Café de Nuit

Hi all!
Is anyone interested to play "Death House" in PbP here? Death House is a new short Ravenloft adventure by WotC, the first in D&D next era. It is based a lot on descriptions and not too combat heavy. It's for 1st lvl characters. I've read it and it's very good IMO.
Anyone interested... don't read the adventure obviously nor the thread about this adventure in the general forum cause it's full of spoilers.

Background: (not the system background, backstory of your chars)
Please, it's better for the adventure if you all start from the same place, knowing each other.
Caring or at least knowing the person that is suffering a terrible fate next to you is more emotionally tense than if you met that person 2 hours ago.

Morality: I would go Gothic morality in this one. In this take of Ravenloft, there is right and there's wrong; if mortals see things in shades of grey is because of their moral imperfection.

Character creation:
4d6, drop the lowest. Afterwards, you can choose the character you rolled or take the following array: 16, 13, 12, 11, 10, 8

Limitations: No dragonborn, drow or tieflings.

The Starting situation in your home plane: Could affect your backgrounds, but won't affect (directly) the adventure.
Revolution against the king Stebanor III, brought by years of bad weather that led to bad crops. While the king and the court aren't blameless for the way the handled the situation, the king wasn't a tyrannical megalomaniac. Some of his generals and vassals were. The rebellion is not comprised by a single group, but a conglomerate of disgruntled nobles that sided with the peasant militias that sprung up. The rebel groups include idealists, anti-monarchists as well as opportunists and traitors.
There are good and bad people on both sides and both sides have leaders that did atrocities. And the common people in the center, that just want to feed their families, suffer those atrocities for the 3 years of the rebellion.
Demihuman strongholds, holding no particular loyalty to the king didn't get involved at first; as such loyalists considered them traitors and opportunists among them attacked; ghettos in cities suffered because of this. The attacks on their people led many demihuman clans to join the rebels, which in turn brought more loyalists against them. There are though a few clans that have aligned with the king for whatever reason.
And that's the situation at the beginning. You all start from a region that has been in rebel hands since the early days. But the loyalist army is closing in and people are fleeing. You start in a large caravan of refugees.
Are you sympathizers of the king hiding your loyalties? Are you rebels? Are you neutral just trying to help everyone in need or make a profit from the war?
Are you idealists or opportunists siding with the side you think will win? Have you lost people in the hands of rebels or loyalists?


Other rules: For fear, horror and madness, I plan to use the ... readily made rules in 5e DMG. Short and long term madness are horror checks. Indefinite madness is ... madness.
Keep in mind that horror checks (i.e. madness) have occasionally some very adverse effects.
Do you guys agree to include the quite-harsh horror rules of D&D next, or play this adventure without them?
For Power checks, I'll use secret rolls. There are some pretty "interesting" choices the PCs may have to make in this adventure that would require power checks.

Yes.


Two characters, you tell me if either fits:


Friar Pugio
Human
Monk
Pugilistic preacher


Estrella Gaument née Pendergill
Human
Rogue
World-wise widow

Yeah I'd be interested, I unfortunately have read through the adventure once but if you had planned on editing it from it's original form it could still surprise me. Also depending on the party's make up it could still surprise me as well.... So yeah if your ok with someone who has already read through the PDF then yes. I want to run this for my own group soon too and I might get a few ideas off playing as a PC.

Unfortunately Zilfer, I plan to play it mostly textbook and just bring it up to enlightment technology (i.e. guns) since that's where a building like that fits like and make some of the battle encounters a bit easier.
You are welcome to participate if you want, but I don't know whether you'll actually like it. I leave it to you.

If you want to participate, I'll unfortunately have to limit your decisions of things like "I search here" or "let's open that door". I'll also have to ask you to not OOCly say or comment on anything, even when it comes to hints. Even an "oh oh" when a character is about to pull the wrong level could spoil the surprise

Ewan: Both work fine. Keep in mind that unlike the adventure, I'll bring it up to mid 17th century along with medieval. I.e. pistols and muskets are allowed but so are crossbows and heavy armor.

Guns: We'll go by this house rule:
Pistols and muskets double the proficiency bonus to hit someone in medium or heavy armor at close range. I.e. against someone in chain mail, proficiency in pistols and muskets would add +4 to the hit roll, not +2, in close range.
Pistols do 1d8 damage with range 30/90, muskets 1d12 with range 80/240.
Also, they need an action to reload; hence you better go into battle with them loaded.

alhoon wrote:Unfortunately Zilfer, I plan to play it mostly textbook and just bring it up to enlightment technology (i.e. guns) since that's where a building like that fits like and make some of the battle encounters a bit easier.
You are welcome to participate if you want, but I don't know whether you'll actually like it. I leave it to you.

If you want to participate, I'll unfortunately have to limit your decisions of things like "I search here" or "let's open that door". I'll also have to ask you to not OOCly say or comment on anything, even when it comes to hints. Even an "oh oh" when a character is about to pull the wrong level could spoil the surprise

Ewan: Both work fine. Keep in mind that unlike the adventure, I'll bring it up to mid 17th century along with medieval. I.e. pistols and muskets are allowed but so are crossbows and heavy armor.

