2E Rise of the Runelords - Session 3

Note that there are spoilers for Paizo's Rise of the Runelord adventure path.

Session 3: The Glassworks

This adventure happened in mid-November and featured:
- Kobb “One Tusk”, the half-orc mercenary,
- Toran Stargazer, the young thief from Magnimar,
- Goalrath Shadowmoon, the elven cleric of Sarenrae
- Asreal Nom, the savage human ranger, and
- Vardinil, the elven fighter/magic-user.

Summary: The party explores the glassworks, rescues Ameiko and learns a bit about what is going on.

I. Goblins in the Glassworks: Session 3 began with our heroes quickly dispatching eight goblins with the aid of a well placed sleep spell. Unfortunately, two goblins that avoided the effects of the spell fled through a nearby door. Looking around the room the players saw the body of an old man who had been killed and had molten glass poured over him.

II. Rescuing Ameiko: Continuing on the party found some stairs down into the basement where they slew Tsuto and rescued Ameiko. She told the characters that Tsuto was working for his new love Nualia and that they were going to destroy the village and slaughter the inhabitants. They found Tsuto's journal which had a number of disturbing revelations. They also discovered a passage way that led to a cave complex below the Old Light - an old ruin which looks like a huge lighthouse.

After taking Ameiko to safety, the characters returned to the cave complex where they battled a number of fearsome aberrations (Sinspawn). Kobb was seriously injured (-2 hit points, another house rule) so the party returned to the surface and found aid for him at the Cathedral.

The party then spoke with a few NPCs to try to learn as much as they could about the origins of the cave complex. The local sage, Brodert Quink, told them about his theory that the Old Light was a ruin from the ancient empire of Thassilon and that it was an enormous war machine capable of hurling fire more than a mile.

The session ends with the party making plans to return to the cave complex.

Body Count: The party killed eight goblins, Tsuto and two Sinspawn.

Treasure: Once again this session was too long ago for clear recollection but I believe that the bulk of what was recovered was Tsuto's possessions.

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DM Notes:

In the published adventure Tsuto is a half-elf multiclassed as a rogue/monk in the adventure. I don't have a good 2E monk class so I re did him as a 3rd level thief with the assassin template. He was equipped with blinding powder, a shortbow with 3 arrows with type A poison and 15 normal arrows, 2 potions of healing, a ring of protection +1, and a fragile glass vial filled with type J poison. Unfortunately, I was rolling poorly so the party quickly took him out even with a couple of goblin helpers.

The other conversion was the Sinspawn - another new creature in the adventure.

Sinspawn
No. Appearing: 2-8
AC: 7
Mv: 9
HD: 3
THACO: 17
No. Attacks: 2 claws & 1 bite
Damage: 1-4/1-4/1-6 + wrathful bite
Special Attacks: Wrathful Bite - save vs poison or be affected as a Confusion spell for 1d6 rounds.
Special Defenses: Spell Immunity - immune to sleep, charm and hold spells. Sneaky - opponents have a -2 penalty to their surprise roll.
Magic Resistance: Nil
Size: Medium
Morale: Fearless (20)

Rise of the Runelord - 2E Specialty Priests for Sarenrae

In our 2E Rise of the Runelords campaign, we are using the deities from Paizo's Golarion and specialty priests instead of generic clerics. However, I am just making them up as required relying on the Complete Priest's Handbook (CPH) for the templates. The first specialty priest we needed was for Sarenrae as one of the beginning PCs was a priest of that deity. The goal isn't to come up with an exact mechanical conversion of the 3.5E version but instead a quick, workable 2E version with roughly the same flavour.

Sarenrae
THE DAWNFLOWER
Goddess of the sun, redemption, honesty, and healing

Minimum Ability Scores: Wisdom 12 and Intelligence 12. Wisdom or Intelligence 16 or great is +5% XP, Wisdom and Intelligence 16 or great is +10% XP.

Races Allowed: Elves, gnomes, half-elves, halflings and humans.

Required Nonweapon Proficiencies: Healing

Recommended Nonweapon Proficiencies: Herbalism, Navigation, Reading/Writing, Religion, Spellcraft.

Weapons Permitted: Scimitar (Favoured), Bows (all), Crossbows, Dagger/Dirk, Dart, Javelin, Knife, Spear.

Required Weapon Proficiencies: Scimitar

Armour Permitted: All armours and all shields

Spheres: Major - All, Divination, Healing, Necromantic, Sun. Minor - Charm, Elemental (priests can only use spells with the words Fire, Flame, Heat or Pyrotechnics in the title), Plant, Protection.

