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[Trekkin]

I've got a new group slowly coalescing as people work out their schedules, and different members of the group have expressed a considerable affinity for two things in the campaign they'd like me to GM:

1. Ars Magica's plug-and-play grammar-based magic system
2. A mythic Renaissance setting, much like 7th Sea.

Which is going to be a problem, since Ars explicitly takes place in 1220 and 7th Sea has five really specific magic systems. I could plug Ars' system into 7th Sea with some difficulty, but before I do that, does anyone know of any previous attempt to either add generalist magic to 7th Sea or change the Ars Magica setting to circa 1500?

[Kadzar]

Last time, in my D&D game!

I kind of forgot do write-ups for the past couple sessions, but it should work fine to just combine them into one post.

So the party met with the other party that would be perpetrating the fake attack on the guy they were escorting (Errol Coyle) (so that he would owe a favor to the thieves guild), a six person team consisting of a drow bard, a tiefling cleric, a half-elf ranger, a dragonborn druid, a human monk, and a hobgoblin devastator (which is a hobgoblin's version of a wizard) named Bilnix. Since the hobgoblin is the leader, they are known as 'Nix's Six.

So they spent some time making plans for the fake attack, and, during this time, the rogue pick-pocketed a monster tooth from druid so that the wizard could use the crystal ball he had found in the fey-haunted mansion to scry on her to see if the NPC party was up to anything nefarious (other than tricking a man into thinking his life was in danger so that he would be indebted to a mob boss, but the PCs were doing that too). Not seeing anything too suspicious, they went on to investigate a rumor they had heard before.


Out in the countryside, outside the city, supposedly there lived a farmer with a chicken that laid golden eggs. And since the party had a day before they needed to go do their escort mission, they figured this was something worth looking into. And sure enough, when they got there, they found a chicken farmer, and one of his chickens seemed to lay golden eggs.

Inspecting the chicken with magic and their eyes, they saw that this chicken gave off a magical aura and looked nothing like the farmer's other chickens, or indeed any chicken known to exist on the Material Plane. The party had their suspicions, and after some interrogating, the farmer finally admitted that he had exchanged his wife to the hag in the fey-haunted mansion in exchange for a gold-laying hen.

The wizard then cast dispel magic on the chicken, which transformed it back into the farmer's wife, and she was mad, not because she had been turned into a gold-laying chicken (she had apparently agreed to this, since the couple was in dire financial straits), but for turning her back before they had made much money. But, in the end, they were grateful, and gave the party as many (non-golden) eggs as they could carry.


After that, they went back to the city to visit the house that 'Nix's Six used as their headquarters. Since the dragonborn druid was working in the garden she kept in the backyard, the wizard distracted her while the rogue snuck around gathered up innocuous bits from the NPC partymembers' rooms to use for scrying material. They then said their goodbyes to her and went back to the bordello they had been staying at (which the wizard grew up in).

The last thing that happened that day was someone coming to them for help. He was a reformed former prisoner who had joined the church the players had let a lawful neutral death cleric set up in a former assassin's guild headquarters after his had burned down around the first session (the players didn't cause the fire, but they didn't really anything to stop it). The ex-con was a former member of a gang led by a rather brutish goliath who wanted him back, but he didn't want to return to that life and was asking the players for help. Ultimately, though, they decided to postpone dealing with the issue.


The next day, the players would head out for the escort mission, but before they did, the wizard did some scrying on Bilnix. Through the crystal ball, he saw a figure he didn't quite know but recognized as a high-ranking member of the thieves guild. Bilnix was somewhat hesitant to share information without Sumak's (the thieves guild leader) knowledge, but the figure assured him that he just wanted to make sure the mission went off successfully. And so Bilnix told the figure all about the party's plan, including their intended route.

The party thought this was quite suspicious, but decided to go on with the plan as usual. The rogue went disguised, since the affect of his one magical dagger gave him the appearance of any pirate from a specific crew that he killed, and he had just killed one, and Errol was also a former member. So they met with the guy and left to escort him to his meeting.