Guns: We'll go by this house rule:
Pistols and muskets double the proficiency bonus to hit someone in medium or heavy armor at close range. I.e. against someone in chain mail, proficiency in pistols and muskets would add +4 to the hit roll, not +2, in close range.
Pistols do 1d8 damage with range 30/90, muskets 1d12 with range 80/240.

Got you. No worries than, I'll see if you get an influx and if you don't I'll join. I'd hate to give anything away for anyone that hasn't read the adventure, and it can be quiet a task not to metagame even when you are actively attempting not to. I'll keep an eye on the topic. :0

alhoon I answered your pm.

Character creation: Tarlyn asked me about it, and this is something that I would like input on. I generally prefer to avoid rolling cause it creates great disparity in characters. Yet, most people like it!
So, I would like to pass 2 systems by you guys and you tell me if you prefer the traditional 4d6 way.
Alternative system 1: You get this array: 14, 14, 13, 12, 9, 8 + 2d4 ability points. Raising up to 13, costs 1 point for each ability point. Raising 13 to 14 or 14 to 15 is 2 points, and raising 15 to 16 is 3 points. Maximum is 16 using this method, not 15 as with D&D next.

Alternative system 2: Point buy system as described in the PHB (everything starts at 8, costs as explained above). You get 19+4d4 ability points. Maximum is again 16, not 15.

Limitations: No dragonborn, drow or tieflings.

steveflam wrote:alhoon I answered your pm.

Ehh... I don't see it. But worry not, we'll help. Ability modifiers are as in 3rd edition. Skills are fewer and you're either proficient in them, or not. Same with weapons and saving throws.
The all important stat is the proficiency bonus. It replaces the base attack bonus, the base saving throw bonus and the skill ranks.

It is +2 at 1st lvl.
I.e. if you have strength 13 (+1) and attack with a melee weapon you're proficient with (+2), you have a total +3 total bonus.
If you roll an athletics check, that uses strength and you're proficient at athletics (+2), you would have a +3 total bonus.
If you were required to make a strength saving throw to escape a vampire's embrace and your class is trained in strength saving throws (+2), that would be made with a +3 total bonus.

All right, well I will look at the SRD anyways.

I will get back to you sometime tomorrow or Friday with a character.

4d6 drop the lowest, rolled here, seems simplest.

[dice]0[/dice]

[dice]1[/dice]

[dice]2[/dice]
[dice]3[/dice]
[dice]4[/dice]

[dice]5[/dice]

ewancummins wrote:4d6 drop the lowest, rolled here, seems simplest.

[dice]219628:0[/dice]

[dice]219628:1[/dice]

[dice]219628:2[/dice]
[dice]219628:3[/dice]
[dice]219628:4[/dice]

[dice]219628:5[/dice]

Okay, Estrella it is.

6 STR is not so bad for a slender, small woman. Low, but not implausibly so.

18 DEX natural grace, dancer, very nice penmanship, needlepoint skills, piano player fingers, well poised, quick reactions, never stumbles or fumbles

12 INT smarter than the typical person, educated

9 CON average health, light frame

10 WIS average (her perceptiveness will be more a matter of training than innate talent)

10 CHR (good looks, but certain personality quirks and an introverted nature limit her charm and social power)

Now, if the others prefer point buy, as the DM does, I can obviously do that too.

If using alternative method 1:

[dice]0[/dice]

8 STR
16 DEX
9 CON
14 INT
13WIS
12 CHR

Pretty similiar , but not such an amazing DEX, and other scores average higher.

I have no preference. Again, I will simply go with the roll method everyone else uses.


If using alternative method 2

19 plus

[dice]1[/dice]

27points to spend


Base of 8

STR 8 (cost zero)
DEX 16 (cost twelve)
CON 9 (cost one)
INT 13 (cost five)
WIS 13 (cost five)
CHR 12 (cost four)

Dex is overrated IMO. Personally I would prefer the one with the more distributed bonuses.
Did you add the bonus for being human? I don't think you did...
+1 to all abilities (or +1 to 2 abilities an extra skill and a feat)


Also, not to dishearten anyone, but 1st lvl is a kinda... fragile level. Perhaps have another character in mind too. Just saying.

VAN is also in.

Char name Van, human Fighter mercenary, escorts caravans, bodyguard. I like the point buy system but want to try my luck in 4d6 one

[dice]0[/dice] 11
[dice]1[/dice] 16
[dice]2[/dice] 11
[dice]3[/dice] 15
[dice]4[/dice] 16
[dice]5[/dice] 12

It's pretty cool fighter that way adding +1 to all stats:

STR:17
DEX:16
CON:16
INT:12
WIS:13
CHA:12

Strong, dextrous, good health, little more than average INT, rather witty, above average appearance.

Van is blond, shoulder length hair, blue eyes, 6.2 tall 187 lb.

Oh come on sis! I didn't want superchars, that's why I suggested the alts.