A Violent Turn: Behind the Screen

Truly, this was a session.

I had statted Mhavor, and made an online battlemap of the Ubiquitous Wayfarer. They’re both below, use them if you like, I won’t be needing them any more. I had planned for an Athar bruiser to appear and wake Ghear, telling him loudly the Signers had holed up in a tavern nearby. Ghear would respond in an ominous way, making the looming bloodshed clear.

Instead, we had a massacre and some serious drama. I was truly surprised by my players’ decisions. I did not expect combat to continue in the way it did, but played it out as best I could, rolling 2d4 for the number of rounds it’d take for Athar backup to emerge from the nearby building. The backup includes the 4th level Transmuter from the adventure. I gave them the spell hold person. Harmonium would arrive in 5 minutes, as stated in the adventure.

Other than that, there’s little else to say. Preparing the next few sessions will be a lot of effort. There’s likely to be a reckoning between players/characters, and I do feel for Ragados. I will make sure to ask why 12-Bar acted the way he did. It was a somewhat out-of-character choice, and D&D does, to an extent, rely upon characters staying in character. It wouldn’t be fair to surprise the players with a tavern owner that’s actually a psychopathic high-level spellcaster, and players need to reciprocate that spirit, to some extent. But 12-Bar's answer offers some great chances for roleplaying.

Mhavor

Use the Enchanter statblock from Volo’s Guide to Monsters. However, Mhavor has the following stats:

HP 44; AC 13

STR 8 (-1)
DEX 10 (+0)
CON 10 (+0)
INT 17 (+3)
WIS 15 (+2)
CHA (+2)

Mhavor has the following spells prepared:

1st level: charm person, mage armour
2nd level: arcane lock, detect thoughts, hold person, Melf’s acid arrow, suggestion
3rd level: counterspell, dispel magic, fly
4th level: stoneskin, confusion
5th level: dominate person

Keep the cantrips as they appear. Mhavor’s loot includes a wand of negation.

Here's my homemade map of the Ubiquitous Wayfarer (21x23 squares):


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Outlands: Planar Rules and Encounter Table

Encounters Check for encounters three times a day by rolling a d100. For the first roll each day, there is a 35% chance of an encounter. If no encounter occurs, the chances of an encounter on the next roll increase by 30%. If an encounter does occur, the chance of an encounter on the next roll that day decreases by 30%, to a minimum of 35%. Check for encounters once a night, again with a 35% chance. More information about the Planescape-specific monsters on these tables can be found in the AD&D book Monstrous Compendium: Planescape Appendix II. The below table is a modified version of an Outlands encounter table found on reddit . Roll 2d10: 2. Earth-berg. Floating chunks of earth and a scarred landscape remain after a chunk of land from the Outlands recently slid into another plane. Echoes of the other plane may remain. 3. Lost Blood War Patrol. A ragtag group of demons (MM), devils (MM), or yugoloths (MM) that fought in the Blood War and was cut off from the rest of the...
Read more

DM Resources for Planescape and Dead Gods

Looking to unpick how to run Dead Gods in 5e D&D, but don't know where to start? Start here. First things first. Realistically, I wouldn't recommend Planescape or Dead Gods for a first-time DM. Trying to stay on top of the adventure and the world is enough work without having to learn the rules of the game as you go. If you and your group all played Planescape: Torment and loved the world and know it well, then that's a bit different. Otherwise, run a simpler adventure or two first, and get to the stage where you're confident with the rules. Done that? Okay. So, obviously you have the adventure itself . I have a ringbound Print on Demand copy, which is fantastic, although 9 pages out of the 170+ have scanned badly, and some are illegible. Some copies of the pdf have this problem and some don't, so check before you buy. Either way, the illegible pages are all detailed in this useful free 5e conversion by Jarred Caldwell. It seems as if this pdf was formally a pa...
Read more

One Step Forward: Behind the Screen + Spell Keys

Spell Keys Spell keys are an incredibly vague part of Planescape, but like portal keys, they can be anything from items, to words, gestures, thoughts, spells, or augmentations to spells so they work the way they should. All planar spellcasters would realistically know that spell keys exist, even if they don’t know specific keys. If you want to use spell keys for your arcane casters, the Outlands is a good place to introduce them. The Outlands are a common enough area that you can give players the answers without them having to invest too much time; and the keys for spells all have a very low cost. Maggots, fire, some water, a handful of dirt. Find my curated Outlands rules here . PCs whose faction alignment or background grants them access to a library or information network (Guvners, and perhaps Indeps and Anarchists?) will fare best at finding spell key information; but any adventurer can hang out at a planewalkers’ tavern like the Ubiquitous Wayfarer and try and probe others for...
Read more