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Angrymog posted:The rights of miners The very thought of eight consecutive goblin combats fills me with homicidal rage. I'd only use it if I was willing to go all in on prep and create a whole tower defense minigame. "I reckon we could set up these spare lengths of minecart track on that hill and roll those big boulders down... or I suppose we could use 'em to reinforce the barricades."
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Nov 10, 2017 19:53
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Every 24 hours, you must refresh the duration of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 24: The Deck of Halflings and Henchmen 137: Dispelling Doubts The PCs wander into a dispel magic zone that nullifies magic effects for 1 hour (do spells resume after that?) and stops mages from casting spells for 1d6 rounds. Magic items get a save as per the spell. “This is an ideal card to play directly outside the main villain's door. It is sure to brighten the players' days when they learn that their favorite magic is gone.” Uh, wait - is this a random encounter, or an idea to use when planning a dungeon? If it’s the former, I don’t choose to play a card like it’s Magic: the Gathering, I draw one randomly (and why would I do that outside a villain’s front door?) If it’s the latter, I don’t need to play a card, I just have it planned! Then the card goes into musing about why such a zone might be there, but all the ideas are boring. Look, don't leave it completely to me - just give me one good concrete reason. An avatar of the God of Magic got dumped by their mortal paramour on that spot and cursed it, how about that? Regardless, I suppose a random antimagic zone could be interesting, either as an arbitrary inconvenience the PCs or for them to later go back and build a keep on. Keep. 138: The Question Game The PCs run into Fawling, a level 7 halfling thief who’s traveling the world to see the sights, and steals to “supplement his food and income.” So he’ll probably steal some food and money from the PCs if they hang out with him (but not from other halflings). He’s constantly playing “the question game,” where you try to respond to your conversational partner with a question. Dang, this guy seems annoying! Just… 100% irritating. I don’t really want to inflict him on my players, so pass. 139: Birthday Party In a medium-sized halfling community, the PCs basically wander into Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday party (actually, it says it’s “the birthday of no less than three of [sic] citizens of the village.” Bilbo, Frodo, and…?). There are streamers, fireworks that spook horses, etc. They’ll be invited to join in. They will, however, be pickpocketed 1d6 times by a small halfling boy who, if caught, “just wanted to look at it for a while.” If the PCs are a good sport about this, the townsfolk will like them, but “if the PCs turn ugly, the halflings will, too.” We’re treading dangerously close to kender territory with these halfling encounters. However, attending a hobbit birthday party is the secret dream of every D&D nerd. I can’t deny that to my players. Keep. 140: The Failed Paladin (Tavern Series) Oh boy, fallen Paladins. Everybody’s favorite part of the AD&D alignment system. In a tavern that the PCs hang out at, there’s a man brooding at the bar who’s been drinking heavily. He’s got a shield with a LG deity’s symbol on it. Local thugs move in to bully him and he wrecks them, tosses money at the bar, grabs his stuff and leaves. He heads to the PCs and asks to join up with them, he only needs enough money to live on. The poor guy lost his paladin status “when he allowed three pompous clerics of his church to perish, instead of sacrificing his only son. Now no cleric of the church will allow him to atone.” He’s looking to redeem himself adventuring. If it makes you feel any better, dude, the DM would have found some justification for you to fall even if you had sacrificed your son. Don’t be a paladin in 2E. 141: The Voiceless Bard (Tavern Series) In a seedy but well-run tavern, the PCs hear a bard playing the lute like a virtuoso, but not singing along. When he does open his mouth to sing, it’s godawful. He’ll come to the PCs after. “He speaks with an outrageous accent and apologizes for his poor voice, explaining that his throat was seared by eating too much hot food.” He’s a former adventurer, is nostalgic for it, and wants to join them. His name’s Dyvad UeMulle and he’s 9th level. I don’t know about that outrageous accent, but I like the idea in this series of cards that other random adventurers might occasionally try to join the PCs. Keep. 142: The Man in Black (Tavern Series) In an upper-class tavern, the normal evening patrons haven’t shown up, but there’s His name is Rilifin, and he’s actually “quite an engaging fellow,” a fighter 6/mage 6 hired by the owner to sit there, look menacing, and help the bouncer if necessary. I guess to add a touch of danger to this upscale place, so folks can feel like they’re slumming it? Rilifin is just in it for the money, and will join an adventure if there’s good returns. He’s pretty well-equipped, too: long sword +3, bracers AC 2, ring of blinking. Also about 1600 gp worth of wealth, so I’m not sure why he’s being underemployed here. Keep, anyway. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Nov 11, 2017 |
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Nov 10, 2017 23:05
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Night10194 posted:It's always kinda funny that the only people who had to worry about mechanical consequences for the Alignment system existed to get screwed by it, constantly. If I recall correctly, 4E Paladins cause no problems because once they're ritually invested with their gods' power, there are no takesie-backsies.
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Nov 11, 2017 02:51
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In order to inject a carefully-allocated measure of randomness into the routine of the plane of Mechanus, each day a Monodrone enters a sealed chamber and draws a single card from The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 25: The Deck of Arcanes, Abishai, and Banshees So, I thought only the first part of the deck was listed alphabetically by monster. But no, here we go again. 143: Arcane Knowledge The PCs hear it through the grapevine that a blue-skinned giant is hiring bodyguards/servitors. The giant is an Arcane, and it’s assumed that the PCs aren’t familiar with the race. It’s looking for rare equipment to fix its spelljamming ship. It offers a “more than fair“ price and doesn’t haggle or answer questions about itself or its purpose. If the PCs impress it favorably, it will ask them if they want to extend their service by bodyguarding it on its way back to its ship. The card notes that this could lead into a spelljamming campaign. It could use another hook, like someone trying to rob or murder the Arcane. But I love these mercantile weirdos, and assuming that I’m willing to introduce spelljamming into the campaign through a random encounter card, this is fine. Keep. 144: The Guardian In a small magical circle in a cavern, there’s a chest and a red abishai throwing itself against the binding spell keeping it there. He says that a wizard bound it to protect the chest for 10 years as revenge for attacking them. It offers to split the treasure with the PCs if they free it, but obviously it’s lying and will try to kill them (if they seem weak) or flee with the treasure (if they seem too strong). The DM needs to come up with the large treasure, though. (Also, why is it just being left in a chest in the middle of nowhere, anyway? I guess I can have the room be secret, or the passageway only recently uncovered, or something.) It's kind of a pain that they offload the treasure on to me, but I guess if I needed to I would just give it a treasure type and roll within sight of the players. That always gets them excited. OK, keep. 145: By Spell Bound Basically the PCs follow some growls of rage and find a summoning circle containing a black abishai. (The summoner had a heart attack when he saw it, and died.) That's it, though obviously the abishai will start trying to make deals for its release. Since it's a Lawful supernatural creature, that could even be tempting to some. In a vacuum, I’d be fine with this. However, it’s PREEEETY similar to the previous encounter, except with even less of a hook. I guess that one was for a dungeon, and this one is for hills, so… that’s something? But pass anyway. 146: Sorrow A banshee is going to approach any elven PCs to tell them a story! She was an elf (as were all AD&D banshees), and she and her fiance were killed by barbarian humans - him first, in front of her. Now she’s undead because she’s pissed… though she’s not as cold and rageful as most other banshees. She wants elven PCs to help give her fiance a good burial, and also maybe have someone go murder the barbarians in revenge. Then she’ll dissolve into mist and rejoin her beloved, leaving behind only 8.000 experience points. Keep, I guess, though the body of this scenario might be tracking down the murderers, about whom the card gives essentially no information, which would make this hard to run in practice. But hey, maybe I have somewhere I want to point the PCs to anyway. Easy enough to replace “barbarian humans” with whatever group I want. 147: Rage The PCs hear rumors of a terrible spirit hiding in the nearby hills! (This card is marked as a Hill encounter, though, not a town one - I guess a pair of wandering monkey woodcutters will tell them.) It’s a banshee, a former drow priestess who came here leading a warband and got offed by a multispecies group of adventurers. Now she hangs out in a blighted area killing anyone she can. She’s cunning but can be goaded into anger easily. I like it. There’s no innate reason for self-centered PCs to go after her, but that’s not a problem in the least. The players can choose to pursue what interests them. Keep.
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Nov 11, 2017 14:28
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No! Don’t look this in the eye! Now you need make a save or your favorite D&D adventure will be polymorphed into The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 25: The Deck of Basilisks, Beholders, Believers, and Bugbears 148: Looks Can Kill, Part 1 of 2 In a city, the PCs are invited to dinner by an eccentric noble, who questions them over dinner about the strange creatures they’ve encountered. Then he shows them his garden, which is filled with incredibly-detailed stone statues of all kinds of creatures. A servant brings news. The noble invites the PCs to watch from an overlooking room as the servants drag out a displacer beast in a cage, put it in a good spot, and it turns to stone. Then the noble proudly shows them the enclosure with a fat, blindfolded basilisk. If they’re upset, he threatens them with his political influence if they try to expose him. Fine, fine, let’s see where they’re going with this. 149: Looks Can Kill, Part 2 of 2 Having not murdered the noble, the PCs are summoned back to him at a later date. His basilisk escaped, and he wants their help killing it before it can be tracked back to him. He’ll pay them big, unspecified bucks. If the PCs tell anyone it was his, he’ll counter that they brought it into the city to kill him. The PCs I guess these cards are fine. They give the PCs a chance to exact swift justice, take down corrupt government jerks, or gain influence through blackmail, depending on what sorts of folks they are. Keep. 150: The Eye Tyrant The PCs enter a large, open cavern with ten gas spores and one beholder in it. “The beholder comes here to play with the spores and to pretend that it is a master orb, with the gas spores as its servants.”  It moves them around with telekinesis, bosses them around, etc. It’s careful not to come within 20 yards of them, of course. If it sees the PCs, it’ll TK the spores towards them as weapons. The card specifies that the TK beam is invisible, and of course there’s a 90% chance they’ll mistake gas spores for beholders themselves at first...Kind of a cruel encounter to the players, but adorable. Who’s a precious megalomaniacal xenophobic genius horrorbeast? You are. Keep. 151: The Stoning Small-down villagers accost the PCs and start grilling them on their religious beliefs - are they "true believers in the second coming of the great prophet Zerkwon"? If so, "Reformed, or Orthodox?" So far, this is fun! Less fun is that "no matter what answer the PCs give, it is the wrong answer and the wrong faction."  Then they run into the opposite faction shortly after, except these ones "will fall upon them with clubs" if they're given the wrong answer (which was formerly the right answer). Religious people, am I right? Presumably, after the slaughter is over, the DM will then announce that the party Paladin has fallen because he murdered innocent villagers who were trying to club them to death over vaguely-defined religious zealotry that came out of nowhere and has no significance in the game world. This encounter has no interesting gameplay, and is actually quite offensive. Pass. 152: Undesired Servants Some caves in the mountains house bugbears. The bugbears (just five) are getting ready to move. They’re gathering their stuff and herding goblin slaves (eight of them). They attack the PCs on sight but won’t stick around if they’re obviously outgunned. The slaves will be left behind, and will promise to serve the PCs. “The goblins cannot be dissuaded from this, as they’ve been slaves of the bugbears for a long time and their spirits have been thoroughly broken.” Even if driven off, they’ll follow the PCs, clean their campsites, and catch small animals. Geez, I don’t want to run these goblins. It’s weird and uncomfortable that they’re apparently so enslaved and abused that they’re now... completely selfless? I’ll keep the encounter, but the obsequiousness is a front - the goblins are really just trying to stick as close as possible to the heavily-armed PCs so they can get out of the mountains and back to whatever passes for safety for goblins.
