Was The Party Doomed From The Start?

[archangel.arcanis]

So a new politically motivated game set elsewhere in the setting. Are any of the players reusing their old characters or are they all rolling up new ones?

If you are going to have a keep for them I would draw up a basic floor plan and look at the Stronghold Builder's Guide. While it is a 3.0 book it focuses just on strongholds like that and can be the basis for them improving their new home. I would say one of them needs to jump on thrallherd just to get some serfs for the place too.

[InnaBinder]

So I take it the dead ones rolled up new guys, or did the other PCs recover the bodies and resurrect them?

Everyone rolled up shiny new characters.

I plagiarized borrowed a lich's castle schematic from a quick Google search, added a cellar/dungeon, second story, and wizard's tower and called it sufficient.

None of the players is going the Thrallherd route.  They all said they wanted a more social game... then the majority of them rolled up some variety of sneaky, rogue-type character.    I'm sending along a healing-oriented Ardent to be an adviser to the lucky winner of the keep, just so the party Bard doesn't have to do all the healing.  The Ardent won't be doing any fighting, just shoring up HPs and ability damage after any excitement happens.  It'll be interesting, hopefully.

[archangel.arcanis]

Well since they rolled up a bunch of sneaky characters maybe they plan on doing some espionage. You may want to put that out there as an option for them. The bard will obviously have a good time being a face for them.

Will you make them actually manage their lands? I could see it interesting to make them have to deal with servants that want better pay and some blighter screwing up their bottom line by killing some crops. Then again they may just say the hell with it and break the economy to pay everyone off.

[InnaBinder]

Well since they rolled up a bunch of sneaky characters maybe they plan on doing some espionage. You may want to put that out there as an option for them. The bard will obviously have a good time being a face for them.

Will you make them actually manage their lands? I could see it interesting to make them have to deal with servants that want better pay and some blighter screwing up their bottom line by killing some crops. Then again they may just say the hell with it and break the economy to pay everyone off.

Yes, the plan is to work espionage and counter-espionage into the plot.  I had various shadowy figures contact each of the party members, asking for intel on the events at the newly-won keep for various needs.  I also told the players that these were requests, not mandates, but accepting or rejecting the requests would bring about consequences.  Additionally, I will be encouraging the actual management of the lands and keep, but I foresee a fine line between managing the keep and 'let's play Farmer: the RPG!' that I'll have to watch out for.

[archangel.arcanis]

make them keep the books, and keep a set yourself too. They can figure out how much income they have and how much they are paying workers. If they are spending more than they are making have them pull money from their pockets, and the reverse would be true too.

I wouldn't worry about lets play farmer unless the party is micromanaging everything. They should only have to deal with major issues like a bunch of their peons disappearing rather than some wolves attacking the sheep.

[Sunic_Flames]

So a new politically motivated game set elsewhere in the setting. Are any of the players reusing their old characters or are they all rolling up new ones?

If you are going to have a keep for them I would draw up a basic floor plan and look at the Stronghold Builder's Guide. While it is a 3.0 book it focuses just on strongholds like that and can be the basis for them improving their new home. I would say one of them needs to jump on thrallherd just to get some serfs for the place too.

Don't look at the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. It makes you worse at building strongholds than if you didn't have it. Seriously. Just like Complete Warrior, it was better off not being printed.

I'll paraphrase why this is so.

"So you're a mid level Wizard. You want to build a stronghold, so you cast a bunch of Walls of Stone, then start using Stone Shape and Fabricate and such to fill the place out... STOP! According to the SBG, doing all the work yourself, with free resources gives you a discount! Not, you're doing it all so it costs nothing but your time, but you still have to set tens of thousands of gold on fire because GIANT FROG. It's just about 20% or 30% less tens of thousands. No really. Why? Because you have to pay random peasants to break the nice stone walls you conjured up and then cobble them back together..."

