Lords of Rust (GM Reference)


Iron Gods

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Good idea. Just trying to think how would the gang react... accept it or fight back?

Hellion of course doesn't care either way I would say.

Editor

I had a similar reaction from my PCs—they heard that the Thralls of Hellion had been eradicated and immediately decided to take over their base and start their own gang. I'm going to make them undergo lots of challenges by rival gangs, but I'll let them do it if they survive the ordeal.

To answer your question about how the Smilers will respond to being ousted, I suggest putting yourself in the shoes of a Smiler at this juncture. There are a few questions that will probably determine the Smilers' response:

• Is there any organizing force left in the Smilers? Both the first- and second-in-command have been killed within a day of each other, and they have nowhere to go and meet up. Unless there are particularly enterprising Smilers ready to act as captain, it'll be tough to organize resistance.

• Are the PCs hunting down Smilers? If the PCs dealt a death blow to the organization but are content to leave the rest of the gang members in peace, many ex-Smilers will likely move on. If the PCs start a witch hunt to "wipe the Smile off of Scrapwall's face," The cannibals will be forced to retaliate.

• Do the Smilers have anywhere else to go? Some Smilers might be obsessed with revenge, but the smarter ones will realize that survival is more important. If they can join other gangs for protection, they probably will. If that's not an option, then they'll likely find a way to organize and try to take back their base rather than wander Scrapwall without the protection of a gang.


Think I'll justbplay it by ear. Thanks for the advice.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I figure some of them would head towards the Scrapmasters' Arena to join up with the Lords of Rust, some of them would strike out on their own with varying levels of success, and some of them would be killed off by other gangs striking while the gang is weak.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Next session will be the invitation to the Arena, and I'm curious - does anyone have any good suggestions on music to play during the chariot battle?


Tool or NIN


Danzig might be fun there


Misroi wrote:
Next session will be the invitation to the Arena, and I'm curious - does anyone have any good suggestions on music to play during the chariot battle?

I went with Spartacus soundtrack.

Although i didn't do a chariot battle, just an arena battle.

Shadow Lodge

Just ran the arena battle tonight... It was done in three rounds. First round the spellslinger got a fireball off on the chariot/ogres. Dropped both ogres and severely hurt the troll. Things went downhill from there... :)


I rolled the random encounter for the rat swarm and decided to make them cranium rats (since I a fan of Planescape 2e). Unexpectedly my characters tried to talk to the rat swarm which spoke back telepathically. Called them the Many-As-One and made it out that they are no friend of Hellion and would like to see him destroyed. But they are unsure if the characters are the tools they need and shut off connection.

The players, cleverly, asked Redtooth about the cranium rats who told them they are neither enemy or ally though they tended to seemingly lookout for the interests of Scrapwall over the decades they have lived here.

As the DM I can leave it at that. But I figured since the random encounter just generated a potential mini-plot I wanted to use it. But not sure what the cranium rats would want and what would they give as a reward.

As spies of Ilsensine I could link them back to the Black. They may not like machines because, much like undead, their psionic power is not very effective at controlling them. So an Iron God is terryifying. This seems plausible to me.

But what would they reward the players with? Some kind of knowledge perhaps if they defeat Hellion?

Open to ideas!


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I ended ripping of Planescape Torment a bit and used the Many-As-One in a dream sequence:

Many-As-One

You see a circular chamber, a nest of twigs and bones, with cranium rats perching atop the concentric circles they built. There were thousands of them, and where there lacked seats in this council of vermin the rats piled atop one another, whiskers twitching. Countless eyes glint at you from the darkness, as if they were twin stars shimmering through the night.

Its voice sounds like the cold voice of thousands, echoing through your skull, "WE HAVE BEEN EXPECTING YOU FOR A LONG TIME, BIPED. SPEAK SWIFTLY AND TRUE. YOU ARE IN THE HALLS OF MANY-AS-ONE. YOU WILL NOT LEAVE BUT BY OUR GRACE, AND THAT YOU MUST EARN THROUGH SERVITUDE."

“WE WOULD HAVE YOU SERVE US, AND WE CAN REWARD YOU IN EXCHANGE.”

