B.MC. — playing Azrulektos, a Kraken warrior/wizard
C.A.H. — playing Karl Kroc, a Masaquani treasure hunter and navigator
M.A.H. — playing Moorumah, a charming but rather dim Grael
Introduction
Partial session report from e-mails provided by the GM. The notes on
the setting and system background were provided for a friend who isn't
playing in this campaign, but was interested in what happened this
session.
C.A.H. took notes. [Additional details pending, to be provided by C.A.H.]
Actual Play
The players were exploring the Whip Islands, where wreckage from the
Flotsom Sea often washes up, and had found a small chest of silver
ingots (1000 pieces of eight worth) underwater amongst some wreckage
of a ship. Their Spanish pirate crewman, Senor Miguel Figuroa, said
that it was likely from the wreckage of a Spanish treasure galleon!
They couldn't find any more on the inside of the reef, so they left
their ship anchored in the cove inside the reef and took their ship's
boat outside the reef and began exploring underwater. (B.MC.'s
character, Azrulektos, and one of their crew are fully aquatic and can
breath underwater; another NPC and M.A.H.'s character, Muroomah, are
semi-aquatic and can stay underwater for more than 15 minutes; and
Azrulektos had cast a spell on C.A.H.'s character, Karl Kroc, that
lets him breath normally underwater.) (Actually, I think A. cast that
on Muroomah as well, so she could stay underwater longer.) They found
another small chest near a large part of the bow of the ship, but
noticed something large moving behind the bow section. They fastened
a rope around the chest, and yanked the rope to signal the two crew in
the boat to pull the chest up. Unfortunately, the underside of the
chest had been chained to a spike driven into the rock of the seabed,
and wouldn't come up, and a giant octopus appeared from behind the
bough. Muroomah charged forward and with her new and very fine great
ax killed the giant octopus with one blow. [The GM is afraid that
this was the second giant octopus she's killed with one blow.]
Unfortunately, a bunch of octopons appeared around the bow of the
ship, and everybody decided to flee the obvious trap.
Upon arriving at the surface they found another group of octopons
already surrounding their small ship's boat. The two crewmen in the
boat fired their two pistols at the octopons, but missed. At least
they had alerted their crewmates aboard their ship, anchored 1/8 of a
mile away, behind the reef, in the cove. In the mean time, it was a
melee in the water. Muroomah did massive damage, attacking all the
adjacent octopons with her ax and sending them dead and bleeding to
sink into the sea. Azrulektos stunned and damaged octopons with his
magic. Karl Kroc attacked bravely. The NPCs were unable to hit
anything. However, the octopons kept coming, with new pods of them
showing up when the originals had been disposed of.
Things had gotten to a grim point. All the PCs were wounded, a couple
of the NPCs and Muroomah were unconscious, and Azrulektos was out of
spell points.
Death!
After fighting waves of octopons, everybody was out of bennies, and
Azrulektos had two wounds. Each would gives the player a -1 penalty
to all Trait rolls. Azrulektos drank a potion to restore some power
points, and rolled 2d6 to see how many were restored, and got snake
eyes: 2. He was out of bennies, so I said if he took another wound
I'd let him reroll, and he did, getting 7 power points back. Then
something else happened and he rolled badly, and I said I'd let him
reroll that, if he took another wound. That would make his fourth
wound, which would mean he'd have to roll on the Incapacitation table.
He accepted, made his reroll, which wasn't any better, failed his roll
on the Incapacitation table, which meant he was Bleeding out, and had
to make Vigor roll to stabilize, and rolled a critical failure (snake
eyes - ones on both his Vigor die and his Wild die), which is instant
death.
Stupid GM's House Rules :-(
After game reasoning: So, a badly thought-out house rule and a bad run
of dice "killed" Azrulektos. My mistake was overestimating how helpful
the rerolls for additional wounds would be, and underestimating how
deadly the results of those wounds would be. I won't be using that
house rule again. Since I was very dissatisfied with the results of
my mistake, I went looking for a different in game result that could
be plausible.
In game he drank a potion, and a couple of rounds later keeled over
dead without any physical attacks on him. Reasoning from the in-game
events led to me to think that the mana potion must have been
magically cursed, which lead to the idea of a coma, rather than actual
death.
Back to the game. Anyway, the other crew brought the ship up, and
fired a volley of muskets at the octopons, scaring them off, brought
everybody on board, and fled to Baltimus, and a healer. (Azrulektos
was the company's healer, too, unfortunately.)
Aftermath
The GM suggested that, unless someone thought it was a bad idea, we should
recton [1] the game mechanics interpretation and in-game result
slightly, since there were no in-game physical wounds for those last
two wounds. Instead of there being actual wounds, the potion that
Azrulektos ingested (discovered in an Octopon treasure chest, if I
remember correctly), in addition to restoring mana points (the bait),
was also cursed and triggered a delayed magical attack on the imbiber,
with the end result that a couple of rounds after he drank it it
wounded him and put him into a death-like coma. A successful Natural
healing roll will bring him out of the coma. An application of the
Healing spell will enable him to continue to survive in the coma for
five days. Since Grimnar found a good healer when you all arrived in
Baltimas, all that is needed is time and money.
B.MC. thought that would work fine, and nobody objected.
I bought a copy of the PDF and paperback [1] of Swords &
Wizardry: Complete Rules[2] from Frog God
Games this evening, and after a quick scan of the PDF my initial
reaction is positive: it does look like what I'd hoped it would be: a
much better organized restatement of the seven original D&D
booklets, and I think it is likely to become one of my favorite
versions of D&D. Matthew Finch of Mythemere Games and Frog God
Games have done what looks like a fine job.
Swords & Wizardry: Complete Rules is a retro-clone of original
D&D.
And the text is OGL Open Game Content; to quote from the OGL section
at the back of the book:
This entire work is designated as Open Game Content under the OGL,
with the exception of the trademarks “Swords & Wizardry,” “S&W,”
“Mythmere Games,” “FGG,” “Frog God Games,” and with the exception of
all artwork. These trademarks, artwork, and the Trade Dress of this
work (font, layout, style of artwork, etc.) are reserved as Product
Identity.
The Dark World, by Henry Kuttner; copyright 1946 by Ace Books,
renewed 1974 by Catherine Kuttner Reggie; Planet Stories/Paizo
Publishing, LLC; First Printing November, 2008; ISBN:
978-1-60125-136-7.
About
Lacking Natural Simplicity is one, not particularly flattering,
definition of sophisticated.
This blog chronicles my journey through our at times too complicated
and sophisticated world.
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