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Nov 12, 2017 15:21
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Upon its death, the spirit of your middle school AD&D game ascended to the Outer Planes and merged with The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 26: The Deck of Bulettes, Centaurs, Chimera, Dinosaurs, and Displacer Beasts 153: Landshark Attack In a human town, a halfling runs in, exhausted, from a nearby halfling town that has been wrecked by a bulette. He’s looking for aid. They’ve pooled their money to hire some murderhobos if they can. The PCs can probably track the bulette down, or wait for it to return. It’ll try to flee if too wounded, but the halflings won’t accept anything less than its death. Keep. 154: Suspicion Moving through a forest, the PCs enter a glade with eight of pissed-off centaurs, some wounded. They were just attacked by human bandits and will move aggressively toward the PCs. If the PCs put up arms, they fight - if they talk peace, they can probably avoid it. If they do, the centaurs will accept help, especially from elves and clerics, and be grateful. Too conceptually similar to #37: Centaur Vengeance. I suppose it has the advantage of telling me who attacked the centaurs, which was one of my major complaints about that one, even if the answer is terminally boring. Keep, but it doesn’t particularly excite me. I might send it back into the deck if I actually drew it in play.. 155: Look to the Skies! The PCs are on a wide, grassy plain near some mountains. They’re watching the clouds because it looks like it might rain, when they see a flying creature drawing near. It’s a chimera, flying from the mountains! It’s here to eat them. The card says they should be about 200 feet from the cover of trees when it comes, and be able to run about 150 feet before it reaches them, and that furthermore it will try to burn them out if they hide. But those are pretty thin additions to a “monster attacks!” encounter. Boring. Pass. 156: A Tasty Snack In a thick jungle, the PCs hacking away at the undergrowth draws the attention of two young male ceratosaurs, who attack. There’s no other interesting content to speak of. Pass. 157: The Imprint, Part 1 of 2 In the high mountains, the PCs pass a cave with a mother displacer beast. "Regardless of what the PCs do, the displacer beast is intent on protecting her cubs and she ferociously attacks the PCs." In the cave is a long sword +2, a ring of protection +1, and four l'il displacer beast cubs that will imprint on the first PC they see, "adopting him or her as a new parent." You know, like baby animals generally do after you slaughter their mother within earshot. Forced combat with no room for PC ingenuity? Check. Proliferation of boring magical items? Check. Pass? Check. 158: The Imprint, Part 2 of 2 “This encounter takes place three days after the first encounter.” Basically, wherever they are, three adult displacer beasts track them down. They wait for one person to separate from the group, ideally at night, and then… one of the three goes after that person, while the other two attack the camp and try to distract them so they can’t help. Huh? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just take the separated person down quickly, surrounding them so they can’t escape, then withdraw? The beasts also want to snatch back the cubs, and they’ll also try to kill their adopted mother before any other PCs, so they’ve got like three or four different goals here. I find it confusing. Pass.
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Nov 13, 2017 15:42
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You must save at -2 or tremble in instinctual fear and awe at the sight of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 27: The Deck of Dopplegangers, Dragons, Elementals, and Ettercaps 159: The Dead Walk Again “This encounter requires that the PCs have killed some humans or demihumans recently.” I dunno, man, sounds like a stretch to me. Those individuals the PCs killed were actually dopplegangers who “had held those forms for so long, they did not immediately revert to their original forms.” Well, that certainly is bullshit. Anyway, these people were key to some doppleganger plan, so other dopplegangers have replaced them and carried on their lives. If the PCs interrogate them, they claim that they were replaced by dopplegangers trying to “ruin their good names.” If the PCs seem suspicious, the dopplegangers will try to murder them later. Hmm, I don’t know. It makes me tired to have to come up with a reason why dopplegangers needed whatever random NPCs the PCs killed enough to copy them twice. And mysteries like this don’t tend to hold up in the face of magic and PC bull-headedness. And the encounter relies on ignoring a commonly-understood rule about how dopplegangers work. Actually, I do know. Pass. 160: False Friend A doppleganger has been hired by an enemy to kill the PCs. When they separate in the city, it tails a PC (they might notice if they have the Alertness proficiency… that was a proficiency?), waits for a good opportunity, and tries to murder them. It doesn’t seem incredibly dangerous - it’s a medium-danger encounter, so the PCs will be a decent level, and a single doppleganger in melee isn’t much. But it could be fun to ambush a wizard and watch them scramble, and this could motivate the PCs to go on the offensive against some of their enemies. Keep. 161: Double Image In a town where the PCs have become a visible presence, a doppleganger has been imitating one of them. They’re running up bar tabs, picking up commissioned items on their behalf, etc. It’s not hard to solve the mystery, since the doppleganger hasn’t exactly been subtle. It’ll try to skip town when the PCs return and are on to it. This is a pretty uncreative, by-the-book doppleganger situation, but I suppose there’s a little value having card to randomly determine when it happens? Keep? 162: A Chilling Experience The PCs are on an open arctic plain dotted with hillocks (not hills, hillocks), one of which is a young adult white dragon looking to gain gold and glory by killing adventurers. It breaks free of its cover of snow when they get near, which actually is like a reverse surprise round because it needs a round to shake the snow off itself. Then it breathes on them and takes flight. “It fights to the death, for it cannot bear the thought of the shame it would feel if it was routed by mere humans.” I... suppose that’s as good a reason as any? And it’s got no hoard in its lair, since it was just trying to start one. It more or less hangs together conceptually, but when I rephrase it as “a dragon attacks you out of nowhere, never flees, and has no treasure” it just sounds like DM fuckery. Pass. 163: Lost Child In a classy, fountain-filled city, the PCs hear crying from a fountain. It's a baby water elemental "conjured by mistake by an inept mage who set the fountain's everflowing spell. It talks like a child, and can be vindictive or clingy depending on how the PCs react. The best idea, claims the card, is to get it to a large ocean or inland sea, where there might be other elementals. Or, you know, since this is the sort of magical ren-faire city where every fountain is the equivalent of a decanter of endless water, maybe they can find some way to safely abjure it? Seems a lot more direct of a solution. Either way, it's not super interesting. But it's conceivable that it could play out in fun ways. Keep. 164: Silken Strands So the PCs are in a thick forest, and as they go along they “may notice strands of a fine silvery, thread-like material “occasionally wound between and over the trees.” But wait, it doesn’t matter whether they do or not, because “even if the PCs notice the strands, before they can react,” there’s a big web net over them. It was thrown by an ettercap. Its strategy is to poison any trapped characters, then run off and wait for them to die. Yeah, save-or-die poison can be pretty brutal. BUT WAIT, that doesn’t matter either, because “due to the extreme toxicity of the ettercap’s poison, the DM may wish to have a druid or a ranger ‘on hand’ to save a bitten PC if the party has no method of healing the wounded character.” Sigh. At least that’s a “may wish to,” and not a directive. All that aside, this is mostly just a reworded version of the ettercap description in the Monstrous Manual. Pass. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Nov 14, 2017 |
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Nov 14, 2017 15:04
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 (from the KODT strip in Dragon Magazine #248)
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Nov 15, 2017 04:13
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Each forum thread has a 10% chance to contain The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 28: The Deck of Fish, Gargoyles, and Ghosts 165: Feeding Frenzy “The warm tropical waters of a jungle lake seems [sic] to invite the characters. There are no signs of danger, and the PCs go for a dip. As they swim, splash, and play, the water begins to boil around them and they feel the sharp stings of hundreds of vicious little teeth.” Piranhas. I’m not sure which is worse - the DM declaring that the PCs take a swim and are attacked by piranhas, or the DM suggesting that the PCs go for a swim, emphasizing that the lake is inviting and has “no signs of danger,” and then having them be attacked by piranhas. Pass. 166: Shark Attack “While on a fishing expedition in deep water…” Wait, hold it right there. Who has ever, ever had a game where their PCs went on a fishing expedition? Show of hands? That’s what I thought. (Okay, it happens regularly in a Mad Lands campaign, but this is AD&D, not GURPS.) Anyway, sharks attack their boat, Jaws-style. They’ll even “chew through the hull to get at the characters”! And it reminds the DM that if PCs get too close to the water, “the sharks can heave themselves toward the PCs with astounding speed.” Yeesh! Then it says the attack might draw the attention of a group of sahaugin (but not to do that unless you think the PCs can handle it). Honestly, this encounter makes a lot more sense if the sahaugin are controlling the sharks. I’d go with that if I was keeping the card. Which I’m not, since it’s just “animals attack (unnaturally) in a situation that will never come up”! Pass. 167: Look, It's Talking The PCs are fishing in a stream when they pull up a fish that talks! All it says is “Hey! Put me down!” and “I’m gonna tell my master on you.” The voice is actually coming from a ring that the fish swallowed, which is enchanted with a permanent magic mouth. It has a command word engraved inside the ring that lets you change the, uh, recorded message. It’s a “small but potentially useful magic item.” I’m fairly sure I used this card back in the day. I don’t recall the ring coming in handy, but it’s the kind of thing that sits at the bottom of someone’s character sheet until they’re brainstorming about how to pull off some harebrained scheme. That’s my favorite part of D&D, so keep. 168: Life Quest, Part 1 of 2 Most of this card is backstory. An evil wizard started crafting a guardian gargoyle, but it was only animate when the moon is half full or more (and only at night?), and also seemed distinctly good-aligned! Horrors! So he left it in some city. When it’s animate, it sees the PCs and asks for their help. It needs to be brushed by the freshly-plucked feather of a pegasus to be animate 24/7. Quest: accepted? Let’s see where they go with this in part 2. 169: Life Quest, Part 2 of 2 The card notes that the PCs will need to figure out how to travel with the gargoyle - they need to take it along because they need the pegasus feather fresh. Then the body of the adventure is hand-waved away - "the PCs will have to search out the reclusive pegasus," but "if they are having no luck, a friendly druid may appear and, hearing their quest, direct them to a pegasus's grove.” Then the pegasus will eventually decide to help if asked carefully by a good-aligned character. The whole thing is a boring fetch-quest and has almost no conflict or interesting decision-making. If I, the DM, want to hurry things along and say, “yeah, yeah, you travel a bunch, you find the pegasus, whatever, let’s get to more fun stuff,” there’s a problem. Even the promise of having a gargoyle buddy, which is admittedly awesome, doesn’t quite save it. Pass. 170: Deadly Greed A greedy, cowardly merchant was killed at this abandoned crossroads years ago, and his ghost haunts it, demanding treasure when people pass. The PCs will see it in its piles of gold, moving its hands through them like an ethereal, hand-bathing Scrooge McDuck. It’ll flee if it thinks it might be destroyed, leaving its treasure behind. “Due to the extreme amount of potential treasure in this encounter, the DM is encouraged to take some of it from the PCs; a good way might be a curse laid on the gold from its simple proximity to the ghost all these years.” Look, is there a curse on the treasure or not, card? What does this curse do? And how much treasure is there in the first place? It’s completely unspecified. I like the potential for the greedy ghost to flee and return later with some kind of underhanded ghost money-making scheme, but everything about the treasure in this encounter is awkward. Jury? Dallbun fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Nov 15, 2017 |
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Nov 15, 2017 15:10
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Seeing that you are clearly hardy adventurers, a shabbily-dressed peasant asks for your aid in fighting The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 29: The Deck of Invisible Stalkers, Irritated Wizards, and Infant Tanar’ri 171: Guard Duty A wizard in the city hires the PCs to guard him in his tower for one night. He’s doing an important ritual for which he needs to turn off all his normal defenses, and he thinks a rival will try to attack him then. He’s right - the PCs will have to face an invisible stalker. If the PCs manage to destroy it and protect the wizard, he’ll reward them with a valuable potion or minor magic item. Works for me. Unlike some other quest-type cards, it’s easy to drop this plot hook in a city, and have the PCs follow up on it (or not) without going far, far out of their way. Keep. 172: The Stench (The Irritated Wizard, Part 1 of 2) A 20-foot cube of rolling horrible vapors approaches the PCs. There’s a human figure inside, dimly. It’s a man who pissed off a wizard, who put a cursed ring on him that produces a permanent stinking cloud. He needs a remove curse. There’s not much here so far, but let’s see the second part. 173: Invisible Woman (The Irritated Wizard, Part 2 of 2) An... invisible woman… taps the PCs on the shoulder in town. She’s heard through the grapevine that they can remove curses. She was cursed with permanent invisibility by the same wizard as the last guy, for spurning his advances. To help, “the PCs will have to figure out some way to remove the curse on her necklace, which is the item that keeps her permanently invisible.” Uh… you mean some way like remove curse? Which was the explicit solution last time? Is this supposed to be a puzzle? Anyway, the only thing is, if they remove this curse too, word might get back to the wizard and he might be annoyed that someone’s messing with his elaborate revenge ploys/wizard fetish activities. He’ll probably try to send them a cursed item. (I don’t see how that will be effective, since the PCs will still have access to remove curse.) A cursed necklace of invisibility? Dang, curse me up. Give me a cursed ring of regeneration and some cursed boots of speed while you’re at it. We should probably make these things not truly permanent magical items, but foci that make the wizard’s spells last indefinitely on their targets. (Could this woman have broken the spell herself just by punching someone?) I’ll keep these two. I like the idea of a high-level wizard poking around the setting who isn’t pursuing any major agendas, but is just a vindictive rear end in a top hat. 174: In the Phantom's Wake It’s a random ghost ship encounter on the foggy sea. 20 skeletons, 10 aquatic ghouls, and it’s captained by a spectre. The spectre won’t join in the boarding action, but if it’s destroyed, the ghost ship falls apart and sinks. I’d love a little more evocative description here. Are the undead chanting anything? Is there some particular flag flying? What does the spectre captain look like? As a ghost ship encounter, it’s pretty bland. Also, it’s a forced combat. But I like ghost ships enough that I’ll keep it anyway. 175: Birth Pangs In an isolated abandoned farmhouse, the PCs find a crying baby! It's a baby cambion (i.e., a half-demon). When they touch it, or after two rounds, an adult cambion appears to retrieve it (Why right this instant? No reason, just to screw over the PCs.) It assumes the PCs are baatezu agents here to baby-nap, and attacks. "It will not listen to reason." Great. Super interesting. The forced combat is lazy and boring, but a baby Cambion has more story potential than a baby goblin, and I said OK to #21: Changeling. I guess it’s a keep, but I might just let them take the baby without an immediate struggle, and only bring in fiendish forces trying to retrieve it later. (Probably it’s the child of a big-shot tanar’ri, and various planar factions are all going to have an interest in it.) 176: A Watery Death In a dusty bowl the mountains, there’s a small sluggish stream. It seems new and small and weak. It’s weird because this area is known for its rainfall, and this recession should probably have been a natural reservoir. Actually it’s because a high-level wizard got sick from eating a fish here, and cast transmute water to dust “several times” to destroy the lake. Detection will reveal that the dust radiates alteration magic. If you dispel it, all the dust will turn back to water: “the entire district is a natural conductor of magic, and the whole lake, several hundred tons of water, will spontaneously reappear.” (A lake holds a lot more than several hundred tons of water, but let’s not quibble over details here.) Player: “Doesn’t dispel magic only affect a 30-foot cube?” DM: “Ordinarily, yes, but in this case, gently caress you.” If that happens, everyone makes a save vs petrification to avoid inhaling the water. “Those who fail begin to drown and will be unable to cast spells or swim for 1d4 turns” which almost certainly means drowning to death, I would think. It reminds the DM that they’ll need Swimming proficiency checks (hahaha, sure) and/or to “drop all their possessions to survive.” Unfair. The main pleasure that I get from reading this is imagining how the PCs would then try to exploit a “district” that extends the AOE of spells cast within it to the whole area. Pass.