Seriously. Just assume they can do that shit for free, even if they can't. No matter how sweet a house it is, it's just fluff at the end of the day.

[McPoyo]

Both the DMG2 and the Forgotten Realms Powerof Faerun book go into pretty decent detail about ways to involve pcs as landlords and castle owners.

[archangel.arcanis]

I said to use the book as a basis as it does have some useful information/ideas in there. The book talks about the cost since this is supposed to provide the character who is building it an advantage, it really doesn't but it is WotC we are talking about they are the people retarded people make fun of.

So what happens when the PCs find a vein of some precious metal on their property? The book at least gives you an idea about that based on the strongholds value.

In short rather than shitting on the book raid it for useful tidbits and leave the rest.

[Havok4]

I like the SBG for the way it lets you get various stationary enchantments in your building. Some of those are really neat ways to get have a magic castle.

[McPoyo]

And it's the only book containing Obdurium, iirc.

[pixledriven]

http://www.birthright.net/

Some fans updated the Birthright campaign to 3E. Not sure how good/bad/complete it is, since I never played Birthright and haven't really read the update. However, I do know that it at least had many systems for managing a city/province/kingdom and mass battle rules, so it may come in handy.

[archangel.arcanis]

And it's the only book containing Obdurium, iirc.

Didn't Stormwrack have it too? Checking now.

Nope not in there. I was thinking Obdurium was Riverine.

[braininthejar]

I once almost killed my party like this with a simple 'entangle' (They were low level and trapped in tactically sucky position) Thanks gods for a priest with a travel domain...

[Littha]

I once killed a party with a Vrock's dance of ruin... they were more concerned about the random fodder summons than the three of them dancing with their hands linked...



Me: Ok you kill the first Dretch in one hit, through the mess you just created you see the three master demons join hands and begin to dance and chant.
BSF: right, I charge the next dretch.
Me: Its dead
Wizard: Magic missile on the next one
Me: Also Dead
Cleric: Cure Moderate Wounds on BSF
Me: He heals Xhp
Rogue: Sneak attack the next one
Me: You kill it, you see the big demons begin dance faster.
Wizard: Lets finish these off and then take those out


One round later:
Me: The Demons finish their dance of ruin, you all take 20d6 damage, reflex half.
Whole group fails, rogue got a natural 1.
All dead...

Group: WTF, you cant just do 20d6 damage. Thats not fair.
Me: It takes three rounds to charge and can be stopped by killing, stunning or paralysing any one of them... You cant say I didn't warn you
Group: ...

[Epimetheus]

And this... is what Spellcraft checks are for.

If the enemy does something really strange, it might be time to check what they're up to. They pretty much deserved this one.

[Littha]

And this... is what Spellcraft checks are for.

If the enemy does something really strange, it might be time to check what they're up to. They pretty much deserved this one.

Its not a spell... its an Su.

This is sort of confused by the fact there is a spell called dance of ruin but that is nowhere near as lethal.

[Epimetheus]

And this... is what Spellcraft checks are for.

If the enemy does something really strange, it might be time to check what they're up to. They pretty much deserved this one.

Its not a spell... its an Su.

This is sort of confused by the fact there is a spell called dance of ruin but that is nowhere near as lethal.

Oh. Well, they still could've been more careful.

[archangel.arcanis]

And this... is what Spellcraft checks are for.

If the enemy does something really strange, it might be time to check what they're up to. They pretty much deserved this one.

Its not a spell... its an Su.

This is sort of confused by the fact there is a spell called dance of ruin but that is nowhere near as lethal.

Just change Spellcraft to Knowledge (planes or religion) whichever the DM feels Vrock better fall under to know them dancing is going to ruin your day.

[Gods_Trick]

  Sometimes I give passive checks to PCs with high Int or Wis in situations like these.

[veekie]

  Sometimes I give passive checks to PCs with high Int or Wis in situations like these.

I give passive knowledges and senses. It's easier all round.