Things seemed fine at first, but soon enough they saw some suspicious folk on the city streets, guys with horses wearing armor trimmed with weasel fur. They were able to recognize these guys as being members of the Dead Weasel gang, a rider gang (basically a fantasy motorcycle gang) that terrorized the roads to the northwest of the city. (The wizard recognized this because that's near Hibbleton, a halfling ghetto on the outskirts of the city, and he had spent some time there as a dealer of stolen goods.)

They were somewhat wary of these guys, but there were only a few of them, so they got their charge to a safe place, then snuck up on the guys and ambushed them. The wizard opened up with a confusion spell, not wanting to do damage to the civilians nearby, but that somewhat backfired when some of the civilians near them got affected and ended up attacking each other or just getting attacked by the confused gang members. Still, the plan went off relatively well, and they managed to take them down before they could head off to alert more gang members further down the route.

The party kept continuing down the established route, taking out gang members along the way, and about halfway there the party captured one of them, who told them, under zone of truth by the halfling cleric, that they weren't sent to kill the guy the party is escorting, just the party themselves. He also said he'd liked to join the party, and he knew where the Dead Weasel gang hid some treasure, so the fighter decided to make him his follower.

The party continued on, not getting too terribly injured, but using a lot of spells slots, and eventually they took out all the gang members (besides the one that defected). They encountered 'Nix's Six again, who started performing the fake attack as previously planned. Seeing that they weren't far from their destination, the half-elf bard grabbed Errol and dimension doored them both past everyone else.

After this, the NPC party stopped pretending to attack them, and Bilnix went up to congratulate them on a job well-done, while remarking his surprise that the party ended things before they could truly get into their act, at which point the wizard slapped him in the face and asked him why he betrayed them.

Bilnix was rather taken aback and confused by this. Upon looking at the party, he saw that they were injured, and asked who attacked them. The party then implied that he was in working with the Dead Weasels, but Bilnix told them he didn't know anything about them. He finally admitted to telling Eldon Wildthorn (the shadowy figure seen in the scrying, and high-ranking member of thieves guild), since he was an old friend of Bilnix, but he didn't think Eldon was capable of such a thing, though eventually the party convinced him that he might have been mistaken. After this, the wizard told Bilnix to leave town immediately.


The party then spent some time around the area as Errol had his meeting, and the rogue spent time listening in on the meeting, observing Errol's speech patterns and learning all the names of the people he interacted with, as he intended to kill him later and take his place. Then, after that, and escorting Errol back to the revolutionaries' base (which was uneventful), the party went back to the thieves guild-owned restaurant to tell Sumak about how the mission went.

When they got there, Sumak was glad to see them, and told them that Bilnix had already come by and told him about what had happened. Bilnix and his crew were currently under house arrest, as a precaution. Eldon was so far, nowhere to be seen, but the party had the other high-ranking members say they weren't planning to betray the thieves guild (or something like that) under zone of truth, and two of them were found to be lying, so Sumak would be subjecting them to more "traditional" forms of interrogation.

After that, the party returned to the bordello, and just outside the place they met a messenger who was waiting for them who said he works for Maxwell, a man the party is reasonably certain is the head of the assassin's guild, who requested their presence at the members-only club he frequents, as he wishes to talk with them about possible business opportunities.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Today's session went well. After the hostage situation, we went and stayed at the non-necromancer inn and got some goddamn rest. Early the next morning, we are warned by the retired adventurer woman we met by way of an arrow shot magically from her house full across an entire lake, something about "trogs".

We proceeded to the mayor's residence, where we witnessed somebody (probably the mayor) being carted off by somebody else (probably his bodyguard who was probably a traitor). The ranger shot somebody else, but when I ran after them I got jumped by three troglodytes (the group didn't follow me, because I am one of two people in the party who can hope to function as a damage sponge). After that and some unpleasant damage, we met with the distraught mayor's wife who was then magically seduced by our creepy necromancer on a Nat 20. I gave her my spare sword and we made our way to the Harvest/Necromancy/Troglodyte Temple.