YOU CAN WALK AMONGST THE MACHINES FREELY WITH THE PROTECTION OF YOUR SCRAPWORTH. WITH THAT SHIELD YOU ARE TO GO TO THE HEART OF THE IRON GODS’ LAIR, SEEK OUT THE HELLION, AND KILL IT. IN THE PROCESS, SOW DISSENT AMONG THE MACHINE MEN AND BREAK THEM APART. WE DO NOT TRUST THOSE WHOSE MINDS WE CANNOT SEE. WE DO NOT TRUST SILENT MYSTERIES. AS FOR REWARD... WE OFFER YOU KNOWLEDGE.

Assuming the PCs agree (they were very iff about the whole thing)

"AND SO OUR COMPACT IS MADE."

Reward: The Many-As-One will grant the boon of a commune spell that can be used whenever the characters like. A cranium rat will need to accompany them if they move beyond Scrapwall before using the boon. Once the boon is completed Many-As-One will relocate to Sigil to escape the enslavement of Ilsensine.

Grand Lodge

I would totally use Many-As-One to warn that the Dominion of the Black has landed in Numeria, and that one of the Neh-Thalgu has achieved 'enlightenment'.

DO NOT VENTURE TO THE WEST.


Good idea Kestler. STOLEN! :)


Questions for other DMs who have run the Lords of Rust dungeon. Did you allow your players' characters to rest in the dungeon and if so how did you manage Hellions' and the other lords reaction to the party going missing for a day?

I ask because to me the pacing implies that once they attack the LoR they need to push on and defeat Hellion to make sure he doesn't have time to mount a suitable defence. But if they do that the party may be exhausted (resource wise) by the time they face Hellion which = TPK.


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Well, the earlier adventure gives them a bunch of Wands and such....encourage them to use all their expendables.


Solomani wrote:

Questions for other DMs who have run the Lords of Rust dungeon. Did you allow your players' characters to rest in the dungeon and if so how did you manage Hellions' and the other lords reaction to the party going missing for a day?

I ask because to me the pacing implies that once they attack the LoR they need to push on and defeat Hellion to make sure he doesn't have time to mount a suitable defence. But if they do that the party may be exhausted (resource wise) by the time they face Hellion which = TPK.

My party retreated and rested after (what turned into) the mega encounter with Kulgara, Draigs and pretty much anyone inside the excavator. Fortunately for them they went to the CPU room during their second time in the excavator so they managed to weaken Hellion using the memory facet and finally defeat him.


Thanks Nile and Leo.

Leo, did you do anything with Hellion in the 8 hours he was away?

The Exchange

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I impressed upon my players that it should be done in one shot and they succeeded, a bit weary and worse for wear by the time they were done but they made it through without any permanent deaths.

Had they wanted to rest, Hellion would have escaped without a doubt, I had plans for him to retreat into his aggregate body and retreat where he would turn back up in book 4, converted and warped into a robot-flesh-Black Dominion artificial intelligence.


Ooh Codanous, I like it. I believe I will do the same....


Codanous... BRILLANT.


Solomani wrote:

Thanks Nile and Leo.

Leo, did you do anything with Hellion in the 8 hours he was away?

Absolutely nothing, since the CPU room was fine Hellion has no reason to reason, to him it was just a bunch of flesh bags who managed to kill some of his meat bags, he was positive that he could defeat them if they dared to come before him.


We had a new player for the arena session and I gave him the choice of either rolling up a new character from scratch or playing Whiskifiss. He went with Whiskifiss so I turned him into a level 6 beast master ranger (5e here folks) and made Rusty (chirpus) his beast companion. I bent the rules a little bit since to me it just makes sense for Whiskifiss to have a rust monster as his companion. And for me, the DM, it made continuity very easy since the new player was a pre-exisitng NPC the party had a relationship with already.

The same session the party, The Crimson Lotus Gang by this stage, were invited to the arena and took on Helskaag. Then this happened :

Whiskifiss: "What size am I?"
DM: "Small"
Whiskifiss: "What size is Rusty?"
DM: "Medium"
Whiskifiss' with a devilish look in his eye "Can I RIDE Rusty into battle?"

And the rest is history!

It made me laugh because we had a giant troll on a chariot being pulled by two ogres jousting a small ratman riding a rust monster in a gladiatorial combat. What a circus! The crowd went crazy!

The campaign has truly jumped the shark at this point (and I mean that in the best way possible not negatively)


The final battle approaches this week with Hellion. Any suggestions (or ideas you have used) for interesting terrain? I was planning to have the fight take place on the spinning digger blade for one thing.

