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WarrenWright
Looking around
(3/17/03 8:27 am)
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Ghost Town Struggles
Perhaps some of you can offer advice. My group is thoroughly enjoying the sessions based on this module, as am I.
Quick summary of my group:
lvl 4/1 dwarven Fighter/Cleric
lvl 5 gnome illusionist
lvl 5 Paladin of Helm
lvl 5 Cleric of Lathander
lvl 5 elven Ranger
lvl 6 MC Bard/Fighter mix
lvl 3/3 gnome rogue/illusionist
I have questions for you at the end of this brief summary of what happened last night, in their first visit to Nulb:
The party walks into Nulb alert, but unwilling (after brief discussion) to risk sending someone ahead to scout.
4 Varghouilles prove ineffective upon rising up from both sides of the bridge as they cross it, but help set the tone, along with the overcast and rainy skies.
Vhran, Paladin of Helm, stops to detect evil on nearby buildings, and clearly detects the presence of Wat (medium aura) and the Allip (Minor aura).
With that, and after hearing the mind-wrenching wail of the Allip...recognizing it as a cry of despair, the Paladin leads a charge into the inn, expecting trouble.
They see an empty barroom. There is a long bar against the far wall, a door behind it, and a stairway leading up to the side of it.
The party fans out towards the door and stairway, alert, but unsuspecting of....
Wat, appearing next to the Paladin, attempts to draw his sword across the paladin's neck, but is foiled by the combination of full plate armor and a magic shield...not that the Paladin's saving throws would have allowed the 'death' portion to take effect anyway.
However, the horrific appearance of Wat takes its toll, as the Paladin and the Cleric lose out permanently on three very important stats.
The party begins to attack, without much luck despite magic weapons in every hand...except for the gnome, who does manage to smack Wat with a magic missile.
And with that, Wat dives into the chest of Arthonorn, the bardic warrior, and Arthonorn re-adjusts the grip on his sword, turning towards his nearest companion.
With that, The paladin and cleric decide to run up the stairs on the off chance that the aura they detected upstairs could have something to do with freeing/destroying Wat, and much to my surprise (and pleasure) manage to turn a fight against a single ghostly assassin into a fight with a ghostly assassin and an Allip!!!!
The Allip proceeds to drain the Paladin down to a 4 wisdom over the next 4-5 rounds (so much for her saving throws), while the rest of the party chops down their own bard into negative territory.
Wat appears, lending his horrific appearance to the only party member that hadn't seen it yet, and the ranger promptly drops a few stats down a notch or 4.
Wat dives into the nearby gnomish rogue, and proceeds to surrive for many rounds inside the agile rogue, while shooting foes with its bow.
Finally, the allip is destroyed, the cleric puts up a magic circle against evil to stave off further possessions, and they lead a charge back downstairs to finish off the gnome.
A few rounds later, and a few failed attempts to possess people that end up being protected by the magic circle, and Wat is destroyed.
The group then searches the inn (ghost touch longsword, earrings, gold, and potion found), and then torches it (sorry Wat).
They move across the river, and set about healing themselves while they watch it burn (gotta make sure).
Now, the fun part.
Seriously depleted of resources (spells, HP, etc), and permanently drained of many stat points, the group's attention shifts to the road near the inn, where a lone human male is walking towards them.
The man is at ease, seemingly out for a stroll through the park. He wears a black cloak, with silvery lines laced throughout, and lazily carries a quarterstaff as he walks.
We ended the session there....
-----------------------------------------------
Now, my question:
How prepared should Lareth be, and should he be alone?
I intend to play Lareth as externally calm, but internally embattled. His hatred of the other cultists is only outmatched by his hatred of Y'Day, who left him disfigured those many years ago.
Y'Day, by the way, is a priestess of Helm...same as the group Paladin.
Lareth is approaching the group knowing it will probably lead to battle. What does he care? He's ready, but he's really just there to see if there is anything interesting about them to alleviate his boredom.
