Session 13: Player Thoughts
First off, I would like to just start off on a non-D&D matter. At the time I’m writing this, I have gone through my second day of chemotherapy, and am quite pleased to say that I didn’t suffer any of the immediate side effects that my doctor warned me I would likely have, particularly with the first treatment. It’s still way early I know, but I’m hoping this trend continues over the next four days of treatment. Now on to the last session.
Thanks to Bob for the quick session write-up as it has given me time to think on what I’d like to say about it. I guess the most obvious thing is that I made a minor mistake in that I decided to put both my characters together, rather than split them up when we recovered the Sea Wyvern ship. Given we are (were) supposed to be an evil party, I think we all knew that there would be a lot of separation for our characters as they went off doing what our nefarious imaginations could think of. And thus far this has been the case. Because we are all good friends in our group, most of these devilish deals have been made with everyone in the room. The only exceptions were when the DM asked one of us to leave or when he dismissed Bob for a few moments as the Gangsworth’s found themselves neck deep in trouble they hadn’t expected. I honestly don’t remember the last time I’ve played two characters as it is difficult to balance equal premise on both; that is to make them both stand out equally like everyone else’s characters. But with evil all around, having two characters simply made sense as I figured one would follow Eric’s character, while the other would follow in Bob’s character’s foot steps. And throughout the campaign so far, this has worked out perfectly in that I have had the chance to play a part in most encounters, given that our “Party” always splits up. So what possessed me to keep both my characters together this time?
Well, it was mostly logic. Glaive logically would not want Anzak on his newly acquired Sea Wyvern as he has seen what a monster these mutoid creatures are. The only thing keeping Glaive from blasting Anzak to smithereens was Gustav and Garland asking him not to. Garland wanted to get back to port as soon as possible and wanted a full crew contingent for the Blue Nixie. After repeated requests, Glaive’s call for more crew for the Wyvern went unheeded. Yet the whole goal of Glaive was to recover the Wyvern and bring it back where it belonged. Leaving it to possibly burn in Kraken’s Cove thus didn’t seem a logical choice for him to make. And so I had him accept the two crew members from the Nixie that were spares in order to sail the ship with a reduced crew and therefore requiring more time. Then I thought, that if any trouble did come upon the ship, then Glaive would pretty much be dead meat. And so I decided to put Crimson on the boat just in case such a situation happened, given that she does posses at least some meager fighting skills. Given the campaigns we’ve played though, I figured that there would be an encounter on our way back to Sasserine. So with the Nixie and the Wyvern, there was an even better chance that we could get through it. As a player, I gambled that this encounter would take place during the first two days when both ships were in sight of each other.
And this is why you will never catch me at an electronic Poker came at a Casino.
You see the gamble failed miserably. And this I had to wait for the dramatic end of session to find out how so wrong I was. I saw the DM’s hints that taking the Wyvern at this time would be a bad idea, but I just couldn’t justify my character not risking everything to get. And so it was that on the third day the expected encounter happened. More on this will be rollplayed in our next session in two weeks, but basically a single black robed cleric attacked the Wyvern. Given the attacks it used, I’m fairly certain it was Orbius, everything made complete sense. Seeing a ship going in the direction he had reportedly flew to (Glaive unfortunately made some bad navigation checks), Orbius takes a closer look to see the pansy sailors trying to catch him. All hail the sometimes merciful DM Mark as he did pretty much the same tactics as he did during the prisoner escape sequence with Garland. The apparent priestess cast a spell that sent everyone panicking. This was supposed to pretty much send both my characters and the crew into the water, where there the encounter would have likely ended. A few cause serious wounds spells were thrown just for the hell of it. I made my two initial saves for the fear effect, almost hoping for two fails as I didn’t think my characters would take the cleric out. Crimson and here awesome saves: Failed Will. Perfect. Glaive and his meager saves: Will Passed! With Glaive unknowingly all alone on the boat and in his cabin, I prepared to launch a spell. And that’s when I knew right away who the “priestess” was as my scorching ray melted to nothing well before it struck home. Again Mark was benevolent and used a charm monster to try and send me running and swimming away. And again, despite me really wanting to see a 1 on that D20, it rolled a 19: so yet another pass. I tried magic missile barrage but this also failed. So with no Knowledge Arcana ranks I still had no idea what was going on. With our “Keep it Real” motto, Glaive was hit with a cause moderate wounds spell. And of course this time the Will Save was a Fail, including the Fate Point roll. Mark rolls damage in front of me: 8, 8, for a total of 26 damage! It might as well have been a disintegration ray as for Glaive that much damage was enough to kill him.