Grand Lodge

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Having digger conveyor belts that move 10 feet in one direction (towards certain death) every round could be cool.

Rusted iron spikes that can transmit tetanus in certain parts of the floor?

Hellion could open fire on the ceiling, resulting in an area attack of heavy falling glaucite debris against a tightly clustered party.

Puddles of shimmering pungent machine oil that explode into flame if a spark gets near them?

Hanging chains that can give PCs a bonus to acrobatics to jump or tumble if they use them?

Editor

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My players just ran through the haunted valley, and I ended up stealing Solomani's Many-As-One plot hook when I realized that an entire room (area P3) was essentially empty. I let the bloodrager lick the Numerian fluids there to give him temporary telepathy, which then attracted the rat king, who was scattered around Scrapwall. Many-As-One formed and addressed the PCs more or less as Solomani described. The bloodrager was the only one who could communicate with the rats (off-the-cuff table ruling), and the translation errors were pretty hilarious.

One of my PCs loves animal buddies, so I'm planning on giving her a psychic rat from among Many-As-One as a familiar once they complete the quest (in addition to the commune boon, which will be a godsend since my players never think to use divinations).

In addition, I ended up turning the entire dungeon on its side, so the entry pointed up into the sky and the characters had to lower themselves down into it. I built a rough map out of shoeboxes that I cut and taped together in about an hour. The players responded pretty well to the gimmick. The battle with the skeletal technicians was especially awesome; enemies were dropping from the tanks above or climbing up from below, and the players had fun jumping from tank to tank.


Laugh if you must, but where is Many-As-One from?
is it another video game reference:)


captain yesterday wrote:

Laugh if you must, but where is Many-As-One from?

is it another video game reference:)

Many-As-One isn't from a video game, as far as I know, it's just a a homebrew monster encounter created by Solomani. Solomani modified the rat king special encounter.


KestlerGunner wrote:

Having digger conveyor belts that move 10 feet in one direction (towards certain death) every round could be cool.

Rusted iron spikes that can transmit tetanus in certain parts of the floor?

Hellion could open fire on the ceiling, resulting in an area attack of heavy falling glaucite debris against a tightly clustered party.

Puddles of shimmering pungent machine oil that explode into flame if a spark gets near them?

Hanging chains that can give PCs a bonus to acrobatics to jump or tumble if they use them?

I like these, time to do some mechanics for them. Thanks.

Joe Homes wrote:
One of my PCs loves animal buddies, so I'm planning on giving her a psychic rat from among Many-As-One as a familiar once they complete the quest (in addition to the commune boon, which will be a godsend since my players never think to use divinations).

One of my characters has a mouse as a pet so I was going to have the Many-As-One offer to either send a cranium rat with them as their representative (MISTER SQUEEKERS) or they will adopt the mouse. Either way someone will get the familiar related feat as a rewards as well. I may even extend it to any player that wants it.

captain yesterday wrote:

Laugh if you must, but where is Many-As-One from?

is it another video game reference:)

Cranium rats are from the Planescape setting from TSR days. Details on MANY-AS-ONE and other not-so random encounters over on my blog. I add more as the game goes along.

My players ended up using the rats to dominate Draigs and turn her against Hellion. One of the the rat swarms joined my players in the Control Room battle Royale.

Editor

Solomani wrote:
KestlerGunner wrote:

Having digger conveyor belts that move 10 feet in one direction (towards certain death) every round could be cool.

Rusted iron spikes that can transmit tetanus in certain parts of the floor?

Hellion could open fire on the ceiling, resulting in an area attack of heavy falling glaucite debris against a tightly clustered party.

Puddles of shimmering pungent machine oil that explode into flame if a spark gets near them?

Hanging chains that can give PCs a bonus to acrobatics to jump or tumble if they use them?

I like these, time to do some mechanics for them. Thanks.

I'd be interested to see what you come up with, as I'll be running the same encounter soon.

Solomani wrote:


My players ended up using the rats to dominate Draigs and turn her against Hellion. One of the the rat swarms joined my players in the Control Room battle Royale.

THAT's interesting. I might let the bloodrager call on them, or have them swoop in in his moment of need.