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Nov 16, 2017 15:32
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Night10194 posted:As you can see, Hags don't really do direct combat. What they do is blackmail, trickery, healing, divination, and spirit summoning.
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Nov 16, 2017 21:44
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You have a 2/6 chance of becoming infected when clawed or bitten by The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 30: The Deck of Ghouls, Giants, Gnolls, and Gnomes 177: Grave Robbers In a dark graveyard, a dozen ghouls are trying to break into a fresh tomb to eat a family that recently died of plague. The PCs will wander past and see them clawing at the door. The ghouls are territorial over the tomb, but otherwise not looking for a fight. The remaining family would reward them 100 gp if they drive off or kill the ghouls and can prove it, however. I like this well enough. The PCs can approach the situation however they want, or avoid it entirely. Keep. P.S. “There is little treasure in the tomb itself; PCs who loot the tombs of the dead are little better than ghouls anyway, so do not award any experience points if that is the course they choose to take.“ Uh, I understand the sentiment, but isn’t looting the tombs of the dead a time-honored PC activity? Just not usually the recently dead. 178: The Cursed The town secretly has a major ghoul infestation. The guard have been hunting them for weeks, and they’re starting to panic. They’re trying to pass on their curse to raise their numbers, and for some reason think the PCs are good candidates. (Seriously, ghouls, go attack the miller or something instead.) They’ll jump out, focus attacks on one PC, and flee, and they’ll do the same to other NPCs across the city if not stopped. Keep; there are some cool plot hooks here, as long as I’m not a jerk about the ghoul ambush and give the PCs a fair chance to notice or respond to it. Note: The XP values on the front of the card seem to have been mixed up between this encounter and the previous one. This card lists: “XP Value: 1,050 for eliminating the ghouls and informing the surviving family members, 0 for looting the tomb.” 179: The Giant's Baby A thick fog descends on the PCs when they’re up in the mountains. A storm giant comes up to them and asks if they’ve seen his child, offering 10,000 gp in worked silver jewelry (!) for her safe return. The giant points them in the direction he last saw the kid (wait, if he knows that, why is he dispatching expensive human-sized mercenaries?). The giant girl has wandered into the plains, sowing childish destruction. Finding her isn’t hard, convincing her to come back is. I dunno. The reward seems disproportionate and I don’t really get why the job is being outsourced at all. It’s be better if the PCs just found a rampaging giant baby, deal with it however they wanted, and justify their actions to the parent later when they showed up. However, to play it that way, it would need to be not a "mountain" terrain encounter card. As presented, pass. 180: Warband Divided Gnolls are quarrelling. The gnoll chieftain ended up dead somehow (there are also dead orcs here, so that had something to do with it), and two factions each blame the other. “When the PCs enter the clearing, one of the would-be gnoll leaders points to the PCs and says that they are spies coming to make a deal with his rival who is obviously a cowardly human-lover.” If the PCs support this accusation or do nothing, the accused rival leader will be butchered in one round, then the remaining gnolls will fall on them. If they gently caress with the gnoll who made this accusation by greeting it like a friend or ally, then the warband will fall into confusion and tear itself apart, the survivors fleeing. All in a day’s work for PC harbingers of chaos and destruction. Keep. 181: Gnomes on a Holiday Spriggans have set up a trap in the mountains. They're hanging around partying outside of a cave, pretending to be gnomes of a racial type that the PCs do not hold violently racist attitudes towards (snirfeblin, specifically), and they invite the characters to join in. Here's the twist - the spriggans are actually in their giant size, drinking potions of diminuation, so when the PCs share their drinks, they'll shrink down, and THEN the gnomes will attack! GENIUS! Some of these encounters tread a fine line between enjoyably dumb and just really, really stupid. For me, this falls on the pass side of that line.
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Nov 17, 2017 15:51
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A Type O hoard has a 50% chance to contain 1d100 cards from The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 31: The Deck of Golems, Grell, Griffons, and Greenhags 182: Fool's Guardian In a cold and narrow mountain pass, there’s a wizard’s apprentice with a terrible fever collapsed in the middle of the road, and a flesh golem guarding him. (The apprentice is carrying an important spell component, hence the security.) The dude told the golem to “guard him from everything” before he lost consciousness. If they manage to bring the apprentice back, the wizard will let them copy a spell from his spellbook; if they didn’t kill the golem in the process, they get a minor magic item, too. Open-ended problem, multiple ways to solve it with varying degrees of success, and the PCs don’t even have to get involved if they don’t want to. I’m cool with it. Keep. 183: Death from Above There’s a grell hiding way up high in a dungeon with a high ceiling held up by pillars. It’ll drop on the last member of the party, and if it’s successful paralyzing them, whisk them back up to the ceiling without a sound and to consume them. “The party may not even know what happened to their friend for some time.” So, in other words, grells gonna grell. And what do I do? Pass. 184: Hungry Hatchlings Grell babies have just hatched from eggs in nooks in the ceiling. (Grell abandon their babies to fend for themselves from birth.) They swarm a PC “like a swarm of bloated locusts.” There are eight of them, and hitting them is tricky without damaging the PC. If they take half their HP in damage (3), they’ll detach and flee. If it’s a certain kind of game, I would expect the PCs to be trying to capture the grell babies alive. And in fact, backing up and casting a single sleep spell centered on the PC would solve this problem in short order. So it might not be that interesting in practice. But keep. 185: First Flight A young griffin decided it was time to learn how to fly, jumped off its rocky nest, crashed through trees, and broke its wing. Its mother will show up in 1d6 rounds to search for it. If she finds it being accosted, she’ll screech for help from 1d6 more griffins who show up in 2d6 rounds. Obviously (so obviously the card explicitly mentions it), the PCs will be tempted to babynap the griffin to raise it as a mount. I like the idea of them evading a pack of angry griffins while also hauling a heavy, possibly struggling young’un. Keep. 186: Flock of Hunters A pack of six griffons swoop down and attack one of the PC’s horses, pulling it to the ground and starting to feed. They’ll try to intimidate any PCs who try to stop them, but all they really want is to chow down on horseflesh. According to the card, the best move for the PC who was riding the horse is just to slip from their saddle and cautiously get the hell out of there. A humanoid who runs away in a panic might start to look like a tasty snack, however. Keep, I guess - there’s just enough detail here that it’s more useful than reading the MM entry. 187: Green Heart In a swampy area, the PCs find a young maiden drowning in a pool.  It's a trap. The girl is actually a greenhag who needs the “heart of a hero to cast a curse on the small, nearby hamlet she believes has harmed her.” She’s found the PCs. I don’t know if there are any heroes among them, but this is AD&D 2E, so her odds are probably better than they would be in B/X. She used change self. She’ll deliberately miss ropes thrown at her to try to force someone to jump into the water, drag them under, drown them, and try to “slip away among the water reeds.” There are a few rewards from the local village if you kill her, and “searching for [the hag’s hideout] may prove to be a source of adventure” (except no, searching for it is the boring part). This is one one of those many, many “apparently attractive young woman in distress who is actually a murderous demon/old person” monsters. Not my thing. Pass. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Nov 18, 2017 |
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Nov 18, 2017 17:37
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Mordenkainen and Elminster hang out at Ed Greenwood’s house every month to feast, swap spells, and share the secrets of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 32: The Deck of Harpies, Haunts, and Hell Hounds 188: A Foul Wind, Part 1 of 2 A desolate, rocky coastline. Ten harpies attack a fishing boat within sight of the PCs. If they try to reach the boat, four harpies will break off and attack them with their charm song. There’s some nice detail about how long it takes the harpies to reach the boat, when they start singing, how many fishermen fail their save, and how long it takes the uncharmed ones to lose the fight, etc. I read it as “if the PCs don’t intervene, this is what will happen,” though I suspect the card-writer might have meant “make sure this happens!” which is less cool. Assuming the harpies get away with a couple captives, “the fishermen will offer an entire day’s catch (worth about 20 gp) if the PCs save their comrades.” Is that worth the risk? Hahaha heck no. But nobody said the PCs have to butt in. Keep. 189: A Foul Wind, Part 2 of 2 So, the PCs may be pursuing the harpies to their lair in a cave above a rocky shoreline. It’s easy to spot, what with all the bones and refuse outside. The fishermen are standing around being charmed while the remaining harpies argue over who gets the biggest pieces. They’ve got about 8,500 gp worth of coinage and gems (boring), and the ring of a noble which can be turned in for a 100 gp reward since it’s proof of his death (eh, at 100 gp it’s hardly worth the side trip). These two cards together are a reasonable side encounter that the PCs can meddle in. Keep. 190: Late Vengeance Near an ancient ruined castle. “Duke Rucher, called the Black Duke, swore on the day of his death that he would smash Holdings Castle to the foundation. However, Sir Unther, master of Holdings Castle, slew Duke Rucher in battle in front of the castle. Now Rucher haunts the castle looking for a physical form with which to complete his mission.” As a haunt, Rucher appears as a will’o’wisp on the walls at night. He’ll try to possess a PC and then destroy the castle. Which is already in ruins. So, destroy it more? I guess he wants no wall left standing or something. The card suggests that siege engines might help, if the PCs are trying to lay his spirit to rest the cooperative way. Keep. 191: Dead Justice A bounty hunter pursued the evil Red Bandit across three kingdoms, but was ambushed and killed with his companions. Now he’s a haunt, who will try to possess a PC to finish the job. (The Red Bandit, having successfully killed his pursuers, is sauntering down the road a few hours away, probably whistling a tune). The haunt doesn’t need to bring the Red Bandit to justice, just capture him, to be satisfied. I like that the PCs might very well want to drag him back to where he came from anyway for the (apparently highly motivating) reward. Keep. 192: The Sleep of the Dead The villagers in a seaside town offer the PCs 5000 gp to get rid of the ghost of a seaman who’s running from the port to the graveyard every week at midnight. When it reaches its grave, its arms fall off, it looks at the PCs in horror, and it dissolves. It’ll attack them if they dig up its grave at night. If they do so during the day, they see its coffin was too small and its arms had to be cut off to make it fit. It’ll move on if they rebury it in a bigger coffin. I suppose the hard part here is solving the case without someone being hit with supernatural aging. Keep. 193: The Call of the Wild Medium danger, in the arctic. It’s snowing heavily, and the PCs hear a hollow, mournful baying that they may recognize as coming from hell hounds. It’s a small pack of them, struggling through the snow. They “broke their bondage from an arctic shaman and fled into the snowy wastes.” At this moment, “two of the smaller ones have fallen into deep drifts, and the other hounds are trying to get out.” If the PCs leave them be, the trapped hounds will struggle out, and then they’ll attack the PCs. If the PCs go to help… they’ll attack the PCs. Look, they’re demons, okay? I guess this is fine. It provides an unusual arctic encounter, and there’s probably a chance for the PCs to evade them if they want. Keep. 194: Wizard's Fires Two wizards in the city had a feud. One called up a pack of hell hounds to destroy their rival, which they did, then came back and killed the first wizard. So there’s a pack of hell hounds loose in the city, eating and burning things. They sleep in the ruins of the house where they were summoned by day. They don’t fight to the death; they try to fight smart. “They are smart enough to remember a face or a name.” This isn’t quite an encounter as such - the card gives no indication about how the PCs might run into the hounds or anything - but it’s a reasonable mini-scenario that could be happening in a major city. Keep.
