The Wandering Archipelago (OOC)

[Dlover]

Can see that confusion, it is weird to think that hide is medium, considering... It's hide. It's basically uncured leather.

[thinkslogically]

I guess it's heavier because it's uncured? Who knows...

I'm working on a Very Big update for you guys, but it's also my last lecture of the semester tonight so I'm going to be working on that first. Obviously. I should be able to get back to this for tomorrow for you guys tho. The identify spell has also required a surprising amount of effort or else I'd just move on with those two for now

[spiderwrangler]

Yeah, other than it being cheaper, it is strictly worse than studded leather armor if you've 16 or better DEX. I think it's largely 'flavor' armor, since if you can wear medium armor, there are better options.

Have fun with your last lecture!

[SuperVaderMan]

Hmm, is it too late to ask if I can buy some starting equipment with the 10 gold from my background?

[thinkslogically]

Depends what you had in mind, but sure, I don't mind. As long as it's something you'd reasonably be able to get in the swamp it's fine by me.

[SuperVaderMan]

I'm assuming flasks of oil are out of the question?

Nothing crazy though, just some basic stuff:
Sling - 1 sp
Sling bullets (20) - 4 cp
Darts (6) - 3 sp
Sacks (6) - 6 cp
Rope, hempen (50 ft) - 1 gp
Total - 1.5 gold

[thinkslogically]

Nah, flasks of oil are fine. You live in a reasonably-sized community and would at least be able to make use of animal fats/oils if need be. It wouldn't be great smelling, but mechanically it'd do just fine

[SuperVaderMan]

Hm! Well alright then, I'll get 5 of those to round out my expenses to 2 whole gold pieces!

[thinkslogically]

Cool stuff, Chuck it on your sheet and you're good.

[thinkslogically]

Hey folks, I swear I haven't forgotten about you guys The update is under way.

Quick question though - I'm running a one-shot version of the Hangover on Saturday for my RL group, which is based on a similar premise to the game Spider was going to run a while ago (everyone wakes up with blank character sheets, and then have to figure out what the hell happened. Spoilers: It was a lot of debauchery and shenanigans).

Anyway, I'm looking for 5-7 level 6(?) pre-made characters which I can pull together myself no problem, but I was wondering if any of you guys fancied throwing some ideas or had any cool or weird concepts that you've been mulling over? Anything official is fine by me, the only stipulation is that they need to be classes that can't just cure hangovers (obvs), so no restoration capabilities or whatever but otherwise, this can be as weird and wonderful as you like. I expect this will be chaos

[spiderwrangler]

I actually ran the first session last Friday, and it went really well. My wife joined us too (for her second D&D session ever), so there were 6 players, and we're adding 2 out of towners for the conclusion tomorrow.

It was a lot of chaotic energy, but I like the improvising part of things. I actually spent more time prepping it than I have any other one-shots I've run with this group, but almost all of that was in the character stuff and finding youtube ambient videos with the sound I wanted.

Also added a mechanic where I gave each of them 3 die that they could redeem to me in order to learn something about themselves (eg, they tell me what they generally want to do, and if it's possible, I take the die and describe how they get a feeling they can do X).

My notes beyond that were that
• they are part of a military or mercenary company so that they have similar clothes or the like to get them to band together
• they get shipwrecked on a rocky shore and are forced to the nearby island, where the cult that lives there is going to try to capture them and sacrifice them to their dark god

Everything else was made up in the moment and it turned into a fun 4 hour session.

► Show Spoiler

We started on the ship in the midst of a huge storm, ship going up and down, thunder, waves, the works. They fall out of their hammocks and end up rolling for characters as they try to do things. About two thirds of the party joined the crew in trying to secure rigging.

One of the guys rolled poorly while pulling a rope.

"The rest of you see the golden skinned fellow vanish into the storm. He's there one moment, and gone the next as a wave washes over the ship."

"What?!"

"Yeah, he's just gone."

Kept giving them disadvantage on things and anyone that rolled bad was lost to the storm. Anchor dropped, slewing the ship about, and they were trying and managed to get it up and secure. The rest of the party was hiding in the hold (one was vomiting, the other praying), and the ones up top had made a lot of good roles, so tentacles wrap the ship and begin to squeeze. The crew rallies, and tries to fend it off, but the ten foot diameter tentacles are too much. One of the party wants to run to a lifeboat, but has to go past a tentacle tip to do so... rolls a three and gets flicked into the drink.

Tentacles crunch the ship (and I mute the laptop... very effective.)

Had them roll a d20 to determine order they wake up, and had the party of 6 split into two groups. They get descriptions of themselves through the eyes of the other two in their half, and are able to start writing things in. As they make skill checks, I mentioned how well they do on things after looking up modifiers. The last one to wake up had actually been submerged by the rising tide, and the tiefling learned that he had Lay on Hands, when he redeemed a die to try to save the eladrin after hauling him out of the water and pounding on his chest didn't work.

