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

To be honest, I was more irked by having completely forgotten the Musical Influence skills at character generation. I have long ago mentally aligned myself to the fact that this characters success is not measured in DPS ;)

I had a belt full of potion grenades that could have been applied to the problem, so I felt reasonably armed (if somewhat inappropriately for wasps) - I'll probably pick up a crossbow and a little training in it, and improve my potion hocking skills one level, but mostly I'm thinking Musical Influence because it's stylish, in theme, and not mana dependent.

My emergency backup character remains a necromancer with a small squad of skeletons. With axes and shields. I may need to buy some barrels to pack them in for storage in town ;)

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

Take them as summonable Allies. They're going to arrive faster if you need them in town than they would getting out of the barrels and you don't need tobuy/transport barrels.

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

I'm not really sure that zombies and skeletons are appropriate as summonable allies. Ghosts would be fine, but the morality is more dubious. And ghosts aren't as useful for carrying your stuff.

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

We're in a game where skeletons randomly appearing out of the ground is a little out of character, and there's no teleporting. So not much in the way of conjuring them whole cloth available.

Plus, if I pack them in barrels, I get to make Diablo jokes.

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

Create a summoning pentagram on a large circle of burlap or leather, then just throw it down and call them up quick when you need them. :)


Of course I'd do that with Devilkin (DF:9) or Imp (DF:5) allies, and suggest that they look like winged monkeys... ;)

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

Alchemy? powdered bone with special herbs. Just add water.

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

New Campaign Sessions 17
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/WM/Treks/Log_1-17

The delvers had a mostly uneventful night, except that some of Ghazeb's hair fell out and his skin turned pink. The exact cause of this phenomenon is still unknown, though some of the delvers have theories.

The next morning, the delvers walked back to the ruin town, dodged mud zombies, and found a lot of shinies. As a GM, I'm thinking my simple system for allocating treasure in that town (value $100 x MoS on a Search roll, weigh randomly determined between 0.1 lbs and 50 lbs) was perhaps a little generous. On the other hand, a lot of the treasure has been stingy, and delvers have to get rich to continue risking and suffering death. We'll see how overpowered they get after returning to town.

After fleeing from the mud zombies, the delvers started heading home. On the way, they got attacked by 4 Erupting Slimes.

Erupting Slimes are one of the half dozen or so monsters that I didn't get a chance to play in the first iteration of this game. I had placed some in the Tomb of the Bloody Baron, but the delvers never found that particular room. I'm sorry I didn't get to see them in action then because this session's events showed them to be amazing.

4 slimes basically caused most of the delving band to retreat, terrified that the slimes were rust slimes that would destroy all their nifty metal toys. Add to the fact that swords and axes are fairly ineffective against Diffuse opponents anyway, and the delvers were in bad shape. They were fortunate enough to have a lot of alchemical potions which provided for area effect damage. Even so, Thasos took 3 slime hits for a total of 4d damage and Ghazeb took some minor hits.

Next week, the delvers hope to find out what's behind the locked door in the goblin cave. Plenty of surprises, that's for sure.

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

New Campaign Session 18
http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/WM/Treks/Log_1-18

The delvers go back to the goblin cave in order to open the unpickable door with their shiny new key, only to find out that those pesky goblins didn't abandon their home just because the PCs told them to. A hail of crossbow fire later, and everyone is picking caltrops out of their feet and trying not to be poisoned by monster drool. It may have been surprising, but it wasn't what the PCs were looking for.

I've been looking forward to this encounter for weeks. My original notes for the lair made it a base for 20 goblins, most of whom are out on patrol or hunting at any time. Even if a few of them died, there would be at least some reinforcements. Doing that provided a nice surprise for the PCs and contributed to the feel that the West March is a living, moving space and not just a static dungeon.

The ambush was better prepared, as I had a better idea of what would happen and I remembered the caltrops. The caltrops didn't do more than annoy and harass the PCs, but that's all they're really for. They'd have been much worse if I remembered that caltrops continue to do damage until removed, which is pretty harsh.

Assuming the delvers don't go haring off in some wild direction, I hope that they'll make it back to Polisberg in the next session or two, and then we can go through selling the loot, gathering new rumors, and planning the next expedition. Having said that, they'll probably want to explore their new map instead.

The new map is at http://westmarchsaga.wikia.com/wiki/..._Linen_Map.gif, in case people want to engage in random speculation.

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

Marik's low on arrows, Thasos is out of ritual components, and two delvers STARTED the trip with less food than they have now.

We're going. Back. To town.

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

Not to mention that Beltarne really wants a donkey so he can haul more loots out of dungeons :D