Editor

Joe Homes wrote:


There are a few questions that will probably determine the Smilers' response:

• Is there any organizing force left in the Smilers? Both the first- and second-in-command have been killed within a day of each other, and they have nowhere to go and meet up. Unless there are particularly enterprising Smilers ready to act as captain, it'll be tough to organize resistance.

• Are the PCs hunting down Smilers? If the PCs dealt a death blow to the organization but are content to leave the rest of the gang members in peace, many ex-Smilers will likely move on. If the PCs start a witch hunt to "wipe the Smile off of Scrapwall's face," The cannibals will be forced to retaliate.

• Do the Smilers have anywhere else to go? Some Smilers might be obsessed with revenge, but the smarter ones will realize that survival is more important. If they can join other gangs for protection, they probably will. If that's not an option, then they'll likely find a way to organize and try to take back their base rather than wander Scrapwall without the protection of a gang.

Here's how it went for my group: They split the party and entered the Smilers' base from both sides simultaneously (I have 6 PCs, so this was less debilitating than splitting a group of 4, and they also convinced a couple of Redtooth's Raiders to come along as backup). It was a pretty epic session, and the two raiding teams met in the middle and stomped Marrow.

The PCs (now with Wiskifiss in tow) all staggered out the front door with about 3 hp each. My plan was to harry them with smilers and force a retreat, then follow up a day or so later with a revenge raid on the Redtooth base.

However, my suli cleric decided to try intimidating the gathering mob before they could attack. The bloodrager enlarged her, and she lit her arms on fire. The cleric, with red skin, Large size, and flaming arms, emerged from the smoking remains of the Smilers' base, appearing to the untrained audience like the wrathful avatar of Hellion. The remaining Smilers lost their nerve and scattered, screaming that Hellion had come to destroy them like he had the Thralls (My PCs still haven't seen Hellion, so this was all an exquisite coincidence).

Once Hellion caught wind of this, however, he put a bounty on the "blasphemous pretenders," so the PCs have been going out in disguise ever since to avoid the bounty hunters. I'm currently working up a Cad Baine-like NPC to hunt the PCs down and try to abduct the cleric to sell to Hellion.

As for the remaining Smilers, they can't join any gang (since they're scared that the Lords of Rust are out to kill them), so they're currently laying low and plotting revenge. Depending on how long the PCs take to clear out the Lords of Rust, I'll have the Smilers raid the Raiders' base, as originally planned.


Well you can't go wrong with brain rats:-)

Lol! I never played or saw Planescape either:-) tho i always wanted to,.

I was entirely dependent on what my older brothers wanted to play, which was Tolkien-esque home-brewed, never any different genres and definitely no outside campaign settings or adventures, so nope no expedition to the Barrier Peaks or Gamma World either:(


Joe Homes wrote:
Joe Homes wrote:


There are a few questions that will probably determine the Smilers' response:

• Is there any organizing force left in the Smilers? Both the first- and second-in-command have been killed within a day of each other, and they have nowhere to go and meet up. Unless there are particularly enterprising Smilers ready to act as captain, it'll be tough to organize resistance.

• Are the PCs hunting down Smilers? If the PCs dealt a death blow to the organization but are content to leave the rest of the gang members in peace, many ex-Smilers will likely move on. If the PCs start a witch hunt to "wipe the Smile off of Scrapwall's face," The cannibals will be forced to retaliate.

• Do the Smilers have anywhere else to go? Some Smilers might be obsessed with revenge, but the smarter ones will realize that survival is more important. If they can join other gangs for protection, they probably will. If that's not an option, then they'll likely find a way to organize and try to take back their base rather than wander Scrapwall without the protection of a gang.

Here's how it went for my group: They split the party and entered the Smilers' base from both sides simultaneously (I have 6 PCs, so this was less debilitating than splitting a group of 4, and they also convinced a couple of Redtooth's Raiders to come along as backup). It was a pretty epic session, and the two raiding teams met in the middle and stomped Marrow.

The PCs (now with Wiskifiss in tow) all staggered out the front door with about 3 hp each. My plan was to harry them with smilers and force a retreat, then follow up a day or so later with a revenge raid on the Redtooth base.

However, my suli cleric decided to try intimidating the gathering mob before they could attack. The bloodrager enlarged her, and she lit her arms on fire. The cleric, with red skin, Large size, and flaming arms, emerged from the smoking remains of the Smilers' base, appearing to the untrained audience like the wrathful avatar of Hellion. The...