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Nov 19, 2017 15:58
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Robindaybird posted:I think that's the first update where all the cards were keeps. Pretty sure we've had at least one all-pass update as well.
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Nov 19, 2017 18:09
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As champions of Law and Good, flumphs are mortal enemies of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 33: The Deck of Hippogriffs, Hook Horrors, Hydration, and Hydras 195: Preening There’s an open grassy meadow up in the mountains (the card gives more description than that). A hippogriff is chilling there, preening. It glares at the PCs if they start to enter the meadow, about 100 feet away. It attacks them if they come closer, fighting to the death. Why? Because there’s a baby hippogriff sleeping in the shadow of one of the boulders. I’m sure it’s adorable. Lots of babies in this deck, aren’t there? This one is a little too close to 185: First Flight, except it’s a hippogriff instead of a gryphon, and the setup makes less sense. Why is this baby sleeping in a place that’s accessible by non-fliers, anyway? Overall, I’ll pass. 196: Under the Claw Out in the woods where the peasants hunt for dinner, a hunter shot down a hippogriff, but didn’t quite kill it. When the man went to investigate, the wounded and delirious hippogriff pinned him, but for some reason isn’t killing him. The man is screaming, and the PCs hear him. There are several ways they could address this, but if the party gets too close or wounds the hippogriff further but doesn’t finish it off, the hunter is toast. Also, the rest of the hippogriff’s pack (seven in number) will eventually show up and chow down. The hunter will offer lodging If they save him. Keep. 197: Hook Family The PCs find a cave to rest in for the night. A family of hook horrors lives there. They’re sleeping in nooks near the ceiling. There are other holes in the walls (for the horrors to climb down), but not big enough for anything dangerous to apparently move through. When the horrors wake up, their first move is to try to scare the PCs out with rasping noises from rubbing their arms together. They’ll attack if necessary, though the “dominant female” will stay behind. There are seven combatants. It’s not particularly interesting to me. Either the PCs flee (which they should, because there’s little to be gained), or we get bogged down in a fight with a whole bunch of melee creatures. Either way, I personally don’t want to commit the game time to the encounter that it would require. I’m passing. 198: Truth There’s a spring in a town on the dusty plains with a spring that heals you of everything, but forces you to tell only the truth for one hour per HP healed, lest your wounds/diseases/curses reappear full force. Obviously, the town uses it for judicial proceedings, one of which the PCs stumble upon. (The accused gets stabbed in the stomach, healed, and is then questioned.) The card suggests that the PCs might get accused of a crime while in town and need to go through a Truth Stabbin’, but in reality the PCs are going to instantly drop everything they’re doing and start scheming how to best use/control this incredibly amazing resource. Honestly, I have no idea how there’s not some kind of keep, armed monastery, or city built up here already. Maybe it’s a relatively recent phenomenon, and word hasn't spread yet. Keep. 199: Waking Snakes In a jungle, the PCs find an old pit trap that a hydra is sleeping in to keep cool. It's not immediately obvious that it's a hydra, for some reason - do hydra heads really look just like large snakes? Only one head is awake, and has to manually wake up the others. Also it's hard for the hydra to get out of the pit. So really, it's rather heavily handicapped if the PCs choose to attack it. And it has a single emerald down in the pit. Well, it's not amazing, but it’s not a forced combat, and there's some opportunity for the PCs to seize the initiative and feel like badasses. I'll keep it. 200: Bathing Beauty There’s a rocky hill in snowy wastes, and a cryohyrda lives in it. The PCs round a bend on a “little-used trail,” they see the hydra start to emerge to bathe outside, and it attacks. Thaaaat’s it. Uh, it keeps two heads watching its flanks if it has any to spare. And there’s a skeleton in the cave with a long sword +2. A hydra attacks! I’m not inspired. Pass.
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Nov 20, 2017 15:04
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A stranger at the next table over hails you and orders you all a round of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 34: The Deck of Invisible Stalkers, Jackalweres, and Kuo-Toa 201: Difficult Doorman In castle ruins or the equivalent. Long ago, a wizard bound an invisible stalker to help people at the door. Now when you go through it tries to violently dusts you off and tries to remove your bags and outer clothes, throwing them around randomly once they’re off. It’s also supposed to guard the gate, so it will defend itself if attacked. (However, it’ll dawdle and not try very hard, since it’d love to be killed and sent back to the Plane of Air). Oh, and there’s a long sword +1 (ugh) lying around the courtyard. Short, sweet, and flavorful if the PCs figure out what’s going on. Keep. 202: Fierce Wind An orc shaman bound an invisible stalker to destroy his rivals, but it broke free of his control and is killed the whole tribe of 30. The PCs wander into this just after it finished, and it’s still lurking around looking for victims. They can find the large cracked diamond the shaman used to summon it, as well. I like that there’s nothing stopping the PCs from just saying “nope” and turning around when they see all the dead bodies, but curiosity will definitely make them poke around. Keep. 203: Sly Jackal In the desert, four jackalweres find the PCs. Two of them turn into humans, get gnawed on a little for effect, and come running in screaming for help. The two pursuers pretend to be scared off by the PCs’ camp, but are just going to circle back as soon as the two moles can gaze some or all the PCs. The card notes that the PCs might become suspicious because jackalweres usually move in groups of more than two (am I supposed to volunteer that information as DM, or do we assume the PCs have obsessively memorized the Monster Manual?), or because these two “humans” are by themselves in the middle of the desert with no equipment. Potentially brutal, but not boring. Keep. 204: A Dangerous Guide Probably happens in a city with a “sinister or treacherous” reputation. You know, where folk can’t be trusted! Not like the decent folks back home! (I’d probably have it happen in the biggest, most important “bastion of civilization”-type city, instead.) Anyway, there are jackalweres here who try to lure victims to quiet locations, gaze them to sleep, then loot and eat them. The PCs meet one such person, the guide Kanda. He’ll show them around to inns and taverns. He’ll try to separate one PC, but if that’s impossible he’ll just lead them into an alley where five other jackalweres are waiting, and try to gaze the toughest fighter quickly. The playability of an encounter like this really depends on whether the DM ever introduces NPC city guides who are not horrible monsters, and plays out tourism that doesn’t lead to an ambush. If it’s going to be that kind of game, then sure, keep. Otherwise it’s just more fuel for PC paranoia. 205: To Put Out the Sun In a shallow cave in a dungeon, in the dead of night, 10 unarmed kuo-toa show up and attack the PCs with their claws. "As a final gesture," (assuming he gets the chance), the leader throws a vial of fermenting fungus that causes a disease that kills within 2d3 days (save vs poison). OK - but most of the card is devoted to backstory that doesn't affect the encounter in the slightest. The leader is a crazy religious demagogue, claiming that his vial of water is enchanted, and they were going to use it to try to put out the sun so that the land-dwellers will die out. 2/3rds of them have died along the way, and they've lost all their useful equipment. For some reason they won't actually enter sunlight, but lurk around at night looking for land-dwelling humanoids to murder ("for these are the enemies of all kuo-toan life"). From a player’s perspective, it’s just that a bunch of kuo-toa attack, and then there’s a weird save-or-die parting shot that comes out of absolutely nowhere. Pass. 206: Ritual Hunters In “a deep dungeon far from the light of day,” there’s a group of 20 kuo-toa doing a ritual hunt for mind flayers. They’re not interested in the PCs (I mean, assuming the PCs are not mind flayers), but they’ll step up if the PCs are spoilin’ for a fight. There’s some description of the procession, which involves a big banner, drummers, a chanting priest, and a gagged drow who is “meant to be a lure for the mind flayer.” (Are elven brains extra tasty or something?) I don’t get it. Mind flayers are not dumb. These kuo-toa are making a poo poo-ton of noise and clearly indicating “HEY WE ARE COMING TO KILL YOU.” How do they think they’re ever going to find a mind flayer? Or maybe the idea is to ritually demonstrate their bravery while minimizing the risk of actually encountering any mind flayers. Actually, that makes a ton of sense and I kind of love it. Keep.
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Nov 21, 2017 15:23
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Instead of gods, the clerics of Athas worship The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 35: The Deck of Leucrotta, Locathah, and Mammals 207: Silky Poison Uh, so there’s this spy operating in a major city, using a blowgun with poison that has an oddly specific effect: it temporarily makes someone do what he tells them, and then makes them forget what they did when under its effects. The spy uses this on important officials, merchants, and wizards and the like, then sidles up to them in the street and whispers to them to come to him later in the night and tell him their secrets. Fair enough, I guess, but the encounter card is really vague and hard to use. The PCs “come to this place,” meaning the city, but then what? “The PCs may discover his plot at any time or they may become targets themselves if they Iook sufficiently wealthy and influential.” Okay? But if I have a PC hit by a blowgun and then specifically note that someone comes up close to them, the PCs will stop that poo poo cold; there will be no mystery. And what’s this guy’s goal, anyway? It’s just too hard to run off-the-cuff and have it be interesting. Pass. 208: Terror in the Wood Some hunters were going after stags but accidentally followed the tracks of a leucrotta, which killed one and mortally wounded another. When the PCs show up it backs up and hides in the brush, making noises like a wounded human to draw them in… though if they heal the near-dead hunter first, he’ll warn them what’s going on. That hunter, Allan, will give them room and board if they save him. And also a mule. A leucrotta? I read the Monstrous Manual a lot as a kid, but this is the first time that a monster has rung zero bells. Well, this encounter introduces most of the relevant facts: their tracks look like a stag’s, they can imitate sounds, and they want to kill you. Sure, fine. Keep. 209: Hungry Fish A group of 20 locathah have just moved to a new area and are low on food. Noticing the PCs passing by above the water, they’ll go ask for a toll in foodstuffs. They’ll be defensive if attacked, and come back and try to steal food at night if denied. They’ll accept surface-person foods, but will be extra happy and volunteer useful information if the PCs can give them a lot of fish. I like that they could end up enemies, allies, or just a bunch of fish people the PCs don’t care about. Keep. 210: Bitter Lord A carnivorous ape, formerly leader of its pack, was ousted by a younger male and basically banished. It’s very hungry and goes through the PCs’ packs at night. If it’s driven off, it’ll come back and ambush the guard later. If they give it food, it’ll depart, but if they stay in the area it will come back each night for more food. That’s why you don’t feed the wild carnivorous apes! Soon it’ll be harassing tourists for bagels. Anyway, this guy could make a great druid/ranger friend. Keep. 211: The White Stag The PCs catch a glimpse of a white stag. "Rumor has it that anyone who catches a white stag without wounding it will learn great secrets of the forest." A little awkward that the PCs suddenly retroactively have heard those rumors, but we can roll with that. The rumor is half-true: actually, "anyone who can capture a stag without wounding it will learn a great deal about the forest in the process." The magic was inside you all along. The card suggests letting the PCs make checks to pick up hunting-related non-weapon proficiencies if they show they're putting in enough effort. Because players are totally going to have their unskilled PCs try to hunt something that’s famously hard to catch. So... there's nothing magic about this encounter, right? They're just learning proficiencies by doing them? If they can do that here, why can't they just sit down and learn carpentry by trying to build a house? That might be reasonable, but it's not how the AD&D 2E proficiency system is set up. The mechanical stuff is awkward, but I'll keep this encounter as an opportunity for a hunter-type character to earn some fame if they're motivated and lucky. Or for other PCs to murder it with overkill magic like the unsportsmanlike bastards that they are. 212: Innocent 'til Proven Guilty Enemies of the PCs (bandits or whatever) flee into a little town, Loch Delphan. If the PCs come in and let on that they’re looking for these people out of revenge, the villagers will be singularly unhelpful, up to and including forming a mob to back up the enemies. “The enemy has done good things for the village, donating money to charities, helping with the farm labor, and so forth.” 213: Tusks The PCs wander into the territory of a boar family. They’ve eaten berries, overturned logs for insects, etc. If they don’t recognize the signs (probably with the help of a druid or ranger) and get out of there, the four male boars will probably get territorial and attack. This is so boring, no pun intended. I don’t want to waste time having the PCs fight boars. And if they notice the boar tracks and get out of there quickly, that’s boring too. Pass. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Nov 22, 2017 |
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Nov 22, 2017 15:15
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Zereth posted:I'd assume that the bandits or whatever fled into this town because they had previously built up a good reputation here, rather than that they did it between entering town and the PCs arriving. Unless the card specifically says the latter? Dang. I can't check it at the moment, but whether or not it states that directly, having it be as you describe is the blindingly obvious fix, and makes the card much more usable, if still slightly niche. Good catch. I'm gonna edit that one before it gets archived.
