Module Playtest

Ran a playtest of the module I wrote. More than a couple of mistakes in there but nothing a even half assed competent DM couldn’t work through or around.

The characters were a Ranger, Wizard, Cleric, Paladin. Heavy on the healing obviously which was a good thing as the Paladin received a butt load of damage. Most of the encounters were easy enough for them, not trivial but no player deaths either. A couple of characters were down to negatives over the course of the evening but it was toward the end of the encounter rather than the start.

The first “warm up OMFG it’s a MMOG and we’re fighting gd rats again!?” fight against the rats was easy but it was really designed to be such and just get players used to their powers or more accurately, how to look at their powers, the order of combat, etc. Â  And for that it worked, easy fight, no pressure, able to look at everything.

The sewer scavenger’s was tougher as their Splashing Dive kept one of the characters blind off an on through most of the fight.  But they got their first little bit of loot afterwards which is always fun.

The non-combat episode with the purse revealed the paladin and cleric are both Lawful Good and are dead set on returning the loot even though the wizard is a greedy wench and kept trying to write down “Recovered purse with 2 platinum, x gold” and the paladin would correct her, “THREE platinum” on the the loot recovered sheet.  It was the Paladin that recovered the purse after the ranger tried and slipped and fell in to the muck.

The goblin encounter in particular was very easy, it didn’t really occur to me when I was designing it that all the goblins except the warriors were melee only and on that narrow catwalk that made them all semi-useless each round. From somewhere I had the impression the Blackblades had a ranged attack and during the design stage I was picturing them using the pillars to gain stealth and thus combat advantage and thus their extra damage.  But it didn’t happen.

The warriors Great Position ability and Mobile Range attack’s did the most damage although a blackblade got a bluff feint in on the paladin to get combat advantage and got some really decent damage on him but in general the ranger twin-striked them while the cleric’s Guardian of Faith prevented any of the melee’s from coming against the ranger from that direction.  Oh they could have come at the ranger but they’d of had to end their turn next to the GoF and would have died as a result.  Suicidal they’re not.  The paladin held the other path and along with copious healing kept everyone safe from there while they whittled the opposition down.  One of the blackblades and a cutter made a break for it once it got really bad and the Ranger was able to Twin Strike the blackblade in the back before it could get away.  The cutter on the other hand vanished.  The party swiftly looted the goblins and picked up on the physical clues that the goblins are probably the source of the missing people above. Not sure if they picked up on some of the more subtle hints but that’ll come in time I’m sure.  They moved on quickly afterwards after having elected to not take up the chase of the cutter who was surely going to get more goblins.  Surely.  Also because they killed everyone or let them go they didn’t pick up on the Lost Maid side quest and as a result her body will be forever lost in the bowels and bellies of the rats and sewer worms.

The toughest fight by far was the two rat swarms and the ‘tainted’ dire rat down in the tombs. The party was trapped between the two rat swarms and the swarm aura + ongoing damage on top of everything else was pretty vicious. The half damage from ranged and melee as well didn’t help at all and it was looking pretty grim there toward the end.  I went for the outrage factor and had the tainted rat charge up to them once he was low on health, I did have the player fighting it in melee a chance to notice it’s belly was pulsing and swollen (ala Boomer) but they failed.  But when it did explode upon death the front rank was able to dodge the enusing blast of necrotic gooey energies that were released. Â  During most of the fight at least one of the charaters was covered in rats and taking the on-going damage.  It didn’t help much that I was rolling better than average for the most part.

It was bad enough that once they got to the tomb at the end of the passage and saw the little cut scene they decided to go tell the authorities about their findings. “Uh uh, that ain’t an encounter for level 1′s!”

So the four of them retreated and informed the authorities, their guild masters or the Watch as appropriate about their findings earning quite a bit of exp ending up just shy of level 2.

They did walk out with two magic items, the oh so valuable Bag o’ Holding and a +1 Thundering Sling which was fortuitous since the cleric actually preferred slings. Although they never hit anything with it after they found it an used it occasionally and some gold and a jewel so it wasn’t too bad for them.  More treasure was waiting in the final encounter but for good or ill they elected to play it cautiously and retreat away from that and call in the big guns.   They do know me after all, one of them has been a player in my campaigns for over 20 years now and knows what to expect.  He’s also the one that coined the phrase, “What are you going to next?  Key our cars in the parking lot?!” after one particularily grevious end campaign session (they all lived by the way).

Next time I’m going to go with my original campaign starter idea which involves the outdoors, a farm and a chaotic mass battle with integral skill challenges during the combat. Â  This little session was just an off the cuff kind of thing.

Image Credits et al.

D