I love the bounty hunter idea! He/She could even take up a recurring role troughs the entire AP. When you say Cad Baine-like, do you mean character and personality wise or the fact that he's an alien? Or both I suppose. I like the idea of an alien bounty hunter pulling from Cad Baine and maybe even a little from The X-Files' Alien Bounty Hunter. If you expanded on this you could make him/her/it a doppelgänger...Or perhaps just a hulking cyborg...or may—now you've got me going! :P Man I love this idea!

Editor

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Acolyte of Mushu wrote:


I love the bounty hunter idea! He/She could even take up a recurring role troughs the entire AP. When you say Cad Baine-like, do you mean character and personality wise or the fact that he's an alien? Or both I suppose. I like the idea of an alien bounty hunter pulling from Cad Baine and maybe even a little from The X-Files' Alien Bounty Hunter. If you expanded on this you could make him/her/it a doppelgänger...Or perhaps just a hulking cyborg...or may—now you've got me going! :P Man I love this idea!

Kasatha with cybernetics and spellcasting, I'm thinking. (He'll need escape spells, otherwise the bloodrager will pin him, the gunslingers will fill him with lead, and my great recurring character will end up dead in 3 rounds.)


My group took out Hellion last night with one death. The boss fight mechanics worked well but I learned a lot as well. I also had UNITY appear at the end so now they have a clear "this is the enemy, though we don't know what she is planing, she is the bad guy" moment.

Will share my experience when I have had time to write it up. Then its time to start working on the Choking Tower which seems like a much more traditional dungeon crawl in the second part which will be a nice break from the tech-dungeons for my players.

My characters wanted to seize the excavator for themselves. But the cleric, who hates robots and is very chaotic blasted the CPU room to smithereens before a consensus could be made.


Solomani wrote:
Solomani wrote:
It's also could be use dot for shadow the Bahrain collector adventure.

I hate auto correct!

"It also could be used to forshadow the brain collector adventure"

Update on this. The Rhu-Chalik has brain-taped 3 of my 6 players during their sleep and they still haven't figured out whats going on. I will have it attack every night until they leave scrapwall but I doubt it would pursue beyond that... unless the Dominion instructs otherwise.

Kind of surprised its lasted this long.


Solomani wrote:
Solomani wrote:
Solomani wrote:
It's also could be use dot for shadow the Bahrain collector adventure.

I hate auto correct!

"It also could be used to forshadow the brain collector adventure"

Update on this. The Rhu-Chalik has brain-taped 3 of my 6 players during their sleep and they still haven't figured out whats going on. I will have it attack every night until they leave scrapwall but I doubt it would pursue beyond that... unless the Dominion instructs otherwise.

Kind of surprised its lasted this long.

It's stated in the book (can't recall where) that the rhu-chalik will follow players out of Scrapwall.


Thanks Acolyte, did not notice that.


Here is the boss fight I rant. Hellion 2.0. Enjoy and let me know if you end up using him and better yet, improving on him.


Lost one last night in the haunted wreck. They opened the poltergeist door shortly followed by the will-o-wisp door. At that point at least one death was inevitable.

They had nothing to deal with the poltergeist invisibility. All three in that room failed will saves against frightened, and couldn't make the reflex saves against the grenades.

The person who opened the will-o-wisp door had a reach weapon, and once the wisp closed he couldn't do much thanks to being in the hall and stuck between the gunslinger/wizard and the wisp.

When they finally got that worked out another char stepped up to tank the wisp and ate a crit, and once the wisp had a dying char right there in front of him he wasn't going to give it up.

After that mess of an encounter we ended for the night it was close to time to end anyways and one player needed to rebuild.


Holy Crap Solomani, that fight looked epic. If only I knew how to convert pathfinder to 5.0


GM Niles wrote:
Holy Crap Solomani, that fight looked epic. If only I knew how to convert pathfinder to 5.0

Thanks GM Niles. There was some hair raising moments that I hope comes out in the game log when its done. For example, the rogue, Rikku, used the auto-grapnel to try and "reel in" Hellion. She hit, we did oppose strength checks and the auto-grapnel won. But since he was larger it only moved him downwards to ground level as opposed to moving him directly towards RIkku. I also said that the auto-grapnel was smoking and you feel it will snap or explode if you keep trying to reel in. Next round they tried again so they lost an autogropnel as Hellion pulled free.