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Nov 22, 2017 22:32
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You can extract 1d10x100 gp worth of pure diamonds from the hide of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 36: The Deck of Minor Annoyances, Mitzvahs, Manticores, Medusas, and Misandry 214: Down the Hole While camping or marching in a cold climate, a PC drops a small valuable item like a ring or dagger down a hole. All the players roll their eyes at the DM decreeing this annoyance. If someone puts their hand down the whole, they find that a wolverine lives down there and nips them: “it may even bite off a finger.” Then it emerges to drive them off. (This is for low-level folks, obviously.) If they use fire, the wolverine will retreat deeper in, but the permafrost will melt, make the ground muddy, and make the item harder to fish around for (20% chance of finding it per round; the wolverine will return in 1d6 rounds. Very fiddly mechanics for what it is.) This would be petty adversarial bullshit unless we’re using Skills and Powers and a PC has taken Clumsy or, especially, Unlucky as a disadvantage. If that’s the case, this should totally happen to them randomly some time, and I’ll Keep it in the deck. 215: Divine Intervention A “dour little mountain town” is full of suspicious, close-mouthed folk. They’re “impersonal and suspicious, keeping their mouths shut unless are spoken to. When someone speaks to them, they answer in curt, clipped tones, revealing no more than they have to.“ They all wear the same religious emblem on necklaces. Apparently they beseeched their Lawful Good deity to bless the town and “make their lives more as he would wish them”, and the god did. Whenever anyone does something not Lawful Good, something goes awry. The example given is if a PC tells a “little white lie,” a window breaks, and the owner will be angry at them for breaking it. “The DM is encouraged to be inventive; however, no PC should be stricken dead without using an NPC as an example first.” I’m down with the idea of a cursed (blessed?) town where bad luck strikes whenever people take immoral or unethical actions. However, as soon as visitors enter, wouldn’t the townies be eager to explain the rules to them? For one thing, isn’t that essential to their safety? And what’s Lawful Good about not giving people warning or welcoming them to the local customs? Why wouldn’t they eagerly praise the benevolence of their god in ensuring their Lawful Good lifestyles? Freaking alignments, man. I’ll pass on using this as a card - it won’t be interesting unless the PCs have some specific reason to be there, rather than just stumbling across it as a random encounter. But I might place something like this on the map, maybe near a megadungeon entrance. Seems like it could survive very well further from civilization - nothing intelligent enough to make choices about right and wrong would be able to attack them easily, assuming at least some of the bad luck targets the sinner. 216: Flyn's Fear An arrogant hunter recruits the PCs to hunt a manticore, offering a share of the bounty and profits on the sale of its body parts to wizards. (Since intact manticore hides are worth 10,000 gp, this could be motivating.) They find the manticore hunting, with its mate nearby. If they get in combat, the hunter will flee, terrified, back to town (manticores are scarier than bears), and claim he never met the PCs. Eh, it’s extremely close to #70: Trophy, with the big arctic owlbear. I suppose it’s OK in this case, though. They’re for different PC power levels, and if I’d used one previously, I would just throw back the other if I drew it. Keep. 217: Ungrateful Steed Takes place "near the domain of an evil knight or lord." An unfortunate knight or lord, because the PCs find a manticore feeding on their remains; said knight tried to train it as a steed and it didn't work out. The manticore dropped the knight to his death and "is flipping him around on some rocks, trying to crack open his armor to get at the raw meat inside." Nice. The manticore is still pretty pissed at its master, so it won't immediately attack the PCs. It "can't be driven off," so the card seems to think that killing it is the only option to get rid of it... but wouldn't the best thing to do is back off, wait for the manticore to leave, and then loot the remains? In any case, the body had +1 plate mail (utterly ripped to shreds), a +1 long sword, and several pages of notes about "the habitat and behavior of manticores." Ugh, +1 weapon proliferation is the worst, but other than that I like the setup, and the implication that there's now a power vacuum in a nearby domain. I'll keep it. Also, please note: the evil knight "fell 30 feet to the ground, to his death." Dude. That's 3d6 damage. Maybe try training a manticore when you're higher than 2nd level. 218: Circus Trouble A circus owner, who usually just straps horns on a horse or whatever for his sideshow, came across a torpid manticore in the forest and managed to capture it. Then he brought it into the city marketplace because he’s a goddamned moron, after which the manticore woke up, broke its cage, ate the circus owner, and is running amok. If the PCs do a good job, the ruler of the city will thank them, the city folk will be very grateful, etc. Okay. Keep. 219: Mad Maid There’s a ruined villa not far outside of a town, and in the basement lives a medusa. She tries to lure men in and take them as lovers, hiding her face with a veil. Her excuse is that she wants people to love her for her brain, not her looks (though the card makes a point of noting her “well-formed” body). And why are there all these statues around that are clearly petrified people? They were witch hunters, and she, a (good) witch, stoned them out of self-defense. Her witchness is also why she’s living in ruins. She wants her lovers to stay with her, but she’ll turn them to stone to keep them with her forever if they find out what she is and try to flee. (Or, occasionally, by accident.) Well, this falls squarely into D&D sexism, where generally a monster will only be female if they’re trying to seduce human men. And obviously the PCs are going to see right through her excuses. However, I like that her motivation isn’t entirely malicious. She’ll petrify you out of abandonment issues, or potentially out of fear that you’d reveal and endanger her, but she doesn’t just attack the party. I give it fifty-fifty odds that one of the PCs ends up in a committed relationship with this medusa, and I’m all for it. Keep. P.S. She has no name. That’s a pretty weird omission for a social encounter. 220: Sculpture Garden The PCs are in some rich person’s castle or mansion. The master of the house used to be an explorer or merchant, but at one point all of his companions were turned to stone by a medusa. He pleaded for his life and they worked out a deal where she moved into his garden. He brings in victims for her to feed on occasionally. The master explains the life-like statues as having been made by a mad sculptor. Wait, stoning and feeding are totally different things, aren’t they? Maedar explicitly un-stone victims so they and their mate can eat, but there’s no particular reason the medusa here needs to turn people to stone, right? You could just cook her a ham roast. Anyway, I’m passing - there’s no real hook and the motivations seem a little off. Besides, we already had the same broad scenario with a basilisk back in 148-149: Looks Can Kill. 221: Sadieville As the PCs enter a small town far from civilization, they notice that the farmers in the fields aren’t as burly as elsewhere, and that the carts are driven by women. In fact the whole down is “dominated” by women. “The men are in subservient positions, tending to the nursing and care of children, sewing, doing the housework, and in general staying at home and maintaining the quality of life for the women.” Some burly (female) toughs will come to insult and probably rough up any (male) PCs. The (female) sheriff will break it up if she thinks anyone is going to be killed. ...It’s not clever, it’s not subversive, it’s not even speculative. All the laziest western gender tropes are on display, but flipped! I’ll pass. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 23, 2017 16:14
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Sages can only speculate about the origins of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 37: The Deck of Maedar, Murlynd, Mermen, Mimics, Mind Flayers, and Modern Literature Prism's infodump on the leucrotta has reminded me that I should probably link the AD&D 2E monster manual entries to each relevant post. So I'll try to do that from now on. 222: Snake's Revenge This could happen anywhere, but requires that the PCs have slain a medusa at some point. A maedar is out for revenge for its mate. He murders to get money for weapons and armor, then tries to sign on as a henchman or hireling to the PCs. If that works, he’ll turn on them at a key point, killing women first as revenge for his wife. If joining them is impossible, he’ll just ambush them at some point. Good luck with that, dude - your offensive capabilities are pretty meager. Well, it’s not incredibly interesting, but I like it when actions have consequences. Keep. 223: The Gunslinger Murlynd salutes you, oh nameless gunslinger, apparently murdered by the different physics of this fantasy realm. Keep. 224: Rights of Fishermen Mermen have blockaded a coastal town for excessive fishing in the adjoining bay. (They swim up from the deeps to fish the same area.) The PCs want to charter a ship out. The mermen will give the ship a warning not to proceed. The card says it’s probably easier to talk your way out - for example, by pointing out that what’s going to put pressure on the town is stopping ships from coming in, not stopping them from going out. I like that this is a medium-sized event that the PCs are in no way responsible for, or probably interested in, solving. They just need to get by themselves. Keep. 225: Sticky Seat A rowdy tavern is completely packed, except for one seat. It’s actually Herbie, a mimic that works for the tavern as a bouncer. Somehow I never knew that mimics are intelligent and can learn to talk, but they can. Live and learn! All the locals know the mimic, of course. It’ll glue a PC's butt to it if anyone sits on it, which gives everyone a laugh. The glue comes off with alcohol. Everyone will defend it if some crazy murderhobo attacks it. Is this stupid, or cool? Both. Keep. 226: Home for Dinner There’s a treasure chest (actually a mimic) in a dungeon. Around it are humanoid clothes scraps and armor, the remains of a hobgoblin it ate. In fact, it just ate, is stuffed, and will not move or attack for about a week. It can't be opened, of course. If the PCs bring it out of the dungeon to try to “open” later, they might notice that it quivers when it enters sunlight the first time. OK, this could become a fun anecdote. Keep. 227: Cornered Flayer A mind flayer is lost in the dungeon. It’s out of the range of its elder-brain and has to rely on its own senses and knowledge, which is kind of panicking it and freaking it out. That’s cool, but the way that plays out is that it’s drawn to the PCs by their thoughts, gets paranoid when it sees they’re from the surface, and decides to hide in a nook and ambush them with a mind blast. So, in summary: a mind flayer attacks! None of the background matters, because do you think the PCs are going to ask for this thing’s life story? No. They are going to kill it and take its stuff (a couple useful potions, and a wizard scroll with two random 5th-level spells. Can mind flayers use scrolls?) Try harder to make your scenarios gameable, Deck of Encounters! Pass. 228: The Lottery ...by Shirley Jackson.  Pass, for the blatant ripoff. P.S. Almost half of the card is devoted to the game mechanics involved in a crowd stoning you to death, to be used here and never again. Oh, AD&D 2E. 
Dallbun fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Nov 24, 2017 |
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Nov 24, 2017 17:01
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At any given time, in all the planes, there exist exactly 3 copies of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 38: The Deck of Maladies, Minotaurs, Mummies, and Naga 229: Treat the Sick... The PCs encounter a "dusty little desert town" (though the card says it can be in any climate?) that's being stricken by a disease. A sick villager staggers out to tell them the story - they dug a well and started letting the cattle drink from the old pond they used to use. Then everyone started getting sick. "The villagers fear that they have angered the gods." Actually the well water is tainted (apparently because the cattle are using the pond, and it and the well are fed from the same spring? I don't quite get it, but I don’t know anything about agricultural water use), and they need to start boiling their water and keeping the cows away from the pond. The card suggests that to learn what's happening, "the PCs might heal the woman, only to see her sick again a few days after drinking the water." Hahaha no. The PCs are going to be shouting "THEN DON'T USE THE NEW WELL, IDIOTS" before the poor woman is even done talking. 6000 XP for "finding the cause and helping the village." I just don't see the gameplay here being interesting. Pass. 230: Lost In a relatively open, clear, jungle, the PCs enter a clearing at the same time as two minotaurs. They’re hungry and charge, but will try to flee back to their maze if they take 30 hp of damage between them (they have 45 each). Apparently they came out of their maze to look for food and got lost. Wouldn’t minotaurs be very good at not getting lost? And how can they flee back to their maze if they’re lost? And what’s up with this maze in the middle of the jungle that they live in, anyway? The situation is a little too confusing for me to run off the cuff, and it’s not worth the effort for a fight against two minotaurs. Pass. 231: Black Labyrinth Not to be confused with 62: Labyrinth. This is a different, blacker labyrinth. In a rocky moor, there’s a labyrinth raised from great slabs of stone, “looking like a very complex Stonehenge.” That's a great image, very evocative. Minotaurs enslaved beastmen and forced them to help build it, then killed most of them and scattered the rest. Then the largest minotaur killed the others and took exclusive control of the maze. Uh. Okay, I’ll accept that minotaurs have a maze fetish that looks like insanity to other sapients. “For some time a local town would send criminals into the dreaded maw, but that rarely happens anymore.” So I guess that point doesn’t particularly matter? That's about all. The minotaur lurks in the labyrinth with some treasure and tries to kill PCs who enter. Despite having little interest in running a minotaur-in-a-maze encounter, I’ll keep it on the strength of the imagery. Let's say criminals are still sent into it, just to keep another possible plot point. 232: Lost Treasure There’s an ancient tomb, probably in rocky desert cliffs. Grave robbers disturbed a pharaoh's tomb, then retreated from the vengeful mummy into deeper caves. Those caves had no other exit to the outside, and the robbers died of thirst. The mummy is still wandering around the tomb, pissed off. The PCs could kill it, or return most of its treasure (gems, statues, art objects) to keep it happy. It won't miss a couple of small objects if the PCs pocket them. But remember, as #177: Grave Robbers told us, “PCs who loot the tombs of the dead are little better than ghouls anyway, so do not award any experience points if that is the course they choose to take.“ Haha, just kidding, that only applies to tombs from Western-based cultures. Looting non-Western cultures is just natural. Bring on the EXP! Anyway, it’s fine, I guess. Keep. 233: Below Decks A ship sails into port carrying the contents of a recently 234: Ancient Wisdom A guardian naga sleeps on a rock over a cave, guarding “the Endless Stair” that descends deep into the earth. The naga is chatty and knowledgeable, especially about extremely old items. It’ll let PCs through if convinced of their good intentions (“it’s very good at sensing lies”) and if entertained by stories of their journeys and heroic deeds. (It “enjoys a good story, even if the PCs take a few 'poetic liberties' with the truth.") Now this is a winner. Keep. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Nov 25, 2017 |
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Nov 25, 2017 15:37
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JcDent posted:Well, the linked description writes nagas as being all lawful good, but if you don't know that, it does come out as real fun, especially when you have "neutral-ish" monsters like nagas and dragons in mind. From my perspective, it doesn't matter whether the naga is at all dangerous. There are still like three interesting things happening in this encounter: the stair, the sagacity about items, the desire to hear about the PCs' exploits but also wanting them to punch them up a little (or a lot). Obviously it depends on how the DM runs it, but there's certainly some good stuff for them to latch onto here.