I see more now why Bob was not all that disappointed when his character died and why Mark too was not all that downtrodden when Elena died those times during the Age of Worms Campaign. Because it was the end of the session, the other player had the chance to find the Wyvern. They had the chance to see what was left of Glaive, making for a gruesome discovery, and giving us yet another reason to fight forces that we are overmatched to fight. Luckily Crimson was saved which allowed me to explain at least a little as to what she actually saw. Now, with these words, my fellow players and you the fans of this site have the chance to read the events that likely never would have been revealed in their entirety. And all of this makes me veer more in the direction of not wanting Glaive to be resurrected. His permanent death, in my opinion, would cement a very dramatic storyline in the Savage Tide campaign. Although it might not affect Gustav in anyway, it definitely will push Garland to even further vengeance. Glaive’s death might also help me develop Crimson as I do see potential with her cleric classes coming up and I would like her to become a character I can rollplay more, given her skill set. I’ve been feeling like she’s become more of a follower-type character, with no real personality.
I will say that it was disappointing, missing the bullywug encounter, given that it was THE encounter of this chapter. Two and a half hours of just sitting and watching did seem a little long, but these are the things that happen sometimes during a session, and I did have my 20 minutes of anarchy later on with the Wyvern encounter. It was fun to see the combo of Garland and Gustav fighting side by side, and seeing the decisions they made, particularly with Anzak. And I did have the chance to play a few bullywug monsters, though I don’t think I was able to get even a single hit in. The session overall was not the best in the world, nor was it the worst so far. It had a monstrous surprise for me, a rollplaying victory for Bob as he saw Gustav and Lavinia finally united, and it saw just plain fighting fun for Eric’s character Garland. With a snowstorm annulling this previous weekend session, and our next meeting scheduled for only February 16, its gonna seem a long wait indeed for another few hours of D&D awesomeness.
Thanks to Bob for the quick session write-up as it has given me time to think on what I’d like to say about it. I guess the most obvious thing is that I made a minor mistake in that I decided to put both my characters together, rather than split them up when we recovered the Sea Wyvern ship. Given we are (were) supposed to be an evil party, I think we all knew that there would be a lot of separation for our characters as they went off doing what our nefarious imaginations could think of. And thus far this has been the case. Because we are all good friends in our group, most of these devilish deals have been made with everyone in the room. The only exceptions were when the DM asked one of us to leave or when he dismissed Bob for a few moments as the Gangsworth’s found themselves neck deep in trouble they hadn’t expected. I honestly don’t remember the last time I’ve played two characters as it is difficult to balance equal premise on both; that is to make them both stand out equally like everyone else’s characters. But with evil all around, having two characters simply made sense as I figured one would follow Eric’s character, while the other would follow in Bob’s character’s foot steps. And throughout the campaign so far, this has worked out perfectly in that I have had the chance to play a part in most encounters, given that our “Party” always splits up. So what possessed me to keep both my characters together this time?
Well, it was mostly logic. Glaive logically would not want Anzak on his newly acquired Sea Wyvern as he has seen what a monster these mutoid creatures are. The only thing keeping Glaive from blasting Anzak to smithereens was Gustav and Garland asking him not to. Garland wanted to get back to port as soon as possible and wanted a full crew contingent for the Blue Nixie. After repeated requests, Glaive’s call for more crew for the Wyvern went unheeded. Yet the whole goal of Glaive was to recover the Wyvern and bring it back where it belonged. Leaving it to possibly burn in Kraken’s Cove thus didn’t seem a logical choice for him to make. And so I had him accept the two crew members from the Nixie that were spares in order to sail the ship with a reduced crew and therefore requiring more time. Then I thought, that if any trouble did come upon the ship, then Glaive would pretty much be dead meat. And so I decided to put Crimson on the boat just in case such a situation happened, given that she does posses at least some meager fighting skills. Given the campaigns we’ve played though, I figured that there would be an encounter on our way back to Sasserine. So with the Nixie and the Wyvern, there was an even better chance that we could get through it. As a player, I gambled that this encounter would take place during the first two days when both ships were in sight of each other.