Its easy, but time consuming, to convert. And I've done a lot of work for you already if you read my blog
as has Badmudderfugger I think between our two blogs you should have enough info to get you going. But I think the boss-mechanics, with some modification, would work fine in 3.5 as well.

Editor

Solomani wrote:
Solomani wrote:

"It also could be used to forshadow the brain collector adventure"

Update on this. The Rhu-Chalik has brain-taped 3 of my 6 players during their sleep and they still haven't figured out whats going on. I will have it attack every night until they leave scrapwall but I doubt it would pursue beyond that... unless the Dominion instructs otherwise.

Kind of surprised its lasted this long.

I got one taped before the PCs tracked the Rhu-Chalik down and killed it... but the PC that was taped was under Numerian-Fluids-imposed psychosis at the time, so I'm planning to make any product of this reflect his state when he was recorded.

Editor

The arena was also a short fight for my group. If I could do it over, I would put some more hazards into the arena, and make the whole thing a bit more like battlebots, with Helskarg trying to bull rush the PCs into things that would grapple, stun, or burn them.

It didn't help that she rolled three natural 1's in a row, though...


Joe Homes wrote:
Acolyte of Mushu wrote:


I love the bounty hunter idea! He/She could even take up a recurring role troughs the entire AP. When you say Cad Baine-like, do you mean character and personality wise or the fact that he's an alien? Or both I suppose. I like the idea of an alien bounty hunter pulling from Cad Baine and maybe even a little from The X-Files' Alien Bounty Hunter. If you expanded on this you could make him/her/it a doppelgänger...Or perhaps just a hulking cyborg...or may—now you've got me going! :P Man I love this idea!
Kasatha with cybernetics and spellcasting, I'm thinking. (He'll need escape spells, otherwise the bloodrager will pin him, the gunslingers will fill him with lead, and my great recurring character will end up dead in 3 rounds.)

I've decided I'm going to use a vercite cyborg, a stranded captain or crew member, possibly a pirate. His aethership, while on a mission near Golarion, was taken down by the Dominion vessel as it was first nearing Golarion. His dirigible was mostly destroyed, but he managed to survive and is now just trying to survive on this alien world. I originally thought gunslinger, but then a question came to mind: how advanced is Verces in firearms. We know they're greatly advanced in space travel and cybernetics, but I don't think much else is supplied. Regardless of wether he's a gunslinger, he'll be fluent in numerous alien languages and have optical turrets, dermal plating, a cybertech leg, and a cybernetic arm with an impacted short sword or kukri. He'll also have various space-related magic items.


Joe Homes wrote:

The arena was also a short fight for my group. If I could do it over, I would put some more hazards into the arena, and make the whole thing a bit more like battlebots, with Helskarg trying to bull rush the PCs into things that would grapple, stun, or burn them.

It didn't help that she rolled three natural 1's in a row, though...

My players steamrollered Helskaag too. But I didnt mind it knowing that to get to Hellion they were going to burn through a lot of resources so I didn't want to make every fight epic until that last one. Having said that the control room fight was CRAZY. My players loved that one and I didn't plan anything in particular for it either.

Hellion casting spells from monitors really annoyed my players and was very good at just making them hate Hellion more and more. And some of the spells, like unholy blight, really hurt the party. So again I didn't want the other fights to be overly draining.


So it's been a while since I posted for this AP.

Current party:
Android Psion
Android Grammaton Cryptic
Elan Wilder
Human Bloodrager

I started book 2 using Wilderness Dressing to bring about some storms on their trek across Numeria. A heavy rain storm lasted two weeks - the first week was their journey to Aldranond's Grave, and their second week was staying at the site itself. I wasn't originally going to have the ghost attack them, but since the entire party decided it wanted to explore the one haunted building before rescuing the poor paladin, I had the ghost show up to scare them away. Instead, they managed to "kill" it. After talking with the paladin and his knights, they learned more about the ghost and decided to wait a week for it to respawn. Meanwhile, they helped rebuild some of the fort. Their solution to putting the ghost to rest was to forge a letter from his love forgiving him for everything. Meanwhile, they also managed to keep one of the Smilers alive, and the paladin took him with them up to the World-wound. If I ever run Wrath of the Righteous or have an adventure up there, I'm going to put in an NPC Smiler paladin. :)

Their entry into Scrapwall was eventful. The Bloodrager went up to the gates alone and as soon as the guard stopped him, he launched Hatchethand's hatchet hand (arm and all) at the guard, rolled a crit. Poor guard. However, since I didn't want them to be at odds with the Stealhawks, I had the leader recognize the hand and stop the attack; inviting him in. The party then healed up the poor guard with some of their potions and all was made right. The stealhawks them asked them to dispose of Birdfood. So they went to do that.

