Delay in Next Post

Work at the day job has ballooned suddenly, plus I'm helping my wife set up an income-generating project of her own.  This has cut into my writing time, so this week's blog post will be a couple days late.  I expect this to happen for most of September as I get through the crunch of projects at the day job and we get my wife's project up and running.  I expect to still get a full post each week, I'm just not certain how late in the week it will be each week.  October should be better and by November most of the projects for this year will be wrapping up.

TL;DR: For September post dates will be at least once a week but exact day will vary. Gets better by October and back to normal in November.

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 25

 [Day 49 – Skirmish with the Unknown Mage explodes.]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened June 28, 2021.]

[SPOILERS!  If you are likely to adventure through the Shattered Star Adventure Path from Paizo, this campaign will be spoilers all the way down.]

Player Characters

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 6th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Roscuro – male ratfolk 6th level Monk

Swamprover – female grippli 5th level Wizard

Marativy – female ratfolk 6th level Ninja

Winston – male ratfolk 6th level Gunslinger

Via Roll20

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 6th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Autumn

Day 49

Round 6 of the combat!

The unknown mage was no longer in view, the Ratpack were fairly certain that the two images of him to the south were illusion.  Marativy started running the rooves of the buildings to get to the images and verify that was what they were.  Zitch actively looked around for some sign of the unknown mage.  Templeton waited for the unknown mage to do something and Winston climbed onto Templeton’s back to ride against the mage with Templeton.  Swamprover swung down into the building the mage had been on top of and started searching.  Roscuro followed so they could search faster.

The unknown mage cast a spell on Winton, but this would not be noticeable until too late.  Marativy leapt across a street, landing next to one of the images on an adjacent building.  She swung on it and it immediately dispersed.  Zitch flew nearer to Marativy and healed the damage she had taken earlier in the fight with a Healing Hex.  Winston, dominated by the mage, turned while sitting on Templeton’s back and rapid fired his musket at Zitch, catching Zitch by surprise and shot him repeatedly [one of the hits was a critical success].  Templeton, alarmed at Winston’s actions, immediately grappled the gunslinger, but it was too late, the damage had been done.  Inside the building Swamprover and Roscuro heard the shots, but assumed that Winston was shooting at the mage, so they continued their search, hoping to find Frederick.  The found stairs down and up into the attic [they were on the third floor], which seemed promising.

While the unknown mage did something the adventurers could not see, Zitch bled out from his wounds and died.  [Zitch had a 15 Constitution and Winston’s attack took him to -14 hit points.  The roll to stabilize and not die has a -1 per point below 0, so the roll for Zitch had a -14, meaning that Zitch’s player had to roll a natural 20 to not bleed out.  He didn’t, not even getting close, so Zitch lost another hit point.  Having negative hit points equal to the character’s Constitution is when death happens and Zitch died.]  Marativy, realizing Zitch was dead, continued her search, hoping to find either the mage or Frederick.  Winston, with no orders, remained passive in Templeton’s grip.  Templeton called for help while keeping Winston pinned.  Swamprover, hearing Templeton, went to a nearby window and climbed back onto the roof, finding Templeton pinning Winston.  She called out for Roscuro to “get up here in a hurry,” so he did.  He asked Winston what had happened and Winston, in an eerily calm voice said, “The guy said to kill Zitch, so I had to.”  Roscuro looked around and spotted movement in a courtyard to the north, sandwiched between some buildings to the north.  He quietly shared this information with Templeton and Swamprover.

To the south, Marativy was investigating a building and heard some muffled noise, so she went inside, doing her best to not be seen [which she is REALLY good at].  Templeton, on Roscuro's suggestion, dragged Winston south across the peak of the roof and potentially out of the mage’s line of sight.  Winston passively let him.  Swamprover cast Web at the courtyard, filling much of it with sticky strands.  Roscuro leapt across a street [monks have crazy jump capabilities at 6th level, plus Templeton's Haste spell was still in effect] and ran along the roof to try and get a better view into the courtyard.  He spotted the mage moving in the courtyard, but stepped on some of the sticky strands of the Web spell.

The mage, which Roscuro could now see matched the description of Leruu, cast some spell and retreated into the courtyard’s building.  Marativy continued her exploration to the south, locating a concealed door under some stairs.  Templeton continued to pin the unresisting Winston.  Swamprover ignited the webs in the courtyard [I didn’t make note of exactly how she did it].  Roscuro extracted himself from the stick webs, and then jumped past the webbing to the roof of the building Leruu was in, peering down on the far side, waiting for Leruu to exit the building.