This is a good information gathering opportunity, if the party takes it, and can hold his attention long enough to obtain it.
At some point, Lareth will grow bored or angry, and either simply shrug and walk off in mid-conversation, or attack, leading with confusion (DC 19!).
I am considering having him control a local wight on his way towards them, to bring as a lackey, figuring that could add to the entertainment....or he could just go alone.
Also, as DM would you have him prepared with every buff spell that has a duration in minutes or longer already cast? Or is that too much?
He's had plenty of time to prepare...the party set a huge fire and has been watching it burn for a half hour or so!
Thoughts?
Skaros, who is quite happy with this turn of events.
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Cordo Crowfoot
Here to stay
(3/18/03 3:09 am)
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
Since he has had plenty of warning, it is extremely reasonable to assume he has all of his long duration buffs already up.
Personally, I enjoyed playing Lareth as non-combative by default, more disillusioned by the cult, and playing up the RP potential of the encounter. There is plenty of combat opportunity elsewhere. I think it is a good story opportunity for the players to realize only later that the hermit they talked to was actually Lareth, and later that he becomes the eventual Champion of Elemental Evil. "Arrrgh! We should have killed him when we had the chance."
Of course YMMV depending on your personal tastes and those of your players.
"They were immediately and absolutely recognizable as adventurers. They were hardy and dangerous, lawless, stripped of allegiance or morality, living off their wits, stealing and killing, hiring themselves out to whoever and whatever came... They were scum who died violent deaths, hanging on to a certain cachet among the impressionable through their undeniable bravery and their occasionally impressive exploits" China Mieville, Perdido Street Station |
Siobharek 
Still here? Wow.
(3/18/03 5:25 am)
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
Just a quick "Me Too" to Cordo's post. Lareth may be bored and ahave a little bit of a death wish, but he'd still buff himself up - out of habit if nothing less.
BTW, the inn battle sounds great.
Siobharek
...it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. |
WarrenWright
Looking around
(3/18/03 9:22 am)
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
Thanks guys.
I was going to have Lareth identify himself as "Lareth", but maybe I'll reconsider that.
I intend to play him as a non-combatant....but given the current party, there is a high probability of action.
We have 2 gnomes that sometimes love to needle people when they find something that seems to get to them, and I can see them really pushing at Lareth's buttons regarding the Cult....or just not taking hints when he turns the conversation away from anything he'd rather not go into.
Further, with a Paladin of Helm in the group, there could be some argument if Lareth says something disparaging of Y'Day.
We'll see. The group is very concerned right now that they are being approached by someone powerful enough to seemingly feel at home in Nulb, and I like to see them scared :-)
He'll be buffed, but alone, and he won't start a fight unless severely provoked or attacked.
Hmmm....now I need to decide what he is interested in talking about, and what he is interested in revealing about himself or his past as well.....thats the tough part.
-Warren
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SSShadowcat7
Here for a while
(3/18/03 9:44 am)
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
Have you read the Best of Board thread at the top? It has some great ideas for role-playing Lareth.
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Taxman66
Here for a while
(3/18/03 10:40 am)
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
How about this as an opening line:
Lareth (*depressed*):
"What brings you to my hideous domain of suffering?"
Taxman
"It takes an uncommon mind to think of these things, Hobbes." - Calvin
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WarrenWright
Looking around
(3/18/03 11:34 am)
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
I'll re-read the best of boards for ideas...been a while.
Taxman, sounds good. I was almost thinking of going the other way though.
Lareth walks up with a wan, sardonic smile on his face, "What brings you to my beutiful little town?"
Could unnerve them further to have this man seemingly referring to the town they consider scary and revolting as "home", even if casually.
-Warren
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Cordo Crowfoot
Here to stay
(3/18/03 5:43 pm)
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
To encourage non-confrontation, you could have Lareth make common cause with the players from the start... adapted from BoB...