The parties met up after party B killed a crab that got snatched by a gull... and then the eladrin whipped the crab he'd caught at the gull and brought all three prey down... and party A saw a bird plummet from the sky.

They make it to the island, find a small fishing boat, and make their way up the slope, where they see a small cluster of outbuildings constructed of wreckage, around the hull of a ship that has landed in the open space in the middle of island. They see movement, and make a white flag from sail and head into the town.

The 'captain' of the community introduces himself as Jones and has a pretty significant stutter. He offers them food and drink, and hesitatingly answers their questions. They underestimate him at first, but eventually the half-orc celestial warlock (not that he knows that last part yet, but he has one glowing golden eye) catches J-j-jones in a lie, and grabs him by the shoulder to intimidate him. I have Jones hiss that they are all going to die here in a different voice, and it's initiative (leaving the exact nature of the baddies vague in case I want to use them in the future).

I should have beefed the encounter up a bit more, but used commoners instead of cultists for most of the bad guys, other than Jones and another one. They actually 'won' prior to backup arriving, taking out those who initially attacked them. At that point, we were running late (2:30 am), so in the interest of wrapping it up, since everyone wanted to continue with it this week, they get captured by the wave of backup. Jones will probably have been stabilized, so that they get a second crack at him, but they'll be waking up in volcanic tunnel caves tomorrow, along with the two friends from out of town, who will be starting with blank characters.

[thinkslogically]

Nice! That sounds cool, and those are good tips on how to handle some of the filling in the blanks.

[Rodgeir]

Haven't thought much in the way of memory loss games, sorry. Spider's ideas, as usual, are great! Definitely going to be stealing parts of them.

[spiderwrangler]

Go for it!

I rolled randomly for the amnesia game, and am particularly tickled by the more unusual combinations that subvert player expectations.

Two that are being played by previous DMs in my session...

Half-orc Celestial Warlock, pact of the blade and acolyte background: has a golden glowing left eye

Mountain dwarf draconic sorcerer, criminal background: skin is covered in a faint sheen of metallic scales, looks like iridescent tattoo

[thinkslogically]

Ah cool, they're fun I like the draconic sorcerer idea a lot! I need to work on this a bunch tonight to figure out exactly what happened to them all, but suffice it to say that everyone will have WIS as a dump stat!

I also have no idea if any of this will work, but it doesn't really matter and I think it will at least be fun

[Theis2]

Having someone learn they can cast spells only to find out it's wild magic when it blows up seems like great idea, granted I may be biased in that regard

[WearsHats]

He's a giant who's afraid of heights. (Both in personal terms and having to live in the mountains.) So he put on what turned out to be a cursed ring of shapeshifting. Now the size of a particularly stocky dwarf, he retains his giant's strength and other traits. It's possible that a botched attempt to remove the ring had something to do with the memory loss.

[SuperVaderMan]

Hey thinks, would it be alright to swap out one of my cantrips for another one, since I just started? I got some inspiration on how to make Shape Water more useful, and I was gonna drop Shocking Grasp for it. It'd be more thematic for a swamp-dwelling caster anyway

[thinkslogically]

Sure thing

[Arch Lich Burns]

So uh, how are we going to make Gwen a Celestial Warlock instead of a Goo one?

[Dlover]

A Goo Warlock? What's their specialty, making people feel grossed out?

[spiderwrangler]

That's what Merric specializes in!

[Dlover]

The Goo Warlock's powers are provided to them by The Great And Mighty Oooooozie, the immortal slime which has grown to such a size that it is, in fact, 90% of the planet's water bodies at any given time. Oooooozie is a benevolent slime, and knowing that so many beings are dependent upon the water it has subverted, negated its own acidic nature to ensure the mortals could drink of its body and take sustenance. Oooooozie is love, Oooooozie is life.

But don't use the wrong number of O's in Oooooozie's name, that would be a terrible insult.

[SuperVaderMan]

Btw Dusk, Shossk can slap a Guidance on Locke if you want. Maybe he'll roll a 4 and get that lockpick check up to 15?

[thinkslogically]

Ok... So I have no real problem with spamming Guidance on your rolls when there's no time pressure, but I am going to ask that you guys deal with it IC a bit more moving forward. The cantrip lets you improve an attempt at one specific skill and is cast as an action (6 secs) do it's something that Shossk reasonably has to declare in advance of the skill being attempted.

Like I say, it's not such a big deal in these kinds of circumstances, but I am going to say from now on that you can't retroactively add guidance to another player's rolls (and you'll lose it if they change their mind on the skill attempt). Just keep that in mind