Leruu instead cast Dimension Door [Roscuro has seen that spell a lot recently and now recognizes it] to exit the building to…somewhere.  To the south, Marativy discovered a trap on the concealed door and started disarming it.  It was an Exploding Rune, detonated, and caught her in the explosion.  Templeton took Winston’s musket away from him and then resumed pinning the gunslinger.  Swamprover started casting Rain of Frogs at where she thought the mage was located.  Roscuro looked hard for any evidence of the Leruu’s location, but could not locate the mage.

Leruu did something the adventurers could not see.  In the south, behind the now exploded door was a small chamber with ladder descending into a dug-out cellar.  Exploring quickly, Marativy found a person in a hood tied up to a chair.  She removed the hood – it was Frederick!  Templeton continued to pin the placid Winston.  Swamprover finished casting Rain of Frogs, dropping a swarm of frogs in the now empty courtyard and then snuck away.  Roscuro ran back across the roves to where Templeton and Winston were hiding.

Down at the teleportation gate, the black tentacles spell expired.  The mage mentally sent Winston new orders: “The frog must die!”  To the south, underground, Marativy did a quick check to verify Frederick was actually Frederick and not another illusion and then freed him with her wakizashi.  Back on the roof, Winston received his new orders and immediately set to breaking free from Templeton’s pin.  He did so, and in response, Templeton grabbed Winston’s musket and flew away with it, over to a nearby well.  Swamprover returned to the hiding place and cast Force Bolt at Winston, who was staring at her with intent.  Roscuro attempted to land a Stunning Fist on Winston but failed.  [Stunning Fist should be a touch attack and needs a higher save DC to make it useful - this was only the third time I ever had Roscuro try to use it because it is generally a waste of time.]

Leruu sent his flying sword to attack Roscuro, nearly cutting the monk in half.  Roscuro called for a retreat to the teleportation circle in response.  Marativy used her shard to create an image of Frederick still tied up and the explosion having never happened and the she and Frederick climbed the ladder up to the ground floor.  Winston, without his musket but filled with a need to kill Swamprover, pulled a vial of alchemist’s fire and threw it at the grippli, hitting her and splashing Roscuro.  Templeton used the musket as a scoop, filling its barrel with mud and rocks before dumping it in the well.  Swamprover fled to the teleportation gate.  Roscuro ran to the gate by a round-about path, picking up Zitch’s corpse along the way and jumping off the edge of the three-story structure, landing safely on the portal.  [Sixth-level monks don’t fear long drops to the ground due to their 30 feet of Slow Fall.]

Leruu withdrew the flying sword, possibly because he could no longer see his targets.  Marativy and Frederick ran out into the street, conveniently near Templeton, who Marativy flagged down.  Winston pulled out another vial of alchemist’s fire and moved to the roof edge to get a view of his target, Swamprover.  Templeton flew through Marativy and Frederick, scooping them up on the way to the teleportation portal, just managing to reach it before Swamprover activated it, teleporting everyone there back to the basement in Magnimar.

Roscuro set down Zitch’s corpse, and passed out the witch’s cure moderate wounds potions to Swamprover, Marativy, and himself as all three were seriously wounded.  Roscuro also quaffed his personal potion of cure light wounds.  This healed the group most of the way up, but not completely.

The group put together a hasty plan to try and retrieve Winston: Templeton would cast Invisibility and Mage Armor on himself and one other, sneak back through the portal, and they would quickly look for Winston to grab and drag back here.

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[High-level mind control spells are terrible for stealing player agency, especially during a side quest.  Leruu seemed to be particularly vicious about it.  We definitely felt ambushed by it.]

Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

…

Session 32 – Conclusion

Book 2:

Session 1

…

Session 10

…

Session 20

Session 21

Session 22

Session 23

Session 24

Session 26

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 24

[Day 49 – Basement cleared, then through the portal!]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened June 21, 2021.]

[SPOILERS!  If you are likely to adventure through the Shattered Star Adventure Path from Paizo, this campaign will be spoilers all the way down.]