There was nobody there, and of course, there was a staircase leading underground. Having dark vision, I crept towards them. Now, I didn't mention it before, but there was this guy. Zuul. He was the village blacksmith and the dude won intimidation contests against two of the party in the last session, just sitting in an inn staring. I've been holding a grudge ever since. He was one of three fellows at the bottom of these stairs, except his skin was flaking off to reveal lizard flesh, and lizard eyes, with darkvision, staring straight at my dumb ass thinking he can sneak in the dark.

At this point, combat begins and the creepy dragonborn necromancer PC wins initiative. She then shouts my name as a warning and uses her electric breath weapon. I, a rogue, proceeded to then fail a simple Dex check with advantage. All four of us take about 13 damage (I have 17 hp). But I don't care. In delirious electric pain, I shout Zuul's name and kill him before he can get a single round off. It was a good moment considering I took him as a nemesis basically at random due to failing intimidation and he never knew my name. After killing the rest, I checked his mouth for gold teeth and found one. I think I'll get it enchanted later.

Nothing much more for the session, except finding out from a dissident cleric that this cult is definitely more troglodyte than necromancy based. They've been replacing people's souls, you see. We stopped mid-dungeon.

[Kadzar]

You're a rogue and you're your party's tank?

[SOLDIER First]

No no, they're their party's damage sponge. Which is arguably worse.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I am basically the tank, yes. Our party composition is highly suboptimal: One rogue, one ranger, two bards, and a sorcerer. The ranger is second-toughest, but she's a bow specialist (this will also definitely eventually lead to her shooting me in the back when she finally rolls a 1). The bards could probably be doing more but they tend to focus on casting and one of them uses throwing daggers instead of a sword.

It doesn't help that I keep getting sent ahead as I have stealth and darkvision. I'm 2nd level now, so I can hide in combat to set up sneak attacks, but the problem is that this makes me not a target and so more often that not whoever we're fighting will go after the squisher party members instead. I should note that a crit from a lot of the enemies we've been fighting could one-shot the sorcerer or the bards, and so it's probably better that I take risks since they've got the whole of this party's questionable healing magic.

Oh, and I'm close enough with the GM that we're way past favoritism and into what is basically anti-favoritism. I'm pretty sure I'm playing about one level of GM lethality above everybody else in the group, based on the fact that I took three times my maximum health in damage this last session while a couple of the party stayed unharmed.

[milo christiansen]

Let one of the bards get killed, and tell them that if their next char isn't a tank they should expect to die again soon... A poor rogue can only take so much.

[Teneb]

Tanking with a non-tank class can sometimes happen. I mentioned a while ago the game I was in where I was a spellcasting-focused cleric sharing a party with a rogue, bard, sorcerer and wizard. I shared the damage-sponge role with the rogue. Tried to convince the player to go for Arcane Trisckster so we could have an all-caster party, but she opted for assassin instead.

[Trekkin]

I once ran an all-wizard game in Pathfinder where they tanked with summoned monsters, and I have to say, it can be way more fun than having someone whose job is to get hit in propria persona. There's no tedious Cure Light Wounds spam after the battle, it opens up suicidal tactics you'd never want a fighter to try, and by the time it was obsolete battles weren't lasting more than a round anyway.

[Mephisto]

We're on the B12 forums, the place where some people murder six dwarves, start with raw materials instead of a pick, and then settle in for a hermit game on a terrifying glacier for the challenge. What is this shit about parties needing to be optimal?

[Jimmy]

I've just built my third of Seven Sons of Sin for my weekly Pathfinder game. This one's an alchemist with a solid 40 AC, five bomb attacks per round for 6d6+11 damage, and eight minions.

Did I also mention the encounter's gonna occur over a pit of magma?

I'm really hoping the group don't abandon this quest, though I'm pretty sure they're likely to lose interest since it's a challenging encounter roster ahead. They lost one pregen character after facing off against the first Son of Sin, but they were short one person that week.

