State of Eldritch Earth

I really hope that everyone is enjoying their time in Eldritch Earth. We're getting to a point where we all have things we are building and maintaining in this world of lets-pretend alternate Pennsylvania. I suppose I wanted to get a little bead on where we want to go ultimately. We've got Dillsburg to the West that we need to deal with. There are the monsters of Deadman's Town across the river to the East. Toward the Northern mountains, Dave and I have some ancient Atlantean threats and to the South the Red Lion cannibals are nipping at the heels of anyone who passes to Kingston.

What is the endgame? Do we fight a war against the Danes to the far East? Do the monsters come for us and we have to fight for what's ours? Maybe the king calls on all the knights to take up arms for him? What do we want to do in the future? What sounds fun?

Sunday's Game

For Sunday's game, have anyone given any thought to what characters you are interested in playing? I've got three adventures planned, and each has a different flavor.

• Strike Breakers - The PCs must investigate why serfs refuse to work the ginster fields right at the critical harvest time! This adventure requires some diplomacy skills with some muscle to back it up.
• Mage's Fortress - The doors to a ruined Smirkenburg fortress have been thrown open, unleashing abominations near Wulf's Swamp. PCs will have to do a little dungeon crawl to unravel this secret while perhaps making some side money completing the survey of the province.
• Two Houses Alike in Dignity - Nobles with more money than sense want to dick one another over during the ginster harvest. This adventure screams for unscrupulous skullduggery to show that in cases where noblemen quarrel, it is only the opportunists who prosper.

Next Game Ideas

In preparation for next game, I would like to float a few ideas for what we as a party might want to do. If anyone has any ideas to contribute please add them in the comments below.

• We do another job for "Fishy Joe" in order to gain access to the basement and/or backroom for more PCs
• We return the village of Ebanflo and continue to explore the Dwarf Hole to finish what we started, perhaps regaining more of the artifacts Marlon's character is looking for
• Edwan Mirths would like to explore the ruined monastery of Monax in Nearbog province as he believes he may get a sign from Saint Steve the Pleasant regarding his future

Krondor Wiki

Dave and I would like to invite everyone to contribute on the new Krondor wiki at:

http://krondor.lordsofhack.com

I'll send you all emails with instructions on how to log in and make changes. Please take some time and update your characters' sections and add any details you think are interesting that you would like to share.

Awesome

Just found out that the Identify spell, while it has a material component of a 100gp pearl, that pearl is NOT consumed by the casting of the spell, but can be used over and over again.  


Most material components aren't consumed by the casting now, unless it clearly says so in the component section of the spell description.

Monster Saves

It occurred to me in our game last night that we might consider asking PC players to roll to see if a monster fails its saving throw. It would really help the GM, and make some "save or suck" cantrips feel more like an attack.

When a character forces an opponent to make a saving throw, that player instead makes a saving throw check. The bonus to the d20 roll for a saving throw check equals the effect’s save DC − 8.

The DC for this check equals 11 + the target’s saving throw modifier. On a successful check, the character overcomes the target’s resistance and treats the target as if it failed its saving throw. On a failed check, the target is treated as if it succeeded on its save.

As with attacks, the saving throw check has advantage if the target would have disadvantage on its saving throw, and vice versa.

Appraising Loot

Dave had mentioned a method of keeping track of secret loot values in a three-ring binder so that loot cards shuffled into the deck could be cross-referenced with a sales value. However, since there isn't any *appraise* skill of its own I'm not quite sure how to have PCs know the true cost of stuff. Since loot is the basis for XP, I thought this could be a very important bit of rules we want to agree on beforehand.

I've come across this post which has a few ideas that we might perhaps use. I specifically like this section:

As far as what skill can be used on this check, or whether a skill can be used at all, I leave it up to my players to suggest a skill that might apply and justify it. This puts the onus on them to decide what they want to use, and it has the additional benefit of sometimes letting them use something that wouldn't have occurred to me.

I like it because it occurs to me that PCs may have creative ways to appraise things that aren't clear. For example, one might use the Persuasion skill to just "make stuff up" about a particular item, essentially doing the exact same thing as a basic appraise roll.

Weak Magic Items

As we decide how to create our magic item deck, take a look at this page dedicated to helping to create weak magic items. Do you guys suppose we might be able to incorporate more of these types of magical weapons and armor rather than just the traditional +1 sword?