Player Characters

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 6th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Roscuro – male ratfolk 6th level Monk

Swamprover – female grippli 5th level Wizard

Marativy – female ratfolk 6th level Ninja

Via Roll20

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 6th level Summoner (Synthesist)

Winston – male ratfolk 6th level Gunslinger

Autumn

Day 49

~4:00 PM

Responding to a mimic attacking Swamprover in the hidden basement of Frederick’s kidnapper, Marativy use ki to slide up to the mimic before it was aware of her presence and slashed it with great effect [sneak attack!].  Swamprover escaped from the mimic’s grip and took a short step away from it while ordering her familiar, Snek, to cast a Ray of Frost, which it did to minor effect.  The mimic struck at Marativy as the significant threat, but Roscuro, conveniently adjacent to Marativy, assisted in Marativy’s defense [used Bodyguard feat to give her +2 AC] and the mimic missed her.  Zitch put Protective Luck on Marativy while Roscuro released a flurry of blows on the mimic, hitting three times [one a critical success] but getting stuck to the mimic as a result [the critical success].  Around a corner and at the top of the stairs from the ground floor, Templeton and Winston heard Zitch cackling to maintain the Protective Luck, which informed them that a fight was happening down in the basement.

Marativy slashed the mimic again, followed by Swamprover casting Magic Missile at it, hitting it with four missiles and killing it.  As the rest of the group in the basement started to breathe a sigh of relief, a second mimic, over on a supply shelf, attacked, slamming Zitch and grappling him fast.  Upstairs Winston hopped onto the back of Templeton’s foo dog-shaped synthesis with his eidolon, ready to ride down into the basement.  Zitch attempted to free himself from the mimic attacking him and failed.  Then more bad news arrived: the ten-foot wide sticky part of the stairs came to life – it was a huge shadow mimic!  The shadow mimic, flickering back and forth between this realm and the shadow realm advanced to the entry of the basement.  Templeton flew down the stairs and pulled up short right behind the flickering shadow mimic at the bottom of the stairs.  Roscuro finally pulled free from the sticky remains of the first [now dead] mimic.  He took stock of the situation and started looking for chemicals that might negate the mimic adhesive.  There appeared to be a number of promising containers over on the wall in front of the stairs, adjacent to the immense shadow mimic.

Marativy went to Zitch’s rescue, stepping to flank the mimic holding the witch and slashing it with her wakizashi.  Then Swamprover cast Fire Ball, placing the eruption of flame to catch both mimics but none of her companions.  It also caught the promising containers of chemicals Roscuro was eyeing and several of them promptly exploded!  Roscuro sighed while the second mimic squeezed Zitch, not very impressed by the explosion [it made its save].  From Templeton’s back, Winston rapid fired his musket, placing all three shots on center of mass of the shadow mimic…or where he thought the mass was.  The flickering shadows evaporated around the shots as Winston missed its actual body [displacement effect made all three hits misses].  Zitch flailed feebly in the grip of the second mimic while the shadow mimic turned and grabbed Winston on Templeton’s back, squeezing hard until bones cracked [it made a critical hit and did 34 points of damage].  Templeton attacked the shadow mimic in response, raking it with his claws but the shadow mimic ignored the attendant cold damage from the frigid claws.  Roscuro ran and hopped tables to go to Zitch’s aid, throwing a punch at the second mimic and getting stuck to its adhesive.

Marativy slashed the second mimic while Swamprover pumped Magic Missiles into it.  It maintained its grips on Zitch and Roscuro, squeezing Zitch further.  Zitch involuntarily squeaked as a result.  Winston failed to escape from the shadow mimic while Zitch cast a healing hex upon himself and continued to cackle in the face of death.  The shadow mimic released Winston to attack Templeton, whose attacks were causing it to leak shadowy blood.  It hit Templeton solidly.  Templeton and Winston had a brief discussion about fleeing, but Winston urged Templeton to attack, which he did, clawing the shadow mimic twice and biting it once.  Roscuro landed a flurry of blows on the mimic holding him, killing it while avoiding getting further entangled.

Marativy advanced on the shadow mimic, working to get to a flanking position on it.  Swamprover moved to get a better view of it, hoping to lessen the flicker effect.  Winston jumped off the back of Templeton and ran back up the stairs, leaping over the large gap where the shadow mimic had been sitting.  He activated his newly constructed Pouch of Abundant Ammunition and prepared to rain shots on the shadow mimic from above.  Zitch re-applied Protective Luck to Roscuro and stepped away from the shadow mimic, cackling.  The bleeding shadow mimic maintained its grip on Templeton and squeezed again, damaging Templeton’s eidolon.  Templeton raked it again with attacks, but two of his attacks hit shadows and not flesh.  Roscuro freed himself from the dead second mimic and stepped to striking distance on the shadow mimic, directly opposite Marativy.