Additional Powers:
- Detect Secret Doors as Elf.
- Infravision as Elf (if race has infravision then double range).
- Turn Undead
- Can cast Quest as a 4th level spell.
- 3rd Level: Flame Blade, the priest can use this spell once per day in addition to his other spells. At 6th level twice per day, 9th level three times per day, etc.
- 5th Level: Laying on of Hands as Paladin.
- 10th Level: Chariot of Sarenrae, same as Chariot of Sustarre. The priest can use this spell once per day in addition to his other spells.

New Spell: Shield of the Dawnflower (Elemental), 4th Level Priest Spell - As Fire Shield wizard spell.

For the most part this is the same as the the Sun Specialty Priest from the Complete Priest's Handbook. The major adjustments are:
1. allowing the scimitar,
2. Quest as a 4th level spell instead of 5th,
3. adding Flame Blade, and
4. removing the Prophesy ability.

Red Box Calgary wiki

Inspired by the New York Red Box and Red Box Vancouver groups, I have been working on a similar idea here in Calgary.

I have spent the last couple of days working on a new wiki at Red Box Calgary. I'm not going to lie - this was no small step for me as I am a bit of a dolt when it comes to computers.

Next I am going to try to spread the word. If I can get a couple of people interested I am hoping to schedule the first session in February.

2E Rise of the Runelords - Session 2

Note that there are spoilers for Paizo's Rise of the Runelord adventure path.


Session 2: The Heroes of Sandpoint
This adventure happened in mid-November and featured:
- Kobb “One Tusk”, the half-orc mercenary,
- Toran Stargazer, the young thief from Magnimar,
- Asreal Nom, the savage human ranger, and
- Vardinil, the elven fighter/magic-user.

Summary: The party explores the village of Sandpoint, meets some residents and tries to figure out what is going on.

I. Noble Favours: The session picks up where the first session ended - battling goblins. The characters rescue a local noble, Aldern Foxglove, from a large goblin who was riding a fierce, hairless, dog-looking creature. Nobleman Foxglove subsequently rewards the party and take a particular interest in Asreal who stood toe-to-toe with the goblin and placed himself directly between the goblin and Aldern. He invites Asreal on a boar hunt and to his residence in Magnimar. Asreal gently but firmly declines.

II. Heroes Around Town: While investigating how the goblins entered to village, the party was received as heroes wherever they went. Word of their prowess at repelling the goblins had spread amongst the villagers.

While discussing the attack with Sheriff Hemlock and Father Zantus it is discovered that the grave of the former head priest, Father Tobyn, who died in the fire five years ago was dug up and the remains stolen during the attack. Next to the excavated gravesite was the grave of Nualia Tobyn and on it was fresh flowers.

III. Compromising Positions: The young rogue, Toran was approached by an attractive Shayliss Vinder, daughter of the owner of the General Store. She asked him to help her get rid of some huge rats in the basement of the store. When he went into the basement, her true motivation became apparent with a cot set up in the back corner. After a few amorous moments, Shayliss' large father came down the steps and discovered young Toran in a compromising position. A good tumbling check later, Toran was past Ven Vinder and fleeing up the stairs without his pants.

IV. The Protectors of Sandpoint: Sheriff Hemlock asked the party for a meeting at the village garrison. There he introduced them to Shalelu, an elven ranger and unofficial scout for the village. He asked the party to stay in the village and keep up a high profile while he travelled to the nearby city of Magnimar to get some troops to protect against any further goblin raids.

A few days later, a servant at the inn where most of the party was staying came and asked them for help. It seemed that the innkeeper, an exotic lady named Ameiko, had gone missing and a suspicious letter from her estranged brother, Tsuto, was found in her room. Following the lead in the note, the party searches the family's glassworks and finds the workers slaughtered and goblins frolicking amongst the gore in the workroom.

The session ended just as the party engaged the goblins in combat.

Body Count: Besides the opening combat this was a roleplaying heavy session. The party killed a Goblin Commando and a Goblin Dog. The party took no casualties.

Treasure: This session was too long ago for me to accurately recall what the party recovered. I do know they were paid a reward by Aldern Foxglove.

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DM Notes: The initial encounters for Rise of the Runelords are with Goblins so the conversion has been pretty straight forward. Of course, the published adventure has a number of classed goblins and I wanted to retain some of the flavour so I have given some of the goblins special abilities. There is also a Goblin Commando riding a Goblin Dog which is a new monster in the adventure.

Goblin Warrior 1 = Normal 2E Goblins
Goblin Warchanter = Normal 2E Goblins + the ability to use the spell Taunt twice per day + armed with a whip
Goblin Commando = Goblin Leader as per 2E Goblin entry.

