character. They eventually escaped down the sewer with one Golem nearly dead and the other one nearly at full health. I decided that the Golems shouldn't pursue them as I think they just wanted to get on with the rest of the adventure.
We ended the session with the party at floor 0 of the tower. Who knows where they are going to go next.
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| metatsu |
| Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2011 11:28 am Post subject: |
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Don't feel bad, as those Golems were just as challenging for a group of 6, and you hit the nail spot on when you stated the melee take the brunt of the damage. The party that played the encounter had to split up to take out one by running back up the stairs, with the other chasing a ways back after it dropped the second character. Once they took out the first, the second was alot easier. The advantages the party had was teleporting, ranged attacks and the extra people. A little bit of luck doesn't hurt.
The treasure I gave them was a portable latter that could extend to 100 feet as part of the maintenance equipment used for outside the tower, and a magic giant dagger (longsword to the party) that allowed the character to have a burst 2 aura that created a deep shadow for stealth purposes (+10), but also granted the character clear vision within the aura. I figured they needed a set of tools for reconnaissance.
I am sure getting the itch to DM it again. |
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| Pobman |
| Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2011 12:51 am Post subject: |
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| metatsu wrote: |
| The treasure I gave them was a portable latter that could extend to 100 feet as part of the maintenance equipment used for outside the tower, and a magic giant dagger (longsword to the party) that allowed the character to have a burst 2 aura that created a deep shadow for stealth purposes (+10), but also granted the character clear vision within the aura. I figured they needed a set of tools for reconnaissance. |
Oh that's some great treasure. I wish I had thought of that!
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| Pobman |
| Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 3:37 am Post subject: |
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Apologies but I actually missed out on reporting the previous session [*]
Very brief summary of the last session. Crawled through sewers, came up in section of city near hanging gardens. Went into a temple (they seemed really keen on exploring a temple due to the religious imagery in the phoenix tower). Where they found some treasure. Then they made there way to the entrance of the Hanging Gardens where they were attacked by the wasp/spider like things. That was quite fun. And it was a very even fight until my Wife rolled a critical hit, finishing off one enemy and charging into another and making him bloody. It wasn't even her turn! 
This session started off with me dishing out the treasure from the temple (a bit of an oversight on my part). It took some discussion to decide which characters were most suited for two items.
So this session we find the PCs at the entrance to the Hanging Gardens. They sent the Thief off ahead again and she went in and had a look. Now, I have pretty poor eyesight, so to me it made sense that they wouldn't actually see the buildings that are "hanging" from the roof, given how little light there is in the cavern and how far away the buildings are from the entrance. So I said that the most perceptive PC could see some very low intensity light in the distance, but couldn't see anything else. So with no obvious way to get across the roof and with no reason to, the PCs made there way down the wall. They enjoyed coming up with a plan to get there Dwarf Paladin down as he was crap at climbing. After their plan almost succeeded (they lost a few healing surges in the process) they explored the floor and fought the Purple Worm. This was a fun fight. The Dwarf Paladin kept getting swallowed by the worm and had to roll an 18 to escape! He barely survived, but at least made the Purple Worm burp rainbows. The guy playing the Paladin didn't mind me picking on him. He felt it was in the nature of the Paladin to want to be the one taking the hits instead of his friends.
That was quite a long fight so we ended it there. So next session will start with the PCs having a rummage around where the purple worm lives. They will then discover that above them are buildings and an upside down city. Which they couldn't see before because of a bit of a big rocky outcrop in the way and some thick vines  I think I will litter the purple worm's "lair" with some of the treasure metatsu mentioned.
One quick question. How do PCs get from one building to another in the upside down section? It doesn't seem clear to me, but I may have missed something.
[*] I found out the morning of the session that I am almost certainly going to be made redundant, so just forget to post a session report.
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| metatsu |
| Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 12:37 pm Post subject: |
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From memory, and not having the adventure in front of me.
There are hanging vines that drop from the city streets and buildings to the cavern below. So in theory the characters may swing from vine-to-vine if they make an athletics checks. In addition, I kept some of the street sewer tunnels in the tact that were responsible for distributing the water from the city exterior to the interior to be recycled. They were accesable by city wells at major intersections and through trap doors at the bottom of some buildings. I also believe there were paper tunnels that the insect minions used that spread out from the hive, to add another avenue of travel, but I may have made that up myself.
And finally the latter I provided was made by drow who used to serve the giants in addition to the insectoids. This was easy to do since I placed the lost city in Eberron on the continent of Xen'Drik (which has a long giant and drow history). Because the latter was made by drow it had spider symbols on the feet at both ends that allowed it to clasp on to any surface that was solid. The players actually used it at one point far above in the city as a platform in an abandon building with no ceiling when they were being chased by a hunting party of insectoids.
Overalll, the hanging gardens was one of my favorite places, but I am jealous your group had a chance to fight the purple worm, as my group never adventured to the bottom. |
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| Therabyd |
| Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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Paul,
I'm thrilled you liked those fights! I had high hopes for both the entrance and the purple worm.
Moving from building to building, I was anticipating PCs using the vines (via Athletics or Acrobatics) as metatsu suggests. Lots of flying/transportation rituals would also work, and personally I'd probably let characters with at will or encounter movement powers (a la fey step) use those to hop from building to building. The sewer tunnels weren't well described in the text, but those are another great avenue, especially if the characters start getting frustrated with the process of moving around.
I hadn't thought of paper tunnels, but those are really cool.
Hope you keep enjoying it!
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| Pobman |
| Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 10:44 am Post subject: |
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Thanks guys. I think I have enough options for them now.
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