Marativy, now flanking the shadow mimic, struck critically, slicing a huge gash in the side of the shadow mimic.  Swamprover cast Flaming Sphere at the shadow mimic but it flowed its flesh to avoid the burning orb.  Winston rapid fired on the shadow mimic, the shadowy displacement caused one of the shots to miss but the other two struck true and killed it.

When no other crates or parts of the basement came to life as mimics, the adventures released the breaths they were holding.  Zitch started healing himself, Winston, and Swamprover.  Roscuro and Marativy took this time to go around the basement with bladed weapons, stabbing every crate or box in the basement.  While doing this they noticed a portal inscribed on the floor of the basement in the back, covered with boxes to hide it.

The entire group started searching the boxes and moving them off the portal.  One of the boxes had writing supplies and a note written in Sylvan.  Swamprover was able to read it.  The note was in response to a report of someone snooping around [Marativy the previous night] and contained instructions from Leruu [the kidnapper] to the guards on this place, instructing them to activate the mimics and hide out elsewhere for a few days.

There was discussion about the portal.  Any wizard could activate it, but they had no idea what was on the other side.  It seemed likely that Frederick had been taken through the portal after being kidnapped by Leruu, so the group felt obliged to go through and at least see what was there.  Zitch placed his Ward on Roscuro while the group gathered on the portal.  Swamprover activated the portal.

After a brief flash of light, the group was standing on the receiving portal, in an alley of some sort among a cluster of buildings.  Three armored humans with swords and shields stood separately, surrounding the arrival point.  One of them called out, “We have intruders!  Kill them!”

That told the Ratpack all they needed to know.

Zitch immediately flew up 15 feet to get out of melee range.  Marativy took a more aggressive action and charged a guard at the end of the alley nearest her, slashing him with her wakizashi, and then using her ki to turn invisible, much to the guard’s consternation.  Templeton cast Haste on the Ratpack.  The guard off a side alley advanced on Templeton and swung his sword, but failed to land a blow on the foo dog-shaped summoner.  Winston activated his Pouch of Abundant Ammunition [it had timed out since he activated it in the mimic fight].  Swamprover cast Acid Arrow on the third guard and then used her sticky toe- and finger-pads to climb onto an adjacent low [one story] building.  Marativy’s guard, no longer seeing the ninja, moved to attack Winston.  His action was interrupted by Marativy’s attack of opportunity as he tried to walk away from her and she literally stabbed him in the back.  The guard turned around and attacked Marativy in response [visible now as invisibility stops when you attack], but completely failed to hit the hasted ninja.  The third guard walked up to the adventurers from in front of them and attacked Templeton, but failed to land the blow due to Roscuro acting as Templeton’s bodyguard.  Roscuro used a ki point to enhance his flurry of blows and attacked the side alley guard, hitting him four times.

Up in the air, Zitch cast Protective Luck on Templeton, who seemed to be drawing the most attacks, and cackled to maintain it.  Marativy, somewhat jittery due to the Haste, nearly dropped her sword on her first attack but plunged the blade into the guard she was fighting, killing the guard, on her second swing.  Templeton fully attacked the guards around him, clawing the guard Roscuro punched and clawing and biting the other.  The side alley guard bled out and died before he could respond to either Templeton or Roscuro.  Winston rapid fired on the remaining guard, killing him with the first bullet.  Suddenly, black, rubbery tentacles erupted from the ground, grappling may of the Ratpack.  Roscuro jumped out of the circle of tentacles, landing safely and peering around, looking for the unexpected spellcaster.  Swamprover, who had been holding her action, spotted a floating sword in the side alley.  Thinking the spellcaster was there, she cast Lightning Bolt on the area.  She did a great deal of damage to the building but there was no other appreciable result.

The unharmed floating sword zipped up through the air and struck Swamprover, nearly cutting the grippli in half [it did most of her hit points in damage in one hit – this is a theme that repeats] while the black tentacles thrashed those trapped in them.  Zitch located the spellcaster on the roof of the tall [three-story] building that made one wall of the alley the teleportation circle was in.  He attempted to lay an Evil Eye on the spellcaster, but it failed to take.  Marativy used a tree adjacent to the tall building to assist in gaining access to the roof, leaping acrobatically between the tree and the building until she was on the roof.  [Go see almost any Jackie Chan movie to learn what this looks like.]  Templeton failed to escape from the tentacles.  Swamprover hopped over to the tree and started climbing.  Roscuro used his ki to enhance his already enhanced speed and sprinted the long way around the tall building to reach the tree Marativy had just used to attain the roof.