Goblin Dog
No. Appearing: 2-12
AC: 7
Mv: 15
HD: 1
THACO: 19 (note that for monster I use the simple formula of Thaco = 20 - HD)
No. Attacks: 1 bite
Damage: 1-6 + allergic reaction
Special Attacks: Allergic Reaction - Any non-goblinoid creature that is damaged by a goblin dog’s bite attack must make a save vs poison or break out in an itching rash. Any creature affected by this rash takes a – 2 penalty to Dexterity and Charisma for 1 day.
Special Defenses: Nil
Magic Resistance: Nil
Size: Medium
Morale: Average (10)

My 2E AD&D Rise of the Runelords Campaign

Back in November, I began a 2E AD&D campaign running Paizo's Rise of the Runelords adventure path. I have been making a few posts over at Dragonsfoot about the campaign but I have decided to make some blog posts here as well. We are now six sessions in and I am really enjoying it.

We are about 2/3rds of the way through the first instalment and the adventure is quite good. We will see how it holds up as we go as we are not far enough along to have to deal with some of the issues involved with running an adventure path.

The group is made up of two players that I have been playing with for some time now and three new players. I have to admit that I am quite happy with how the group has meshed. So far this has been the funnest group I have had in a while.

Rules, Initial Character Generation and the First Session

Rules
For rules we are using:
2E Core
+ some of the Optional rules in the PHB
+ the Complete Handbooks (all material used from these must be vetted first)
+ some house rules

The house rules are basically:
- Humans gain two additional nonweapon proficiencies
- Ambidexterity, Blind-fighting and Two-Weapon fighting (and maybe a few more) can only be taken as Weapon Proficiencies instead of Nonweapon proficiencies
- Material components for spells are abstracted. Arcane materials have been added to the equipment list. They are the catchall for material components for spells. If your wizard casts a spell that requires a 100 gp pearl, I am not going to make sure you have it on your equipment list but I do want you to make sure you have at least 100 gp of Arcane Materials on your character sheet which can be used. If no cost is given for material components the cost will be 10 times the spell level in gps.

Initial Character Generation
We used 4d6, drop lowest and each player rolled two arrays. The player then got to choose which array they wanted to use. The resulting PCs were:

- Kobb One Tusk, a half-orc fighter with the sell-sword kit and specialization with a spear.

- Goalrath Shadowmoon, an elven cleric of Sarenrae (a Sun specialty priest from Complete Priest's Handbook plus allowed to use a scimitar and a few other minor changes).

- Vardinil, an elven fighter/magic-user. I allowed him to spend a couple of weapon proficiencies to be able to cast spells while wearing chainmail. He still has to make an INT check with a penalty equal to the spell level. If he fails he loses the spell. The player has also been warned that I reserve the right to screw with his character if he rolls a "1".

- Asreal Nom, a human ranger (Shoanti for those who are familiar with Paizo's world of Golarion).

- Toran Stargazer, a human thief focused on breaking and entering instead of traps and combat.

First Session
Following character generation the players wanted to get right to the action so we began a short session.

All of the characters were in the village of Sandpoint enjoying the Swallowtail Festival. Toran and Goalrath were eagerly awaiting the dedication of the new cathedral that had been built to replace the old chapel that was destroyed by fire five year ago. Kobb was enjoying some ale. Asreal was scanning the crowd. And Vardinil was listening to the speeches.

Suddenly the festival was interrupted by goblins rampaging through the streets - setting fires, butchering dogs and terrorizing villagers. The characters quickly joined forces and battled the goblins.

The quick session ended after the characters had defeated two different groups of goblins and were about to confront a goblin riding a fierce, hairless, dog-looking creature.

Pit of Tortured Souls Housecleaning

I have updated the download links for the first two sections of the Pit of Tortured Souls which I completed a long time ago.

Level 1A: Citadel of the Amazons
Level 1B: Kobold Warrens

I have recently felt the urge to complete more of this. We will see if it lasts long enough to complete Level 2A: The Foul Fortress.

Red Box Calgary?

Belated Happy New Year.

I hope you and yours had a great holiday season. My family had a wonderful break not withstanding the stomach flu bug which swept through our household between Christmas and New Years.

During the break I had lots of opportunity to read gaming related stuff. I went back through my collection of Fight On! and Knockspell magazines. There really is a bunch of great stuff in those.

One thing I have been considering during the break is setting up some form of "Old School" group along the lines of New York Red Box and Red Box Vancouver.

I have been talking to the event coordinator at The Sentry Box here in Calgary and it seems that most Sunday afternoons are pretty open in terms of table space on the mezzanine level and Thursday evenings are open in their after hours room.

Last year I was also talking to the owner of Revolution Games and he was also very open to having games run in the store. It's not quite as convenient as Sentry Box but could provide some flexibility.

I am pretty sure I could drum up some interest from some of the old Northern Marches group. I have also been working on a poster to put up at Sentry Box and other LFGS. I will likely mention it on the forums for the local D&D Meet-up group but I don't expect a lot of interest from that front.