Monster Stat Block

I'm looking up ways to shrink the 5e monster stat block and I came across this gem. What do you guys think?

Downtime Actions

Apparently there are already some 5e rules on the books to help with downtime actions of other PCs on our character trees.

Climate of Krondor

The climate of Krondor is temperate, not unlike that of Pennsylvania. Prevailing winds come from the East, and there is heavy precipitation in the South of the island in the Spring and Fall. Snow accumulates fast on the island in colder months, but ocean borne currents melt large deposits within a week. Winters are often bitterly cold and dry, with biting winds - particularly in the highlands to the North where there is less precipitation.

Basic Geography Ideas

KRONDOR

Krondor is an island in the Great Ocean, about the same size as Pennsylvania or Iceland.   There is one major human settlement on the island, the trade town of Newport, on the southern coast of the island.   The southern region is sprinkled with independent human and demi-human settlements and petty fiefs founded by exiles, outlaws and colonists over the last century, but the northern 2/3 of the island are controlled by bands of humanoids and monsters.  There is a mighty volcano located near the center of the island.

 

NEWPORT

 The principal town in the southern region of the island of Krondor is called Newport.   It was founded about a hundred years ago by the explorer Sir Edward of Gath.  It serves principally as the center of the Ginster trade and as a landing point for prospective inland settlers.   It’s ruled by the Nedwyn, Viscount of Newport, a descendant of Sir Edward, who also holds the largely empty title of Lord Lieutenant of Krondor.  However, it is arguable as to whether the Viscount or the Factor of the Royal Krondor Company has more real power.  While all the inhabitants of the town claim that it was built within the last century, about one in four buildings is smaller in size that the rest, is inhabited by gnomes, and appears to be quite a bit older than 100 years.

 

THE GINSTER TRADE

The reason that settlers keep attempting to establish holdings on Krondor, despite the ferocity of the monsters present on the island, is the existence of the Ginster Berry.   A gallon of Ginster berries can be ground down to a pound of Ginster Powder which can be sold on the mainland for 15gp.  Ginster powder is a delightful spice for meat and vegetables and has amazing anti-parasitical properties, which makes it a high demand product.  The Royal Krondor Company has a monopoly on the export of Ginster products of all sort.   They will buy a gallon (about 10 lbs.) of berries for 5gp at Newport, and will also react with extreme violence to any attempt to circumvent their monopoly.

More Thoughts

Here is a grab-bag of other thoughts about campaign set-up

OTHER THOUGHTS:

Encumbrance:

Each character can carry a number of items (“THINGS”) equal to his Strength Score.   If he carries more THINGS than this, he suffers a -1 penalty to all rolls and -5 feet to movement for each additional THING.    A sack of 1000 coins (about 10 pounds) counts as a THING.

Injury:

In order to encourage the use of multiple characters during the campaign, let us say that if a character is wounded below 1 hit point during a session, then he must sit out the following session and one of the player’s other characters must be used.   This mandatory rest session happens even if the character gets back on his feet and continues to act during the session where he was injured.   It can be put off for a session if there is a legitimate story reason for him to keep going (the quest is in progress and we stopped in the middle of the action etc.).

 

Sailing Off

We should come up for reasons for people to sail ‘back home”, off map.   It should take a minimum of 1d6+6 days to get home (with the d6 being able to “Ace”), and with perhaps sailing during the Winter being impossible.   Perhaps one would need to do this to recruit farmers or craftsmen for one’s lands,   to trade a magic item for a different one,  or stuff like that.   One would have to spend time in the home country, and then have to sail back of course.  

Multi-Classing

I’m kind of against using multi-classing.   There seems to be enough options for characters with multiple powers to make it unnecessary for story purposes, it just seems to be twink-tastic to me.

Adventuring Party

Next game, I'm interested in all of us creating at least one character for a themed adventuring party. For example maybe we are all a single race, or all of us arcane magic users. My favorite would be if we all worship the same deity.

Henchmen

Can we create another henchman deck within certain perameters? Will there be zero-level folks who are always getting off the boat on the island we can call on? Will there be NPC specialists that actually operate in town that we can hire? Or will we actually take the time to make a few 1st-3rd level NPCs that we can bring aboard to help our merry band of rat catchers? Let's discuss!