And this is why you will never catch me at an electronic Poker came at a Casino.
You see the gamble failed miserably. And this I had to wait for the dramatic end of session to find out how so wrong I was. I saw the DM’s hints that taking the Wyvern at this time would be a bad idea, but I just couldn’t justify my character not risking everything to get. And so it was that on the third day the expected encounter happened. More on this will be rollplayed in our next session in two weeks, but basically a single black robed cleric attacked the Wyvern. Given the attacks it used, I’m fairly certain it was Orbius, everything made complete sense. Seeing a ship going in the direction he had reportedly flew to (Glaive unfortunately made some bad navigation checks), Orbius takes a closer look to see the pansy sailors trying to catch him. All hail the sometimes merciful DM Mark as he did pretty much the same tactics as he did during the prisoner escape sequence with Garland. The apparent priestess cast a spell that sent everyone panicking. This was supposed to pretty much send both my characters and the crew into the water, where there the encounter would have likely ended. A few cause serious wounds spells were thrown just for the hell of it. I made my two initial saves for the fear effect, almost hoping for two fails as I didn’t think my characters would take the cleric out. Crimson and here awesome saves: Failed Will. Perfect. Glaive and his meager saves: Will Passed! With Glaive unknowingly all alone on the boat and in his cabin, I prepared to launch a spell. And that’s when I knew right away who the “priestess” was as my scorching ray melted to nothing well before it struck home. Again Mark was benevolent and used a charm monster to try and send me running and swimming away. And again, despite me really wanting to see a 1 on that D20, it rolled a 19: so yet another pass. I tried magic missile barrage but this also failed. So with no Knowledge Arcana ranks I still had no idea what was going on. With our “Keep it Real” motto, Glaive was hit with a cause moderate wounds spell. And of course this time the Will Save was a Fail, including the Fate Point roll. Mark rolls damage in front of me: 8, 8, for a total of 26 damage! It might as well have been a disintegration ray as for Glaive that much damage was enough to kill him.
I see more now why Bob was not all that disappointed when his character died and why Mark too was not all that downtrodden when Elena died those times during the Age of Worms Campaign. Because it was the end of the session, the other player had the chance to find the Wyvern. They had the chance to see what was left of Glaive, making for a gruesome discovery, and giving us yet another reason to fight forces that we are overmatched to fight. Luckily Crimson was saved which allowed me to explain at least a little as to what she actually saw. Now, with these words, my fellow players and you the fans of this site have the chance to read the events that likely never would have been revealed in their entirety. And all of this makes me veer more in the direction of not wanting Glaive to be resurrected. His permanent death, in my opinion, would cement a very dramatic storyline in the Savage Tide campaign. Although it might not affect Gustav in anyway, it definitely will push Garland to even further vengeance. Glaive’s death might also help me develop Crimson as I do see potential with her cleric classes coming up and I would like her to become a character I can rollplay more, given her skill set. I’ve been feeling like she’s become more of a follower-type character, with no real personality.
I will say that it was disappointing, missing the bullywug encounter, given that it was THE encounter of this chapter. Two and a half hours of just sitting and watching did seem a little long, but these are the things that happen sometimes during a session, and I did have my 20 minutes of anarchy later on with the Wyvern encounter. It was fun to see the combo of Garland and Gustav fighting side by side, and seeing the decisions they made, particularly with Anzak. And I did have the chance to play a few bullywug monsters, though I don’t think I was able to get even a single hit in. The session overall was not the best in the world, nor was it the worst so far. It had a monstrous surprise for me, a rollplaying victory for Bob as he saw Gustav and Lavinia finally united, and it saw just plain fighting fun for Eric’s character Garland. With a snowstorm annulling this previous weekend session, and our next meeting scheduled for only February 16, its gonna seem a long wait indeed for another few hours of D&D awesomeness.
posted by Adimarchus | 7:12 PM
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