[wierd]

So, uhm.. which sin is that?

(reference...)
    luxuria / Lust.
    gula / Gluttony.
    avaritia / Greed.
    acedia / Sloth.
    ira / Wrath.
    invidia / Envy.
    superbia / Pride.

If he is greed (alchemy -> creating gold for profit, at least historically), wouldn't it make more sense for him to use some kind of sick get rich quick type thinking in how to dispose of your adventurers?

[Gentlefish]

Tanking with a non-tank class can sometimes happen. I mentioned a while ago the game I was in where I was a spellcasting-focused cleric sharing a party with a rogue, bard, sorcerer and wizard. I shared the damage-sponge role with the rogue. Tried to convince the player to go for Arcane Trisckster so we could have an all-caster party, but she opted for assassin instead.

Man. Whenever I play a squishy, I end up tanking and whenever I play a tank (without any mechanical aggro pulling) I never seem to get smashed in the face. It's a rough life indeed.

Heh, reminds me of the time I was playing a Scout in a CoC-esque 3.5 campaign. I was the only one to spot a demon-dog (I forget the name) and manage to roll a nat 20 on initiative. It still beat me with an 18. I got one-shotted and it then proceeded to eat my soul.

Still salty about that, even 2 years down the line.

[Egan_BW]

I've just built my third of Seven Sons of Sin for my weekly Pathfinder game. This one's an alchemist with a solid 40 AC, five bomb attacks per round for 6d6+11 damage, and eight minions.

You should find a way to make him do 5 less damage, so it's 6d6+6. Son of Sin, after all. And maybe make him throw one more bomb per round.

[Jimmy]

So, uhm.. which sin is that?

(reference...)
    luxuria / Lust.
    gula / Gluttony.
    avaritia / Greed.
    acedia / Sloth.
    ira / Wrath.
    invidia / Envy.
    superbia / Pride.

If he is greed (alchemy -> creating gold for profit, at least historically), wouldn't it make more sense for him to use some kind of sick get rich quick type thinking in how to dispose of your adventurers?

You got their names in one go!

There's a creature called a Cambion which is basically a tiefling, but born in the Abyss. Lore-wise, they're always male, serve higher power demons, and get variant powers based on their class.

In the previous few sessions, the group infiltrated a temple of Lamashtu, mother of all demons of the Abyss, murdering and hoboing the population of said temple. They lost a party member that's been with the group since the first session, about a year and a half total of weekly gaming nights. Said member sacrificed herself on the altar of Lamashtu in a final act of selflessness to free their companions when 'Lamashtu' herself showed up after the high priest was killed (it was actually just a single Glabrezu demon under a veil and bluffing his ass off).

So the party amscrays, regroups after licking their wounds, and returns to retrieve her remains for a proper burial (or more likely just loot the corpses they've left). As a DM, I've decided that in the last day, the sacrifice of a powerful soul upon Lamashtu's altar has weakened the barrier between the material plane and the Abyss at this location, allowing weaker demons to travel through.

There's gonna be seven of these Cambion bastards to fight through for the group, each with a theme. They've already met Acedia, the fighter of Sloth. He appeared to them as a tiefling sitting in a folding chair with a lacy parasol providing him shade, drinking ice water and watching four Vrock demons as they attempted to 'seal' the entrance to the demon planes below. He was actually bluffing the group and trying to speed up the process of the Abyss merging with the material plane. He tried to get them to leave peacefully, turned to intimidation when they refused, tried to use magical coercion when that failed and then resorted to violence and was killed by the group.

Next up I've got a room filled with sub-zero frost bleeding in from the Abyss, with Ira, the demon of Wrath and his eight Andrazku demon allies. If they bypass that, it's gonna be Gula, the demon of Gluttony and his eight Brimorak demon buddies over a pit of magma. Obviously Luxuria, the demon of Lust will be accompanied by a harem of succubi, but I haven't decided what to pair up the remaining Sons of Sin with yet.