Doom of Savage Kings in 15 minutes **** Spoilers****

[Rostranor]

Party approaches Hirot.

After trying to extort the Jarl for solving his problem the party scares off the commoners and tell the Jarl that they will take the sacrifices place and combat the hound.

The party ambushes the hound.

The elf spell burns and casts ropework to constrict the beast, raise him 25 feet and then slam him into the ground repeatedly.

Adventure Ends.

( I actually had the Hound go Gaseous and as a chaotic beast be able to slip the rope. I freakin hate rope work. My players are casting that spell for everything on everything all the time. )

[Ravenheart87]

My players rescued the sacrificial girl, became friends with the innkeeper, found out the cheating with the names, asked the witch to create a rope from dead men's hair, killed the monster once, then next night at the circles tied it (it broke free multiple times) and killed it. Then they started a revolt with the warriors and paesants on their side, which resulted in the death of the jarl and his seer. Now the innkeeper is Hirot's jarl and they are planning to visit the dungeon too, just for fun.

[Rostranor]

Raven,
Thanks for the post. I was really looking forward to running this adventure and reading yours made me feel better about the wrecking balls that were unleashed.

[GnomeBoy]

...and then slam him into the ground repeatedly.

Is that 'slam' as in 'drop'? If the beast has 4d12 hp and a 25' drop does 2d6 (3d6? 2.5d6?) that process would take awhile*.

Plus the Hound can fly, which I'd consider ruling means he could act against the rope and potentially mitigate it's effects with his move action.

And the Hound could use all of it's Action dice to slash the rope to pieces, eh?



* The spell says it can lift at a speed of 50' per round, so perhaps it could also lower things held at that speed and make the 'drop' equivalent to a 50' drop and do 5d6 per round. That's still on average a couple of rounds -- and with assuming the Hound doing nothing to counteract the rope.

[Skyscraper]

Party approaches Hirot.

After trying to extort the Jarl for solving his problem the party scares off the commoners and tell the Jarl that they will take the sacrifices place and combat the hound.

The party ambushes the hound.

The elf spell burns and casts ropework to constrict the beast, raise him 25 feet and then slam him into the ground repeatedly.

Adventure Ends.

( I actually had the Hound go Gaseous and as a chaotic beast be able to slip the rope. I freakin hate rope work. My players are casting that spell for everything on everything all the time. )

Doesnt the hound raise every night even if killed? Why did your adventure end after it was killed?

[Rostranor]

The potential for the adventure is there. IF the hound is slain while bound it dies.

The entry for the hound says it has 20HP. Two first level characters can do that much damage in one round.

(My adventure didn't end there. I was reflecting on the possibility that it could. I was trying to run something a little different for my group and it was more like DANCE SCREEN MONKEY DANCE, snatch and grab and extort every NPC we find.

[Rostranor]

So my group wrapped up the Doom of Savage Kings last night and one of my players was so excited posted a summary on his Facebook. I thought I would share it here:


I made a post about our game last night on FB, and thought I'd share it with you guys. Sorry if I got any character names/details wrong.
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There are few things better than a Natural 20 when you really need it.

Last night in Dungeon Crawl Classics:

Our party consists of my wizard Thulgar, a human warrior known only as The Butcher, a warrior named Dahd, a dwarf named Topal, and an elf named Falcon. Their trusty companion is Gobwin the goblin.

The party had met Gobwin in a dungeon, and impressed by their prowess (and grateful they had not killed him), he has followed the party ever since. He saved himself when he pointed out that, unlike his companion, he spoke Common (and could therefore follow our commands). We decided Gobwin’s companion, whose name is lost to history, if he ever had one, would be the first thrown to the traps. The poor soul didn’t last long. Let that be a lesson, goblin kids: stay in school.

Our party had taken it upon ourselves to free the village of Herot from a rampaging hell-wolf. The villagers had faced the terrible choice: sacrifice an innocent every few days, or face the demon’s wrath every night. They had chosen human sacrifice!