EXPERIENCE LEVELS AND ADVANCEMENT

EXPERIENCE AND ADVANCEMENT:

 

After our discussion the other night, I came up with this proposal.

 

From levels 2-6, it requires 5 Grampius points to advance a level.  To reach levels 7 and above, it should take 10 Grampius points per level.

 

• You get 1 Grampius point if you participate (and survive) the session.

• You get 1 Grampius point if your character gets 500gp in found treasure or more back to your HQ.   This does not include the value of any magic items or useful tools/weapons/armor.
   
• You get 1 Grampius point if your team has undertaken a mission for a patron and have successfully completed that mission.   Rewards paid by the patron do not count toward the found treasure total.
   

It should be possible, but rare, to get 3 Grampius points.   Most sessions should involve EITHER going on a self-motivated treasure hunt, OR going on a patron mission. 

 

The scheme requires that 1000gp per player maximum in placed treasure be in effect, and that the DM hides and/or traps a significant portion of treasures in Tomb-Raiding scenarios.  

 

It also assumes that most monsters don’t carry a lot of treasure with them outside their lairs.

Campagin Economy: some first ideas

I'm putting together some ideas about how the game economy might work.  The first two work together on the same scale.

1--FLAT TREASURE IDEA:   I think that to create a workable economy, it might be a good idea to do away with the scaling treasure hoard with level process.    A lot of money at first level should be a lot of money at high level.   Perhaps work on the idea that the maximum treasure allowed to be given out in one session is about 1000gp per PC.  Much of the time, it might be far, far less. What higher level monsters will have in their treasure hoards will be supercool magic items, rather than bigger piles of coin. 

            This makes some common big expenses:   Healing Potions 50gp,  Identify Magic Item (at least) 100gp,  Raise Dead (at least) 500gp, Suit of Plate Armor: 1500gp,  all significant expenses, and requires balancing of spending and savings with living expenses (see below).

           We should make it very difficult to sell magic items for cash (beyond a few hundred coins).   Maybe, arrange a swap for land or ships or other high value objects, but let's just imagine that there just aren't 10's of thousands of coins lying around anywhere.

           A Flat Treasure System would mean we could make a deck of treasure at first level, and then just add coin and jewelry items to it on a fixed schedule, and then better magic item cards to it as levels progress, rather than re-configuring everything fixed to level.

 

2--LIVING EXPENSES:  The living expenses in the PHB are as follows:

 

Level                                                   Price per DAY

Wretched                                            ----

Squalid                                                1 sp

Poor                                                    2sp

Modest                                                1gp

Comfortable                                        2gp

Wealthy                                               4gp

Aristocratic                                          10gp

 

But, there’s no game effect attached to these expenses at all, other than people liking or shunning you.   If we wanted to use our old Hit Point to living expenses tie in, it might look something like this:

 

 

Level                  Price per MONTH                Hit Die Roll

Wretched            access to trash                     worst of 3 rolls                       

Squalid                     3gp                                  worse of 2 rolls

Poor                         6gp                                  1 roll                                                  

Modest                     30gp                                take average

Comfortable              60gp                               Better of 1 roll or average

Wealthy                   120gp                              Better of 2 rolls, or average

Aristocratic               300gp                             Best of 3 rolls, or average

 

Aristocratic or Wealthy: may add specific residency requirements (must live in the main town, or own a country house/castle with farmlands and tenants).

 

This list should also be the general guide for paying underlings.    Laborers and the like would get a “poor” level, Guards and craftsmen a “modest” level.  

D&D Camp

Do I see a young Dave Nelson in these pictures? https://2warpstoneptune.com/2013/06/18/dungeons-dragons-camp-1981-1985/

The Future

Dave and I are starting to think about what we want to do next as a group. Specifically things like:

How do we end the current "Bloody Pulp" campaign

Will we "auto-GM" the end so that we can all play, or will there be a GM for the finale

How do we put Gotham to bed? Will we ever want to come back?

If we do come back to Gotham, would it be in the "present day" or in the past? Or the future! Gotham 2100 FTW!

What do we all want to do next?

If you have any thoughts or opinions, they would be welcome. Add comments below. Dave and I will be sharing our thoughts shortly.

A dumb question

How the hell to I get to my character to edit stats and shit. Bitch.  Got this cool pic for Friday Jones.