Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

Things I learned today:
Forgetfulness is your key to getting a second chance when interrogating a goblin.
I'm having quite a bit of fun playing a bard. I'm sort of meh at everything!

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

New Campaign Session 7
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/WM/Treks/Log_1-8

The delvers encounter an elder thing at the bottom of the cave! This was a tense but not actually difficult fight. The biggest problem was when Thasos got hit with a faceful of poison, screamed in pain, and went Berserk. Normally, he can control his temper, but with Severe Pain giving a -4 to his self-control rolls, there was a real chance he was going to rampage through the other delvers after the fight. Fortunately, with both Minnizig and Beltarne having access to the Command spell, they were able to mystically force him to control his temper until he managed to regain his temper.

That night, Wolfgang misidentified a roaming cave bear as a demon that was immune to metal weapons. He proceeded to drive it off by hitting it with his shield while Marik watched but didn't intervene (Marik's player now hates Sense of Duty: Nature).

The next morning the delvers decided to head south to deal with whatever weirdo was organizing these goblins against them. On the march, they encountered even more of the goblins!


This session went smoothly. The delvers were lucky in that their foes had some bad rolls, but there were plenty of critical failures on monster identification rolls with hilarious and strange results. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

New Campaign Session 9
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/WM/Treks/Log_1-9

The goblins crouched behind their shields and started to try to parley, but Marik immediately opening fire, killing one. Minnizig and Beltarne headed for cover, while Thasos moved west to flank the goblins. The survivng goblins headed forward while their shocker lizards zapped lightning at Marik. He dodged and shot goblin archers, then eventually launched arrows at the lizards. Ghazeb and Wolfgang killed several goblins, but one brute managed to close with Beltarne who met him at the run. The goblin overran Beltarne and cut him down with two quick axe blows. Wolfgang and Marik moved to reinforce, eventually dropping the goblin with a pair of arrows to the heart.

The delvers quickly killed the surviving but wounded goblins, looted the bodies, healed Beltarne, and continued on their way.

That night, while Thasos was on watch, the earth elemental from the cave appeared in the camp with an offer of parley from the Master.


Marik's player wanted to know how many he times he had to be attacked by shocker lizards, obviously in the service of the goblins, before he got over his Sense of Duty to Nature and could attack them preemptively. My feeling was that he would never make that leap but I said I was open to arguments from the forums.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

My argument is largely this: Once an animal has been domesticated and trained to kill things for people on command, it's stopped being 'nature' and started being 'the work of foul civilized folk'. This applies equally to human guard dogs, orcish dire wolf mounts, or goblin shocker lizards, but wouldn't apply to any of the above found on their own. There are a couple of other good reasons that Marik should grow a clue, but that's the really big one for me.

Ultimately it's not that big a deal, but I'm likely going to buy off the damned SoD anyway.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

We know it's truly a Disadvantage when the player wants to buy it off :D

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

I'm going to side with Harald on this one. Having a domesticated beast that is trained to attack its masters enemies in not "natural" and therefore I'd rule that Marik can ignore SOD Nature in the case of the shock lizards, unless he has hard evidence that this lizard in question is not under control of the golbins. This case is clearly different than the infamious flesh-eating apes incident in the old westmarch campaign where they were clearly doing what nature reared them to do.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

Things I learned this session:

The combat buffer can totally take partial credit for the awesome things your buffee does once buffed. But make sure to buff someone who manages to make it to the fight before everything ends, or you won't get ANY credit :D

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

Heh. I sometimes think that part of the reason that Wolfgang and Marik are so comparatively effective is because they just go over and do stuff: hiding behind trees and running back and forth between two targets doesn't result in dead foes and treasure.


As far as Marik goes, the way I see it, it's not that he needs to "get wise" to the threat. He suspects the shock lizards are going to turn on him and attack, but he cares about them anyway. He feels obliged to try to talk them down/ignore them, much like a cop would try to talk down an ornery drunk even if the cop suspects that a taser is going to have to be used in the end.

I'd think that for someone with SoD: Nature, trained guard dogs are somewhat akin to how Western militaries view child soldiers: potential threats that are in themselves victims. You'll attack to defend yourself, but you don't want start anything if there's another way.

I suppose I could institute some kind of self-control roll, starting at 3- to engage in pre-emptive violence against critters and going up by 3 if the critter is a dire animal or trained.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

I can agree with this completely, actually... and it's pretty clear that Marik cares more about animals (SoD: Nature) than he does about his companions (Loner, no SoD, WHY DIDN'T YOU BRING FOOD?)

So, objections withdrawn.

Re: Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game
 

New Campaign Session 10
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/WM/Treks/Log_1-10

We had to end last week's session after an hour or so of play, so I'm combining it with tonight's session.

At the end of the 9th session, the earth elemental had just entered the delvers' camp, proposing a parley. After some difficulty, both sides reached agreeable terms for the discussion: shouting at each other from 30 yards away. Which honestly would the way I'd handle negotiating with heavily armed, homicidal maniacs.

The elemental's master turned out to have a severe hatred of some harpies that lived nearby, and he sorta convinced the delvers to go hunt the harpies. So their tentative plans to track down the elemental's master turned into the great harpy hunt, and then headed around the lake to get to the harpies. This is about the fourth change of direction and one of the ones I least anticipated.

Fortunately, I was prepared enough to know what they might encounter in the woods, and it was the work of but a few minutes to prepare an encounter against giant spiders. The spiders are strong, but it doesn't look like they are strong enough to handle the delvers on 1:1 odds.

Next week, the delvers are most likely going to get an unpleasant surprise. And meet some harpies, too.