In a dark tomb crawling with undead and littered with traps we retrieved the Spear of the Wolf, which a witch had told us would pin the hell-wolf to this plane of existence. Thus pinned, we could kill the beast good before its soul escaped to fight another day.

As we returned to town from the tomb, the Jarl’s men attacked us. Though it took some doing, we put them down, with an assist from my wizard and his Choking Cloud spell. After casting his spell, Thulgar (and the dwarf, who was down to 1 HP after fighting zombies while a trapped room was collapsing) stood back and let the Butcher and others handle the riff-raff. (Read: I rolled badly and lost my spells).

We were none too pleased with this development. We took shelter in a hunting lodge and licked our wounds, swearing vengeance upon the Jarl.

In the flickering light from the fireplace, Thulgar studied his spellbooks and prepared for the coming day.

The next night we climbed upon the hill where in days past sacrifices had been made to sate the appetite of a demon from the hells. Blood stained the standing stones. As the wind whistled through the stones, you could almost hear the screams on the innocent.

We awaited our prey.

Suddenly, over the wind we heard a terrible howling coming from the village! We rushed to the gate, but the guards would not let us in. Thulgar raised his hands and at his command fire burst from them to blast the wooden gate. After that, they decided to let us in.

Cut to after we took care of the hell-wolf. We saw the Jarl standing before his hall upon a hill, looking daggers at us. We tried to rally some townsfolk to our side, but they weren't sure the wolf was dead, and cowered in their homes.

Thus, alone we few stalked up the hill to find a Thane standing before the door to the Jarl’s hall. "We demand to see the Jarl!" Dahd shouted. "I can't let you in," the Thane replied, and went down with one blow from the warrior’s mighty fist.

Drawing his sword, Dahd kicked the doors in. Torches along the walls revealed a long table. At its head stood the Jarl, next to him his sniveling advisor, and around the table stood his remaining Thanes. Weapons were drawn, and the fight was on!

A few minutes later, things were not looking good for the party. In retrospect, confronting the Jarl immediately after battling the wolf was not the wisest course, as we were wounded and winded. Although the elf had slain the advisor with a rope use spell, summoning a rope from the rope dimension, wrapping it around the advisor and slamming him into the ground, The Butcher and Dahd were down, slumped across the table atop of which they had been fighting. The Jarl and most of his Thanes still lived, the Jarl directing his men from the head of the table. Torpal was fighting for her life, and Falcon was engaged with a Thane at the doors while more guards advanced upon the hall.

Thulgar’s back was to the wall, three Thanes advancing upon him. He briefly considered escape, but saw no safe way out. Besides, he couldn’t leave his comrades. The wizard drew an ornate dagger with strange markings upon it and stabbed it into his left bicep, cutting himself down to the wrist. Blood flowed freely, and, drawing upon its power, he augmented his spell of Choking Cloud. The torches dimmed and Thulgar opened his mouth, coughing out horrid fumes which flew upon all of the foes in the room, striking them dead on the spot. (Read: I sacrificed 20 attribute points and also rolled a natural 20 to get the highest possible spell result). A moment later the choking clouds flew out the window to slay the foes outside the hall, even then advancing upon the party.

A moment before, all had seemed lost. Now the party stood amongst the corpses of the Jarl and his greatest Thanes.

Among the dead, sadly, was The Butcher, who had been with the party since the beginning.

Thulgar leaned against the wall and used his bloody dagger to cut a piece of his robe to staunch his wounds. His skin was pale, his breathing shallow. “What now?”

[cthulhudarren]

I insist that spellburn be limited to a set number of points per turn. First level wizard can only spellburn 1 per action, So if you want to spell burn 3 points, you can need to spend several rounds in ritual. Any interruption during this time ruins the spell.

I'm thinking of these rules:

1) A wizard can not spellburn more points than they have total hit points.
2) You can only spellburn a max of one point per action.