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Nov 25, 2017 16:14
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There exists an entire species of spelljamming merchants who live only to buy, sell, and trade cards from The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 39: The Deck of Neogi and Nightmares 235: Escaped Slave A neogi spelljammer ship has set down for supplies, and one of their umber hulk slaves has escaped. It finds the PCs and pleads with them nonverbally for help; six neogi come after it to retrieve it. The neogi will attack if the PCs try to protect the umber hulk, or if they just look like weak, enslavable folks. The umber hulk will gladly fight with the PCs, but will become erratic and dangerous afterwards. If I’m willing to introduce spelljamming to the game (or already have), then this works fine for me. I appreciate that the PCs can easily avoid trouble if they want by handing over the umber hulk, not that I’d expect them to do so. Keep. 236: Sinking Ship A horrible neogi ship is floating atop a lake. (Optionally, the PCs may see it fall from the sky in flames and crash there.) It was boarded by another ship, looted, and pushed into the atmosphere of the PCs’ world. Most of the neogi inside are dead, but the captain and a few others hid during the fighting, and are now checking to see if the ship is secure. The card says they’ll try to take off in 1d10 rounds, and that it has a 30% chance of working if no more damage is done to the ship (otherwise it sinks). That seems weird, though. Surely if an enemy boarded the ship and killed all opposition, they would have taken the helm? Even if they don’t want to use a lifejammer, you can sell that poo poo! And if they’re ideologically opposed to it, surely they would have destroyed it rather than send it down to crash on a random Prime world. Whatever. I would just say the death helm was stolen or destroyed, and the ship will inevitably sink. We can keep it, again assuming I’m willing to introduce spelljamming to the game. 237: Spiders and Flies A neogi ship is planning to engage another spelljammer in space around the PCs’ world - it descends on the town or hamlet they’re into conscript slaves to fight. It’s a town defense type scenario, albeit with few details. What I like is that “If the PCs make the whole situation too difficult, the neogi will fly somewhere else and try there.” And if they kill the raiders, the ship will fly off rather than be captured. Fair enough - keep. 238: A Nightmare on Four Feet After some ominous flavor text involving the sound of hooves in the night, two wraiths riding nightmares attack! “They accept no quarter, and they will give no quarter. They are emissaries of the Lower Planes, come to claim the lives of the PCs for their intrusions in the workings of evil.” Things attack! You must kill them... or they will kill you. Boring. Pass. 239: Tiger by the Tail An evil wizard has summoned a nightmare and bound it with a magic bridle! And now it’s… stabled next to the PCs’ horses at an inn while the evil wizard has a drink. The PCs will probably notice it and understand what it is right away. (Of course, I’m not sure why they’d necessarily see it at all, because wouldn’t a servant stable their horses? Whatever.) If the PCs free it, it will flee and come back in the night to murder the wizard. If the PCs attack it, it’ll fight back and scream for help from its hated master. (Not suggested as an option by the card: if they go find the evil wizard and buy him a drink, I’m sure it’ll be a memorable night.) I like that it’s open-ended. Keep.
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Nov 26, 2017 15:37
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Bieeardo posted:Oh, yes, like one of those MMO players who decks their characters out in vantablack dyes, rare and gaudy particle effects, and some highly unlikely-looking staff. Uh, this isn't just a plain old nightmare. See how its eyes are glowing with yellow fire? Only 200 of these nightmares were born when the pit fiend Deshalys ascended to the position of Archduke. I camped out on Phlegethos for two months waiting for one to come by while other lame wizards were binding normal blue-fire-eyed nightmares and conquering kingdoms or whatever, but they totally missed their chance to get one. So yeah, totally worth it.
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Nov 26, 2017 19:35
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You need at least a 13 INT and a 15 WIS to fully appreciate the majesty of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 40: The Deck of Ogres, Oases, and Owlbears 240: Dividing the Spoils Seven ogres (a group of four and a group of three) are arguing over who gets to eat which of the six captive human peasants. The PCs could attack them, or try to Gandalf them into killing each other or whatever. One of the peasants is actually a noble in disguise, come to check how the crops were doing. He’ll reward the PCs with fine horses if saved. It’s basically just Bert, Tom, and William. I guess we can keep it, but what comedically exaggerated dialect would we give them? I’m thinking upper-class Victorian, obsequiously trying to implore the other side to partake first. 241: Wild Hunt Not to be confused with #118: The Wild Hunt. This is a different wild hunt. Six ogres are hunting for food, very loudly, so all the wildlife is running away from them. They'll pick a fight with the PCs if they don't make themselves scarce, or take some draft animals if they're offered or left behind. So that's pretty boring. It's basically what I would have happen if I rolled "1d6 ogres" on a random encounter table and then rolled a "6." But at least the PCs might be able to evade the fight. And the ogres will flee if one or two of them die, "preferring not to die on a simple hunt." Hallelujah, a basic sense of self-preservation! And the card notes that if the ogres don't find anything, they'll return to their lair, which has a good vantage point, and will notice any camp fires in the area the next night. Logical consequences for PC actions are always good. Keep. 242: Asking for a Raise An orc warlord is away from his army camp with six ogre bodyguards, and runs across the PCs. He approaches and tries to set them on the PCs, but the ogres (facing heavily-armed murderhobos) decide to negotiate for a raise (they’re currently getting 10 sp a week, plus room, board, and looting rights). If the PCs speak orcish they can listen in easily enough, and probably beat the orc’s offer (though he’ll lie and promise more than he intends to pay later). If they do employ the ogres, they’ll serve for a couple of days until they notice the PCs are (probably) incredibly loaded, then try to kill them and take all their money at once. Keep. 243: Icy Desert There’s an oasis in the desert that’s just completely frozen solid. It’ll melt with sufficient magical fire, but not from ordinary fire or heat. Despite that, it doesn’t radiate magic or melt if dispelled. (It’s also very bizarre that there are grasses and trees growing around it, though the card doesn’t call that out specifically.) The card says it’s up to the DM to determine why this is happening, though it offers a few vague suggestions: curse, trap by “denizens of the underworld” (how is this a trap?), or weird natural property. This is an OK hook, but without providing any explanations, it’s asking too much work of me to make it gameable. Pass. 244: The Clutch Basically the PCs are in a forest, wander too close to a hill with a cave, and an owlbear rushes out trying to murder them. It’s a father, and in the cave is a mother and four young, who will also fight if the PCs go in (complete with ‘mama bear’ +2 to hit and damage for the mother if the youngsters are threatened). There are four “shallow graves” in the cave for the owlbears’ previous recent victims. (Do bears do this? Do... owls?) These four had about 500 gp worth of treasure and a dagger +3. That’s both a surprisingly powerful weapon to lie around in an owlbear cave, and a very boring one. Isn’t this just a repeat of #69: Owlbear Lair, with slightly different emphasis? Boring “monster attacks!” setup, uninteresting execution. I passed on that one, and I’ll pass on this one, too. 245: Big Birds Two owlbears laid a clutch of eggs and are going hunting for food that the chicks will need when they hatch. They’re dragging back a buck when the PCs run across the nest of eggs. The card puts what follows next in absolute terms: “While the PCs are wondering at the eggs and discussing what kind of carnivorous bird laid them, the owlbears come back with their prey. They are not pleased to find intruders at the nest and thus attack without mercy.” (And with attack bonuses.) Obviously, this is the extremely boring, railroady way to present the encounter. It should be that the PCs only have a minute or two before the owlbears return… but if they act quick they can get the hell out of dodge, steal the eggs and run (though if they’re hoping to sell them, they’ll be thrown when the eggs hatch within the hour), or back up and find places to hide to observe what’s going on. That’s an easy fix, and it makes it better than the previous encounter, at least. Keep. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Nov 28, 2017 |
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Nov 27, 2017 15:55
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LongDarkNight posted:Just want to say this is one of the best write ups in FATAL and Friends. Consistently funny commentary. Good to hear!  I worry that it might get too repetitive, so I'm glad people are still looking forward to it almost a month and a half in.
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Nov 28, 2017 05:03
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Goons have a natural 80% resistance to The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 41: The Deck of Pegasi, Pteryons, Polymorphed Wizards, and Piercers 246: Captured Beauty A pegasus has gotten caught by a mechanical bear trap-type thing placed by a hunter. It’s panicking, struggling, and getting itself hurt more. It’s likely to inadvertently kick and trample any PCs who try to get close to the trap to free it. It will be grateful if freed, though, and come to their aid whenever they’re within 10 miles of that location. Which might be smack-dab out in the middle of nowhere, but I guess that’s how it goes. Fine. I’d say keep, but... 247: Damsel in Distress The PCs are in a forest, and find a pegasus with its back leg trapped between two tree roots. She’s injured herself trying to escape. The pegasus is panicked, but if they can help her, she’ll offer to grab some buddies and fly them where they’re going. Hold on a minute, this is basically the same encounter as the last one! Down to the details! They’re both Medium Temperate Forest Monster Encounters. They both award 250 XP for helping the pegasus, and 0 XP (and an hour-long argument over whether people are “playing their alignments” properly”) if you kill the pegasus. They’re even adjacent numbers on the checklist! What happened here? I guess I’ll keep this version because flying the PCs somewhere is a better reward? It’s as good a reason as any, and I’m certainly not keeping both. 248: Heart's Hunters The PCs are walking along the side of a mountain or rocky hill. It’s one of those trails with a sheer cliff on one side. It’s actually not perfectly vertical, but slopes inward, apparently: there’s a 10-foot wide “sheltered area,” somewhat concealed with vines, at its base. There’s a peryton nest down there. The perytons attack the party two at a time, the three males trying to drive off or kill folks, the one female trying to grab someone and drag them down to the nest. Killing the female will cause the others to break, but they’ll stalk the PCs for revenge later. There’s about 270 gp in mostly small coinage (who carries around 1200 copper pieces other than PCs?) and a dagger +1 down in the nest. Well, it’s just a random combat encounter, but at least there’s a little terrain to make it (somewhat) more interesting. Points taken off for +1 weapon proliferation, as well. Keep, but just barely. 249: Scammed When the PCs are near a wizard’s tower, they are approached by the spellcaster himself, who, apparently not understanding basic economics, wants to hire them for 10,000 gp to retrieve a jade circlet worth 5,000 gp as a material component for a spell. He knows that a young dragon who lives in a cave nearby has one. The cave is “scattered with golden coins, various weapons, and scrolls,” (all of them actually “worthless copper and ordinary junk”) and the circlet is prominently displayed in the back. When the PCs go in, a HUGE dragon (actually the shapechanged wizard) lands outside. It offers to trade them the circlet and their lives in exchange for, basically, everything else they own. It’ll flee if attacked. What the hell, man? You’re an 18th-level wizard, and this elaborate, highly-dangerous scam is how you’re deciding to spend your time? I imagine the players would pile on the dragon and kill it, causing their rear end in a top hat DM to go red in the face. Then they’d go loot the tower. And honestly, even though I'm not a fan of the premise of this encounter, that is a pretty nice lead-in to a wizard’s tower dungeon. Is it worth it? Jury? 250: Piercers at the Gate There’s a ancient portcullis at the entrance to a “ruined castle or underground fortress.” It’s raised, and it’s been there so long that many of the teeth have been encrusted with stone. Some have broken off over the years. Many of them are actually piercers, but they’re not that good at staying exactly in a row, so it’ll look very strange to any PCs who study it. They’ll also notice a big gap in the teeth on the left side that they can safely pass under. It needs a rather specific setup, but other than that I like it fine. Keep. 251: Troubled Waters There’s an underground lake or river, and there must be no bridge over it, since the PCs are going over it on a boat. The ceiling is covered with piercers, who will drop and attack; if they miss, they may punch holes in the boat. Under the water are the remains of other victims, about 1500 gp in coinage and gems, and a potion of healing. “Piercers are mollusks and have no trouble existing underwater.” So… they’re so dense that they’ll punch holes in wooden rowboats, but they can swim? Seems strange. EDIT: It's been suggested that they must crawl along the bottom of the water and then up the walls. Makes sense, especially if they're above a relatively narrow underground river rather than a huge lake. And I would add some visible boat wreckage to give the PCs a clue. That in mind, I guess I it’s a keep. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Nov 29, 2017 |
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Nov 28, 2017 16:03