The session where they confronted Birdfood had two players missing. Only the Psion and the Wilder were present. During this session, my mother-in-law showed up and offered to take the kids, so my wife was able to play; she used a Half-Giant Psychic Warrior we had on hand. They managed to successfully diplomacy their way in, only to be ambushed while talking to Birdfood! Thanks to the Half-Giant, they were able to beat off all the orcs, and they managed to capture Birdfood alive. They brought him back to the Stealhawks to be interrogated.

At this point, they were invited to meet with the Cleric of Brigh. They established a good rapport with her and finally made a contact that could help identify technological items and help them craft new ones. Also, healing!

Next session, with everyone back at the table, they took Birdfood's dead birds over to the Redtooth Raiders and used them as proof that they captured Birdfood, in order to create an alliance with them. The ratfolk agreed and offered to help them assault the Lord's of Rust if they promised to get Whiskifiss back. They also offered some more information about the Manitcore and the Haunted area, and agreed that an alliance with the Stealhawks would be in everyone's benefit.

They decided to assault the Smilers' territory. It started with a plan to distract all of the Smilers while a couple of the PC's assaulted the head quearters. In the early morning, while most of the town would still be asleep from the previous night's revelries at the arena, they set up a platform and tied Birdfood to it. Then they set it on fire (my party is not good aligned). Birdfood's screams woke the smilers and kept them distracted while the Cryptic, the Psion, and the Wilder tried to infiltrate the headquarters. They managed to barely survive the ogrekin guard and the turret. By the end of the battle, the bloodrager showed back up to join the group. At this point, the Psion and Wilder players had to leave, so the Cryptic and Bloodrager assaulted the headquarters on their own, rather successfully.

Next session, the bloodrager couldn't show up. So the Cryptic, Psion, and Wilder bring the rescued Whiskifiss back to the warrens, to an elated Redtooth. She agrees to help them, but suggests that they should destroy the Receiver first. Not wanting to travel to the haunted location via the Manticore path, the party dresses up like beggars and visit the arena as part of the crowd. They watch the fights until it's over and then sneak around to the haunted mists. Once there, they fought their way through, and even had a nearly unpleasant experience with a poltergeist and a grenade. I had them roll perception to notice it and then any technological knowledge check to recognize it. All three did, and they all ran for cover. The Cryptic ran further into the room with the poltergeists, while the Wilder and the Psion were both in the hallway. The Psion ran back towards the entrance and tried to shut the door behind him, preventing the Wilder from gaining any protection from the grenade; fortunately for the Wilder, the Psion moved out of initiative turn and she was able to get behind that same door.

Also, thanks to a Command Undead scroll they found earlier, managed to command one of the skeletal crew members. So they now have a skeletal follower for the next three days. I'll be looking forward to what they're going to do with it as they assault Hellion's base of operations next week.


I plan on role-playing the Smilers by modeling them after the Warboys from Fury Road. Since I am running this on Roll20, I am even able to use actual stills from Fury Road. That's all.

Edit: Oh, and I put the Doof-Warrior soundstage in the arena.


One word,

TechnoGoblins.

Not sure where, but somewhere along the road I'm thinking


eakratz wrote:

I plan on role-playing the Smilers by modeling them after the Warboys from Fury Road. Since I am running this on Roll20, I am even able to use actual stills from Fury Road. That's all.

Edit: Oh, and I put the Doof-Warrior soundstage in the arena.

One of my players runs a cleric who worships Thor. That movie has created an entire "theology" for his character to work with.

WITNESS ME!


I'm curious how other GM handle the Will-o-wisp encounter, it's stats seem high at AC 26 & being immune to magic for level 5 group. Any examples or suggestions would be most helpful.

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