This would prevent folks going nova and being too OP at first level. I need to playtest these rules.

[Gameogre]

Well,I would say house ruling a limit to it would cut down on all the sudden dramatic spell results but...it does come at cost as it is and at least to my thinking,makes magic truly a fearful force.

[Rostranor]

Spell burn, as in this example case above, snatches defeat from victory and is dramatically appropriate.

I say let them burn away!

[Skyscraper]

I think that as long as a price is paid for the spellburn, it's fine. The price can be something over and above the actul ability points, if you feel that the ability points is too low a price. For example, you can have an immortal entity take note of the powerful magic unleashed and immediately contact the wizard to force him into some service. With the wizard down twenty points in attributes, he is presumably much weaker... And in no position to even consider fighting. Which would be folly anyway against such a powerful creature.

The next time, the wizard might again pull off the same stunt, but he'll at least think about it first. When faced with a total party kill however, isn't it great that the wizard can save the day? I think so.

[Rostranor]

Totally agree. Two fighters down, the party on the ropes and BAM! 1st level Wizard serves up victory on platter to end the adventure.

Game mechanic thoughts aside, it was a lot of fun and after playing for almost a year now we all still love the system.

[cthulhudarren]

Well,I would say house ruling a limit to it would cut down on all the sudden dramatic spell results but...it does come at cost as it is and at least to my thinking,makes magic truly a fearful force.

I would scale it as they level in some kind of formula, like 1 point per action per level (up to HPs). But I don't like the metagame aspect of going nova. I wouldn't allow it in my game. Nova I feel should be resolved by invoking patrons and in desperate situations.

[cthulhudarren]

Totally agree. Two fighters down, the party on the ropes and BAM! 1st level Wizard serves up victory on platter to end the adventure.

To my mind a 1st Level Wizard should not be able to unleash that much power in that short of a time. That's for more powerful characters.

[Rostranor]

The staff of magi defense has always been a mages prerogative. I think it makes the Mage a worthwhile class and makes them dangerous. A 20 stat spell burn and a natural20 roll go a long way in any game.

First level in DCC is also unlike the same level in other games.

It was an enjoyable event, after effects like what kind of Erdrich powers it alerts has yet to be determined.

[Doug Kovacs]

Games where everyone is about to die but then survive are among the most fun games you came play. That is what spell burn is meant for. Not every wizard even has 20 points of physical abilities to burn without dying. I would expect maximum spellburning if you play any kind of con game where the players know the rules. I agree with cthulhudarren in that if it is abused in a regular game the DM should put a clamp on it. However, I wouldn't pull the option out until someone has obviously abused it. Reminds me of old D&D players who think they have everything figured out once they can turn invisible and then start to use it in every encounter.... >yawn< time for the DM to make the game fun again....

Skyscraper wrote:

I think that as long as a price is paid for the spellburn, it's fine. The price can be something over and above the actual ability points, if you feel that the ability points is too low a price. For example, you can have an immortal entity take note of the powerful magic unleashed and immediately contact the wizard to force him into some service. With the wizard down twenty points in attributes, he is presumably much weaker... And in no position to even consider fighting. Which would be folly anyway against such a powerful creature.

I really like story driven ideas that not so much punish, but remind the players their job is to make the game fun for everyone, not just win. There are plenty of other games where you can focus on winning. DCC is not one of them. Enjoy your death...we are all adults here.... now you get to make another character ! Unfortunately the folks focused on winning rarely understand this.


Anyway, here is another street level view on Doom....
http://forgottenloot.blogspot.com/ this is the first time I've actually run it. It is still underway. They funneled through Sailors, so they suspect a "your village has a problem" pattern. This blog is from the POV of a secret elf. (Hint: that's how any zero level can become an Elf....impress the DM with cool back story)

[cthulhudarren]

I just gotta say that Doug Kovacs rules. I kove his DCC RPG art.