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1d3+4 random encounters are disgorged in this thread every day, due to the presence of a natural portal to the Elemental Plane of The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 42: The Deck of Puddings, (Tomie De) Paola, and PC Fatalities I admit, sometimes the alphabetization is a stretch. 252: Black on Black It’s a dark stone corridor with large frozen pools of water in it. One pool is actually a black pudding. But the PCs aren’t supposed to notice this, because the ice looks black against the dark stone as well. As they move past, the black pudding will lash out with tendrils. If they fight, it’ll try to ooze around them and cut off party members. The PCs may also slip on the ice. It’ll stop attacking if it gets one victim. There are “three small diamonds (600 gp)” in the pudding. Give the PCs some chance to notice the pudding, and I’m okay with it. It’s a relatively interesting combat terrain, which is good. Keep. 253: Pudding Peril In a dungeon, in a room with wooden flooring (uh… the abandoned mansion sort of dungeon, I guess), there's a black pudding down under the floorboards eating away at them. The compromised wood will collapse and dump a PC 2-3 feet below into the pudding. It's pretty dang deadly, actually - puddings aren't that bad when you can evade them or burn them out, but when one's right on top of you? Ouch. Considering that, I appreciate that the encounter awards 5000 XP instead of the Monstrous Manual-standard 2000. I also like that "the DM may choose to place a hidden door or passage beneath the wooden flooring." I'd definitely throw some extra secret passage into my dungeon map as recompense for dissolving some poor schmuck's armor (and also their legs). Keep. 254: I Am the Cheese This is a reskinned version of Strega Nona. Everyone’s read that story, right? Do I even need to describe what’s happening? It’s fondue, actually, so it’s hot and causes 1 hp damage per round if you’re in it. The PCs are intended to wade through the cheese for about 15 rounds until they can reach the magic pot. The command word is inscribed on it. (So why on earth couldn’t the apprentice stop it? Poor pronunciation?) On the one hand… the pot makes that much cheese, that quickly? Can we make more of these pots? How does that not warp the entire economy of the region and/or world? On the other hand, those are dumb nitpicks when you can run an encounter where a town is engulfed in fondue. Keep. 255: A Sticky Situation This is a Grimtooth-style trap. I can’t really reword it, so just take a look.  If your game supports elaborate dungeon deathtraps, this… certainly is one. Not my style, though. Pass. 256: Suspended Animation In a dark, narrow corridor, the PCs see a shabbily-armored man floating slowly towards them. He looks fuzzy and indistinct. It’s not a ghost, though - it’s an upright corpse being digested by a gelatinous cube that’s coming straight at them. But of course they might not realize that until it reaches them, because that is the conceit of the gelatinous cube. Keep. 257: Moss Grows Fast In a mossy cavern or chamber, there are not one, not two, but three green slimes hanging on the ceiling. “It will be very difficult for the party to spot the slimes, and they may only do so if PCs specifically state that they are examining the mosses above them.” They’ll drop down on any PCs that fall underneath and try to murder them in their unique, cheap-rear end way. This works in the kind of paranoid dungeoneering D&D game where the PCs burn all moss on sight, just in case. AD&D 2E doesn’t feel like that game to me. Or at least I don’t want it to be. Pass. 258: A Slimy Mess It’s a natural, but worked earthen chamber (but not completed, judging from the tools left around). There are (apparently fairly large) mounds of earth around, one of which has a two foot-long stone statue it. This exposes a green slime that has spread through a network of rodent tunnels within the mound, and it spills out on the PC. “This is not a trap and cannot be detected by a thief.” Because we really need to nerf 2E thieves, I guess. “However, if the PC states he is standing to the side as he frees the statue, there is only a 25% chance the slime will touch the character.” I guess if they don’t, it’s a 100% chance? Not a fan of green slime. The only interesting gameplay is the DM grinning maliciously while the PCs describe how they’re quickly setting their friend on fire. Pass.
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Nov 29, 2017 14:49
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Mors Rattus posted:So they realize the party's going to take the pot, right? The decanter of endless, burning hot cheese is a magic item anyone would want. Would you willingly make an enemy out of Strega Nona?
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Nov 29, 2017 15:19
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To kill the tarrasque, you must reduce it to -30 hit points and then use The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 43: The Deck of Players, Plants, and Remorhaz 259: It's Only a Game An urban encounter - the locals have cordoned off a street block for a game resembling street hockey without skates. The red team is one short, and tries to recruit the burliest PC. “Since the PC has no idea of the game’s rules, the red team constantly berates him - ‘You can’t cross the line ’til the ball does, you idiot!’ The black team looks on and laughs. The DM is encouraged to make up rules that the PC will violate. Any time the PC does anything, the team yells at him.”  Well, it was charming until then. I guess the idea is that the PC is purposefully being bullied? The XP award is 500 for participating, and “1000 for not being bullied, or a successful defense,” whatever that means. But let the PC make an Intelligence check to keep the rules straight or something! That’s a quick fix, though. Keep.260: Something Rotten The PCs are camped in a creepy swamp with “twisted trees” and stuff, and hear splashing coming from a nearby pool of water. It’s a submerged shambling mound trying to sneak up on them, and it’ll try to attack and suffocate any investigating PC and make its escape. If they don’t investigate the noise, it’ll slowly creep around and try to kill a sleeping PC, instead. It’s got a 1000 gp ruby necklace tangled up in its body. Half the card is devoted to reprinting the relevant special defenses and attacks of the creature. There’s some decent horror movie imagery here, though it would take a pretty good DM to actually scare jaded players with it. It’s just a monster attack, but I guess there’s enough staging here for me to keep it. 261: Fools Rush In There’s a cavern with a small waterfall flowing in from 50 feet above. The whole place is covered with damp, slippery mosses. The PCs notice glittering in the pool of water (an exposed vein of pyrite, yaaay), but when they go investigate it, a shambling mound will bust out of the hollow behind the waterfall where it lives and attack. It’ll “attack tenaciously, pursuing as long as the PCs remain underground.” There’s a bunch of coinage and some potions and a scroll in the lair. (That scroll must be in an extremely waterproof case.) Eh, both these shambling mound encounters are pretty bare-bones. I think I’ll pass on this one, because it demands that I dump it in an existing dungeon, and it wouldn’t necessarily be thematically appropriate for that. 262: Fire and Ice The PCs are traveling across an arctic plain, and see the snow and ice shift ahead of them. Two rounds later a remorhaz attacks them, rising in a cloud of steam. It’s hungry and attacks until slain or the PCs escape! Great. That flavor text is essentially the only new content. Much of the rest of the card repeats info from the Monstrous Manual - it swallows its target on a natural 20, anyone touching its scalding back takes 10d10 damage, etc. It claims the remorhaz is only affected by magical weapons, but that appears to be a misreading of its special abilities. Oh, it also says what’s in the remorhaz’s lair, five miles away - 2100 gp worth of valuables and a ring of warmth. Well, that’s a nice thing to find on an arctic plain. But pass. 263: Let Sleeping Dogs... “The party is working their way through a treacherous glacial pass in freezing cold weather.” The footing is treacherous and there’s only one narrow path. The card suggests the PCs could try a dangerous climb up and around the remorhaz, or wake it up with a distraction and then hustle past the area. Or they could try to fight it - they do have the best possible surprise round, after all - and be rewarded with 11,000 exp for killing it, as opposed to the 500 the card grants them for navigating past it. Oh, AD&D. You’re half-heartedly trying to incentivize avoiding combat and thinking outside the box, but you can’t quite bring yourself to not reward meaningless combat. (“But these things are really dangerous! Obviously the PCs should get much better at being murderhobos if they slaughter it, even if they have no good reason to do so!”)Anyway, keep. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Nov 30, 2017 |
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Nov 30, 2017 15:28
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Roll 1d20-6 to determine the quality of each card from The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 44: The Deck of Ropers, Rust Monsters, and Selkies 264: A Sticky Situation Not to be confused with #255: A Sticky Situation. This is a different situation. The PCs are in a natural cavern, and there’s a rockfall blocking their way, but one of the boulders is actually a roper. In fact, as they enter, the roper will pull aside a carefully placed small boulder and cause a small cave-in that blocks they way they came in, too. Then they It’s just a combat encounter, but there’s some staging to make it a little interesting. Keep. 265: Strangers in the Night Late at night in a forest "near a cliff face or rocky outcropping." Three ropers attack, because the PCs are in between them and the cave entrance they're trying to get to. That's pretty much it, though it means that if PCs figure out what the monsters are trying to do, they can just get out of the monsters’ way, and let them finish their migration in peace. These things have a 15-16 Intelligence… could they have… gone around or something? It's a pretty awkward setup. I mean, it's a random encounter that declares that the PCs are camping near a "network of caves." As soon as that comes out, it's going to be all "woah, we're near caves? We would have checked that poo poo out." "Uh, no, you just didn't notice them before." "Like hell I didn't! I'm a dwarf, I’m always keeping an eye out for caves and stuff! And we would have scouted the area before we set up camp!" Not worth it. Pass. 266: Dogged Pursuit In a dungeon or whatever, the PCs notice a rust monster scuttling and “trilling” behind them. It’s been digging out ore but is now following them like a lost puppy, or perhaps an aggressive, hungry squirrel at a tourist spot. It’s more than happy to eat whatever metal they feed it, and will stick around if fed. The card suggests that the “simplest and safest” method is to leave it with a big shield or something and then make an escape, but I’m sure 99% of PCs are going to try to befriend it and have a rust monster pet. Which is kind of awesome. Keep. 267: Armor, What Armor? “This encounter takes place in the chamber of a ruined castle or underground fortress.” Like, perhaps, in its... dungeons?!? The PCs find a pressure plate on the wall that opens a secret door. Two starved rust monsters rush out - they accidentally trapped themselves inside, and have long since eaten all the metal there. Attacking them won’t deter them, but throwing them a decently-sized meal will stave them off or, given 75 pounds of metal each (!), satiate them. On the floor of the room is 250 gp worth or small opals. Assuming I’m willing to use rust monsters at all (one of many creatures designed as a gently caress-you to players in the weird power-creep arms race that was early D&D), I kind of like this encounter. What was in the room in the first place? We will never know. Keep. 268: Pick-Up Line A young selkie named Elykre approaches the PCs in a tavern or whatever and asks to dine with them. She’s pushy about it but will also order a round of fine wine and expensive but odd food (oysters, fish with strawberry preserves, and chocolate cake, all foods that seals are well-known for eating in the wild). She’s trying to butter them up to ask for a favor - this was her first time out the sea, she stayed out too long, and now she’s got to rush back to her “home waters” (“a half-day’s hard ride”) before she’s stranded. She’ll only tell them what they need to know about her nature, and has a 1,000 gp pearl as thanks or payment. She’s also wearing bracers of defense AC 6 for some reason. I like some things about this, but if the PCs accept her offer (which they probably will), I can’t think of any particularly interesting ways to complicate the fetch-quest. I mean, I could have someone get in their way, and make them fight, but I’m not too interested in that. Honestly, it probably would have been more fun if the PCs encountered an extremely agitated seal honking about town, and had to piece things together from there. Maybe I’ll just go with that and keep it. 269: Accused at Sea The PCs are traveling across a sea or large lake, and their boat is accosted by a dozen selkies. Two of them were killed and two captured by adventurers recently, and they didn’t get a good look at the culprits. They’ll interrogate the PCs aggressively and demand to search the ship. If they’re allowed to, they’ll eventually apologize and let the PCs go, but if resisted they’ll overturn the boat. The card says Elkyre will show up and save them if they did the previous card, though. Is this… specifically her group of selkies? Because the PCs know whereabouts they lived - they dropped her off in her “home waters.” Well, whatever. “If the PCs can avoid combat, the selkies will give the party a small medallion allowing the them to ask for aid or shelter from anv selkie community.” But... they didn’t actually help the selkies. At all. That should be the reward for actually tracking down the murderers/kidnappers. Well, it’s not great, but I guess it’s fine. Keep. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Dec 1, 2017 |
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Dec 1, 2017 14:50
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JackMann posted:Thanks to your reviews, I've decided to write up some encounters for Pathfinder, with the hope that they'll actually be useable by a GM to plop into his games. Here's the first one. Cool! That would definitely be a keep if I was reviewing it - I like how there's an internal tension between doing the right thing and loading up on useful potions. I wouldn't necessarily even give any of the potions back to the PCs if they arrange for their return - sick people need those! The rep with that church and town is a much cooler reward. Of course, I also like that greedy enough PCs might just buy up all the potions without inquiring about their providence, and only find out later where they came from.
