Next Game

For our next game, Sunday, March 13, this is the tentative scheme.


Blastocles, while working at the office of Roos Tashash, copied a request from the Boatmans' Guild for the Government to deal with a flock of Harpies preying on the river trade around hex 2020.


The plan is for the party to hunt down the nest and clear out the harpy problem.

Wilderlands 4 Discussion

(Pictured, Blastocles gets a job)


Small turnout, interesting session.  


I haven't had a full-session City Adventure for many, many years.   Having the City-State book, filled with NPC descriptions, from Bureaucrats to Sage Schools, to Alchemists made things very interesting.    I especially liked the description of the Zhir Criminal Court and the natures of the three judges.   The gem wholesaler who's a total chiseler was kind of fun too.   The city map, on the other hand, did not seem so very important this time around.


I guess I should have expected someone to get arrested for murder at some point, but I totally did not foresee that.   Since Marlon got surprise on the waiting thieves, and then attacked them first in broad daylight, and then randomly encountered a militia patrol that was randomly suspicious and then he didn't even try to run or even talk his way out of things, it was going to happen.   I suppose on second thought that I shouldn't have been able to foresee that.


That scarab of Charm Person--best magic item ever.


That "Excellent Penmanship" turns out to be far more valuable than one might think.   I really do like the random perk cards in general.


The new reaction tables worked out well, and ended up getting a real work out.

Rules Update 2 is out

I've sent out and also posted to the Wilderlands Wiki Rules Update #2.  This includes the rules for spell research, primitive spell casters, poison, and making magic items.   It also includes the Alchemist NPC class, and the Bard's power to charm, and the NPC reaction tables.

Wilderlands Session 3 Discussion

The trifecta is complete.  Session 1: town adventure,  Session 2: overland quest, Session 3 dungeon crawl.


I really like the "Rigor Mortis" spell from Hackmaster, it's basically a Hold Person that also works on the Undead.   I also liked the Dead Priests using a Focus with the spell, with a chance for the PC's to cash in on it.


In case you haven't guessed or noticed, each one of the treasure cards has a code number on it "D1", "D10" etc., and the value is listed in my secret notebook.   I'm intending that the disposal of the various treasure items will form the basic frame for the game next time, so it's time to get to know Viridistan a little better.  


It really doesn't make any sense to describe treasure items and then just lump them into cash value and dispose of them immediately anyway.  I'm glad you've divided the items up and need to deal with your own items individually.   It's funny, I've been trying to give away #D1 for three sessions now, but it's still in my hands.


I intend to give thieves a chance to price loot items, but who is going to trust a thief to tell you what the value of treasure might be.   I suppose some classes like Gnomes and Dwarves might be able to appraise certain items too.


Kudos to Jason for being well-prepared with Acid, Devil Grease and Military Oil.  That's thinking ahead profitably. 


It's lucky Marlon's character is such a bad ass, or he might have ended up in serious trouble.


Man, it was a hard day for henchmen.

Keeping Up With Things

I  just wanted to remind everyone that the Wilderlands of Hack Wiki is up and running (see the interesting links to the right).   There is a page for each character, and if you want to change anything there or add information to it, either let me know, or ask Andrew for editing password if you don't have one.  I at least need to add Blastocles's ability scores to the page.  Also, are there any rulings I made this session we need to keep track of or expand?  I seem to remember an issue coming up, but don't remember what it was.   If anyone has any suggestions about magic item manufacture, let me know.   I'm going to start to wrestle with rules for those soon.

Wilderlands Session 2 Discussion

Knock, Knock
Who's There?
Blastocles
Blastocles who?
I cast sleep spell.


A most enjoyable session all around.   There were really only 3 combat encounters (horse thieves, centipedes, and breaking into Mant's house) and one of those was pretty minimal combat wise.  It was a heavily role-played session and the chips for experience really made that easy to do without penalizing the players.


There was a fair amount of treasure, but a rather large amount of it, if not all of it got sucked up in expenses.   I suppose that's why people go into dungeons, to get a bunch of treasure in a short period of time and so to get ahead of the expense curve.


I liked how the Focus items rules worked out in practice.   The Hypnotic Scarab of Mant Fildoo was just the perfect tool in play, and the fact that it miraculously survived Fildoo's death was a nice bonus. 


We didn't get a lot of use out of combat options.   Wandering Frank did Rampage a few times, but always seemed to hit his regular attack and miss his rampage attack.  Using ability checks to decide all the things that other versions use skill checks to do is just peachy in play.  We didn't have to worry about not having "Jumping Skill" or "Animal Husbandry" or other such nonsense when the logs came down and the horses started fighting.


Using the Wilderlands map for the adventure worked very well too.   There's just enough detail to get the ball rolling for all kinds of encounters, minor and major.  Taltar!!!