The unknown mage moved the floating sword to strike Marativy, nearly killing her.  Zitch put Protective Luck on Marativy to help keep her alive.  Marativy used her ki to turn invisible again, silently walked over to the mage, and slashed him with her wakizashi.  Templeton used Dimension Door to get he and Winston out of the black tentacles and back into the fight.  Winston moved a bit to get a better shot on the mage and rapid fired his musket, striking the mage multiple times [for 43 points of damage total].  Sadly, this did not kill the unknown mage.  Swamprover continued to climb up the side of the tall building while Roscuro copied Marativy’s bouncing trick, reaching the roof himself.  [Swamprover only has 20 feet of climbing speed while Roscuro currently has 70 feet of movement, so even at half speed, he reached the roof much faster than her.]

The mage stepped back from Marativy and cast Dimension Door.  Zitch flew as high as he could and scanned the roof tops.  He spotted the mage on a roof north of the group and called out that information.  Templeton grabbed Winston and flew both of them to the mage, dropping off Winston before swiping at the mage with a claw.  He failed to hit the mage.  Winston stepped back and started rapid firing his musket.  The first shot struck true, revealing this mage to be just an image.  Looking for additional targets, Winston spotted two more copies of the mage and shot each once.  Both were images that dispersed upon being hit.  Swamprover finally reached the roof and started looking around for the mage.  Roscuro looked south and called out that he could see two more, pointing one hand at each.

[As it was late and this fight could go on a while longer, we paused the fight here.]

End of Session

Rat Whispers

[I should point out that this entire bit, retrieving Frederick from his kidnapper, is a side quest invented by the Other DM and not part of the Shattered Star Adventure Path.  It took us (the players) a while to work this out, which honestly REDUCED the sense of urgency on the main adventure.  We once thought Frederick being kidnapped indicated that another party/faction was also seeking the shards and was close behind us, which leant a sense of urgency.  When we learned this was not the case, it took our foot off the accelerator and we…well, you’ll see in a post or two.]

[It is probably obvious, but I’m stating it here just in case: each paragraph in a combat is one round.  It sometimes makes them a bit big and awkward, but helps track the progress of the combat.  I’m not certain how beneficial doing it this way is to the average reader of my blog, but my players seem to appreciate it and it helps my memory if I need to review my notes to answer a question.  Your mileage may vary.]

[Typing up this fight I think I found an error.  The unknown mage dropped the Black Tentacles spell near the end of a combat round.  I believe if he had been holding his action, casting then would have set his initiative at that point, but the Other GM had him go at his normal initiative the next round.  This might have changed the fight as Swamprover would have cast an attack spell at him instead of hiding from the enchanted weapon attack.  It is important to remember small rules like these, especially when different editions treat them differently.]

[By the way, the Other GM actually had a Black Tentacles template that he dropped when the spell was cast and it rocked!  I immediately recognized the spell from its origins in 1st Ed. AD&D and it brought a smile to my face…especially when my character made the save to avoid being grappled by it.  😉]

Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

…

Session 32 – Conclusion

Book 2:

Session 1

…

Session 10

…

Session 20

Session 21

Session 22

Session 23

Session 25

Draft C Complete!

I've posted a link to Draft C of Book III: Campaigns of Adventures in the Green on the Draft C Downloads page.  This is still a playtest version of the rules, so I am very interested in feedback.  Please send me anything you find or would like to suggest - it helps greatly!  😄

Thank you for your time and consideration!

Adventures in the Green, Book III: Campaigns Draft C complete

 I made a big push the last two weeks to complete my editorial pass for Draft C of Book III of Adventures in the Green and it paid off.  The section on Magic Items took longer to edit as many of the items had unique issues and some required research to resolve.  Others were a daisy chain of cross-references that had to be coordinated with each other or they introduced the stats for creatures or monsters that belong in the bestiary section of Book II.

TL;DR: Book III was a jungle and needed a lot of work, but it's done now.

I will convert the Word document into a PDF later this week.  That will need some clean-up, but not a lot, so I expect to post the PDF for Book III, Draft C by the end of Friday.

Next step is Draft D for all three books.  This will require:

• Incorporating all edits, corrections, and inserts resulting from play-test or the Draft C edit.
• Finalize the Style Guide so all references are consistent across all three books.
• Do the detailed consistency edit on all three books.
• Create an Art List to contract art from.

The art style I'm using right now is Public Domain woodcut artwork...except for the cover of Book III.  I'd like to have artwork that is similar style and quality across all three books and I suspect I'll need to contract an artist for that.

I should have a Session report later this week as well, but don't hold me to that as I need to prep for the playtest game this Saturday.

Later!