"So I see you burned down the old Inn. You must have met Wat. I knew him in life, and he was a real bastard. Good riddance to him."
IMC I had him introduce himself as Theral. I was pretty sure my players wouldn't catch on and they didn't. But now they just found out that he was Lareth and there was some real head slapping going on "Hey, it was obvious, that's Lareth backwards!" 
Using his name backwards also arguably reflects his psychology regarding his current state.
It didn't come down to that in my campaign but my idea for if my Paladin charged Lareth was just to have Lareth stand there passively, putting doubts in the Paladin's head about whether she was doing the right thing. The charismatic James Earl Jones stare from Conan... Then he would only dodge aside at the last instant, if necessary.
Edited by: Cordo Crowfoot at: 3/18/03 5:46:39 pm
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Siobharek
Still here? Wow.
(3/19/03 12:02 am)
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
The Theral - Lareth idea is great. I've seen character names used with backwards spelling of the player's real name a little too often, but as you say, this one would fit Lareth to a tee.
In fact, it gives me an idea for an alternative way of playing Lareth. He might have developed a kind of Multiple Personality Disorder. Losing his good looks made him turn away from most of what he was, so instead of Lareth the Beautiful, militaristic and brilliantly evil leader of men, he is now Theral the reclusive and morosely nasty hermit.
I wouldn't change his alignment or anything. He just putters around in his robes, controlling undead and giving some sort of thought or worship to the Void inside himself. And while violence wouldn't be his first chosen action (as has been suggested by a number of people here), it would be the more ferocious once it surfaced.
Siobharek
...it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. |
 Infiniti2000
Still here? Wow.
(3/19/03 6:46 am)
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ezSupporter
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
I would surmise that Lareth doesn't like to "burn" all his rebuke/command attempts in a day, so as to make sure he keeps at least one during the night. So, what do you think of the idea that the party will come across Lareth commanding one group of undead to protect himself from another group? What would the party do seeing an obviously evil cleric commanding, say, a wight to attack 3 ghouls? It might be an interesting encounter.
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WarrenWright
Looking around
(3/19/03 7:19 am)
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
Thats a great idea Infiniti2000. If they go back to see Lareth, I'll have to use it.
I think I'll also use the idea of how Lareth could initiate conversation by mentioning that he knew Wat, etc.
We have 2 very suspicious gnomes (the players are more experienced than the rest of my group), and a very talkative, non-combative bard, so I anticipate some nice group tension at the start of next session.
Discouraging table-talk and encouraging everything to be IC will make things interesting....sort of like the time our party was facing a horde of goblins, one of them broke off to parlay with us, the bard stepped forward to speak with him, and about that time an arrow from our elven ranger took the goblin through the forehead....
I have yet to finalize Lareth's stats as well. I'll probably take the suggestions of this board that I've seen on a splat-book improved Lareth, as my players have full access to most splat-books (aside from the really broken elements).
-Warren
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WarrenWright
Looking around
(3/19/03 7:24 am)
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
As to picking a new name for Lareth to use during conversation...I'm not sure on that yet.
'Lareth' isn't a name that the players know of as yet. How did your players know of the name when they went to Nulb? I don't think it is mentioned in any of the clues found in the Moathouse or Hommlet, though I suppose DMs might have had Y'Day or others mention it when the PCs ask after the history of the old Temple.
Of course, my players tend to run back to Y'Day with any information they gather, so I can see her reacting strongly when they mention a chat with someone named 'Lareth'...
I'm guessing Y'Day would recognize the name?
-Warren
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Siobharek
Still here? Wow.
(3/19/03 7:49 am)
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Re: Ghost Town Struggles
Y'Dey would most cerainly recognize the name! In the ToEE history as presented in the module, it was she who bashed in his skull, IIRC (or maybe that's just board consensus...?)
Siobharek
...it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. |
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