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Dec 2, 2017 02:51
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Unbeknownst to you, the last D&D campaign you played in was just your DM pulling random cards from The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 45: The Deck of Shadows and Spells A small set today, mostly for organizational reasons. 270: A Party Shadowed The PCs are in a “dangerous section of the city late at night,” and are passing by a small graveyard. That’s why the city is so dangerous - graveyards are horrible monster-spawning deathtraps! Case in point, four shadows start following the PCs, toying with them and trying to lure them into shadowy areas like dark alleys, and then they attack. They’ve got some treasure in one of the crypts: 1200 gp, a potion of speed to help the PCs break the sound barrier, and a periapt of health. Shadows in the middle of a city? Even under the best of circumstances, I never understand why shadows aren’t an unstoppable plague, a nation-destroying blight across the earth. If they’re perfectly capable of leaving this graveyard, there should be no city left at all. I dunno. I’ll say keep, I suppose, but barely. It’s just not very interesting. I’ll just say the shadows are a very, very new phenomenon, the first one showing up only a couple days ago, and that they’ve been grabbing one new recruit each night for inscrutable undead reasons. 271: Shadows in the Mist Near an old marshy graveyard at dusk. Six shadows attack. If three are destroyed, the rest will retreat, but attack again “if the PCs look for the shadows’ treasure.” (A few thousand gold in “the split trunk of a rotting oak.”) Interesting - as a PC, I wouldn’t have assumed the shadows even had treasure at all. I would, however, be DEMOLISHING this graveyard and every other one I encounter. Freaking undead-spawning danger zones. When I get my own domain, it’ll be 100% cremation and dumping the ashes into the sea. If we’re not coastal, we’ll find trade partners who are. Both of these encounters are “shadows attack, near a graveyard.” This one is even less interesting than the last, so pass. 272: Dancing Bait There’s a table in the middle of a dungeon room with a 10-charge wand of lightning on top of it, and also a frisky chest spell, that super-annoying enchantment from the Tome of Magic that makes an object grow legs and skitter away from any people who approach it. In this case it’ll skitter right down a hallway, around a bend, past a trap that will make a portcullis close behind pursuers, and straight into a mind flayer’s cave. (The table is bait.) Ridiculous, but not without the potential for entertaining gameplay. Keep.
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Dec 2, 2017 16:01
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TSR published a series of successful fantasy novels based on The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 46: The Deck of Slugs and Spectres 273: Slugfest The PCs are heading down a corridor that dead-ends. When they realize this, though, presumably by shining some light against that back wall, it opens its mouth and starts to move. It’s actually a giant slug that exactly fills the corridor and is “over 40 feet long.” (!) It’ll pursue them relentlessly, smashing through barriers and spitting acid as it goes (with weird extra rules about how likely it is to hit with that spit). I enjoy the occasional weird setpiece combat, and the idea of the PCs fleeing through a dungeon while a huge slug crashes through behind them makes me smile, no matter how little sense the ecology makes. Keep. 274: Heads Up There’s a spectre in an old castle or dungeon. Its bones are buried in the floor. It attacks the PCs with hit-and-run tactics, diving through cracks in the wall to escape, the result being that they can only attack it if they beat it at initiative on a round that it strikes. It’s just an unavoidable combat. The mechanics that help the spectre threaten the PCs are decently done, but I don’t think they’d be particularly interesting in actual play. Pass. 275: Kiss of Death In a ruined keep or castle, the PCs find a room with lots of rotted old clothes and jewelry, guarded by the spectre of the mistress of the keep. If they beat it there are some nice thematic treasures like gems, a philter of love, and a, uh, +2 dagger, longtooth. (Was this lady a gnome, or a halfling?) There are also some worthless jewelry and a doll which are the only things the spectre apparently actually cares about. If she’s just turned or whatever but not destroyed, she’ll pursue whoever has the jewelry and doll and try to reclaim them. Fairly nice flavor. Keep, maybe dropping the dagger, depending on the campaign and where it’s at. 276: Ghost of Honor A crazy spectre has declared the sewers underneath a city to be its kingdom. It’s interested in creating more spectres to serve as its court, but won’t leave the sewers for any reason. It’s got some treasure tucked away - 1150 gp worth of gold and gems, a potion of healing, and a potion of shadow control. The card says that the PCs either are poking around the sewers for their own reasons (unlikely but not out of the question), or they’re walking around an old area of the city and the street collapses and dumps them down there.  I’m cool with a spectre ruling the sewers. Not so big on dumping the PCs down there for no good reason. Keep the setup, but I might just plant rumors about odd happenings in the sewers and see if the PCs bite, rather than force the issue. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Dec 3, 2017 |
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Dec 3, 2017 15:58
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Rigged Death Trap posted:This is just zootopia isnt it Judy could have avoided a lot of flak by buying herself up a few more size categories. I mean, did she really need functional hands?
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Dec 4, 2017 14:50
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Female goons receive a -1 penalty to Strength, male goons receive a -1 penalty to Charisma, and non-binary goons receive The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 47: The Deck of Spiders, Storage Devices, Tanar’ri, and Tasloi 277: Welcome to My Parlor Not to be confused with #86: Step Into My Parlor. This is a different parlor. A phase spider has spun a web near a path through the forest, and she attacks. She tries to kill a party member, after which she'll drag them back to her web. It won't pursue more than a mile. The card boosts the word count significantly by repeating the rules for how a phase spider's attacks work, and repeating that it'll flee to the Ethereal if threatened. I'm not sure if that's convenient, or just padding. I'm leaning towards the latter. Once again, this is just a "Phase Spider - 1d4" encounter from a wandering monster table. Pass. 278: The Wizard's Bag The PCs find a painting of a wizard standing nonchalantly, holding a bag open towards the viewer. It’s a beautiful and lifelike painting probably worth 2,000 gp by itself. It’s also magic, though, because the bag in the painting functions as a bag of holding (currently empty). Bad for travel, good for decking out your stronghold. This card is useless for my purposes - I want a deck of short encounters I can throw in to break up gameplay or offer little side-adventures. This is a piece of treasure on a card. There’s a reason I never used the AD&D Trading Cards (although I owned those too). Pass. 279: Magical Safe In a wizard’s tower, noble’s keep, or whatever, there’s a painting of a woodland scene. It’s up against a wall that’s obviously a hallway or something on the other side, so people would think “No sirree, there certainly isn’t any room for a secret safe to be hidden behind that painting!” But there’s space for a portable hole! (It’s behind a little hidden door, so it’s not 100% immediately obvious if someone looks behind the painting.) Not really an encounter. Not really interested. Pass. 280: Road Warrior A rutterkin got some brownie points with a nalfeshnee, who gave it leave to go to the Prime and kill 100 humanoids. But why should the PCs care about that? A rutterkin is standing in the middle of the road, laughs and shambles towards them, will never give up pursuit, and now they have to fight it to the death for no apparent reason. Pass. 281: Antic Ambush Hmm. In the jungle, a group of 21 tasloi ambush the PCs to capture for food. The card spends some time trying to add detail, including a named leader (Hoogot), but most of it is just reworded mechanics from their Monstrous Manual entry (including the same weird omission where it’s not clear how the PCs actually get hit with a net. Do they make a save, or what?). Also, look. D&D is full of racism, a lot of which reflects horrible real-life cultural attitudes towards “non-civilized” peoples, simply off-loaded onto people with purple skin or dog-faces or whatever. I accept this, for the most part, as part of the genre. But I’m certainly not going to go out of my way to run an encounter where small spear-wielding jungle-dwelling humanoids who can talk to monkeys and apes “swarm” the PCs to try and cook and eat them for dinner, when I could just pass. 282: The Natives' Drums Way to reassure me with that title, card. It’s another tasloi ambush, this one at least following their Monstrous Manual description of how they like to operate. They set up a trip wire in an obvious “game trail” leading away from a monster lair, so when the PCs flee or emerge weakened from their fight with the monster, logs drop on ‘em. Then some tasloi drop on them from the trees, and the wasp-riders come in, and actually it’s potentially kind of brutal, depending on how beaten-up the PCs are to begin with. It holds more interest than the previous encounter, but after re-reading the tasloi monster entry, I think I’m fine just… not using them. Pass, or maybe keep and just turn them into some other humanoid race so it’s a little bit less pygmyriffic. P.S. To break free from the tasloi nets in the previous encounter, you needed a Bend Bars/Lift Gates roll. To free yourself from the logs in this one, you need to make a STR-4 check. Because AD&D.
Dallbun fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Dec 4, 2017 |
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Dec 4, 2017 14:59
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When a psionic character’s PSP total falls to zero, his defenses crumble and his mind is left open to The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 48: The Deck of Tritons, Tableaus and Time Bombs Look, they’re actually paintings, not tableaus, which are a completely different thing, but I’m trying really hard here, okay? 283: Fish Out of Water A triton got washed a half-mile inland by a tidal wave. Its legs are stuck under a rock, it’s barely surviving in a disappearing pool of saltwater, and it needs help. It will reward them with a coral dagger worth 100 gp. Ugh, I hate how this retroactively specifies something that happened. “The day before the encounter, there was a large tidal wave (caused by a quake).” But the PCs definitely did not notice either the earthquake or the tidal wave, no matter where they were the previous day. Still, if they’re in the middle of coastal overland travel, I guess I could just drop the earthquake now and have them run into the triton the next day. And I like the coral dagger - you just know someone is going to keep it around as cool character bling. Keep. 284: Trial by Triton The PCs are underwater, they wander into triton territory, where the locals try to capture them and then put them on trial. “During the trial the tritons will try to determine if the PCs intentionally trespassed or were treasure seeking.” If they’re found guilty, the penalty is all their stuff. If they’re found innocent, they get… nothing. Sorry for the trouble, I guess? We already went through one of these triton trials back in 90: Intruders. I still find this whole affair a little tedious, but this one is much better than the previous one. For one thing, the DM didn’t have to declare a shipwreck to put the PCs a the tritons’ mercy. Here, the PCs have the opportunity to surrender, or to flee or fight back if they prefer. Second, the only charge before was “trespassing,” a pretty dumb accusation when the humans are clearly shipwrecked and obviously don’t want to be there. The PCs needing to insist that, no, they are absolutely not murderhobo treasure hunters, is potentially more fun. Keep. 285: ...And Now I Feel Like I'm Being Watched In a spooooooky castle, house, etc, there’s a portrait of an admiral (the card gives it more description than that). It has striking eyes that seem to follow the PCs around. Anyone who gets too close needs to save or become obsessed with the eyes, giving them modest penalties to other stuff and causing them to fall into a fitful sleep that night. At which point the spectre of the admiral comes to kill them. I like this one - it feels like there’s a larger story here that the PCs are only intersecting with the very end of. Keep. 286: Seascape There’s a painting of a “doomed” ship on stormy seas. A hook slipped, so it’s hanging at 45 degrees. You can see the lighter patch on the wall where it’s supposed to be hung. If you right it, though, the water starts gushing out of the painting at high volume and force until the painting is turned 45 degrees again by two people with a combined strength of 30. Once you do, the painting shows a ship sailing on a placid ocean, after which presumably you can’t make it release water again, or else the PCs would have a really awesome (though extremely fragile) firehose. Will it “recharge” eventually and become stormy again? Who knows? The card doesn’t mention the possibility. Endearingly weird, in my mind. Keep. 287: A Most Attractive Painting This can happen anywhere a painting can be found. Do we need a new Terrain: Art Gallery category for these cards? Why are there so many of them? Anyway, it’s a painting of ten bandits attacking a unicorn. If you touch anything other than the frame, you’re sucked into the painting, and the bandits attack you, too. Kill all the bandits and the painting ejects everyone who came in, and it shows the unicorn standing triumphant around the dead bodies. I’d like this more if it wasn’t just a combat, or had any further effects at all. Pass, but I’m sure someone could come up with some ideas that would redeem it. 288: Time Bomb The PCs lay down to sleep and (with a WIS-3 check) notice an hourglass in the rafters with the last few grains slipping down. They have a few moments to respond before it explodes in a 5th-level fireball effect. Since this is for medium-level characters (levels 5-9), that’s not incredibly deadly, but it could light the place on fire. Maybe it was intended as a warning shot. It was planted by some of their enemies, of course. Keep.
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Dec 5, 2017 14:30
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Kurieg posted:Jesus poo poo it was a geocities page. That site just screams professionalism. Oh no, wait, that's me. It's me screaming.
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Dec 5, 2017 20:45
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Kurieg posted:1) That wasn't an official site, it was the line dev's personal page that he just dumped stuff on. 1) Yeah, it was his personal site, but he was presenting it as the copywritten work of a professional game designer, complete with threat of persecution [sic]. 2) It's true. And I have seen worse. There's nary an animated gif in sight.
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Dec 5, 2017 23:32
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