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terryclothWe had a session of Tom's D+D game today. It turned out that they'd neither played during the session I missed (because Tom found a buyer for his house, and was closing) nor finished doing the shopping trip in e-mail (for the same reason), so we did the shopping trip in-game instead, played out day by day.
Right in the middle, the buyers came by to talk with Tom about something or other, so we had some time to chat and hang out... we didn't even end up finishing our shopping trip, and two weeks from now Tom'll still be moving, so we won't play. Sigh.
Prices in the city of Suzail were somewhat inflated, but fortunately for the party this was more pronounced on the big-ticket items than on the cheap items -- some of the cheap items were even available for a discount! Since they were selling a few big items they'd found (the ones too expensive to sell back in Wheloon), splitting up the cash, then buying a bunch of smaller items, this worked to their advantage overall.
They also sold the paintings they'd been lugging about for far more than they expected -- 30k for the ones the art merchant recognized isntantly, then a couple thousand here and there as the others sold on consignment. The necromancer's sword sold for 42k (list price was 32k), the headband of intellect for 35k (list price was 16k)!
They didn't know the city though, so it took them some time to find the merchants who dealt in selling magical items -- the blacksmith and mage's guild were obvious, as were the temples for clerical stuff, but the ring shop was disguised as a bakery and the cape shop they only found after a week of asking around. They actually located the black market before either of those.
They did identify the magical painting -- it was a map of sorts, showing a photograph of a specific mountain they'd have to track down, with the lightning strike in the nighttime phase pointing out a specific location on that mountain. They decided to keep it, in case it was a treasure map.
The symbol on Rhiannon's mace ('The Key', the evil necromancers called it) was the symbol of a long-destroyed lichling. She couldn't figure out much besides that, but at least now she had a name to go with the symbol and a place to start looking.
Portable holes were being sold by a 'wiccan' outside of town, but they never got around to visiting her before something happened. After about a week, while the items they were getting improved instead of just replaced were still being worked on, someone tried to pickpocket Zanzibar -- and failed, but Zanzibar chased after him anyway, spreading his black evil-looking wings and swooping over the crowd the thief was dodging through. The thief knew the city *very* well, though, and was able to dodge into an alleyway where Zanzibar got tangled up in clotheslines and laundry and lost him.
But Zanzibar *was* in position to see three rough-looking men stuff a different kid into a sack. Staying hidden, he cast his 'stony grasp' spells to try to grab the kidnappers and hold them, but they were too slippery for the hands to keep hold of and two got away, with the kid. Zanzibar chased them, and when he yelled to the guards who arrived (to arrest the evil-looking demon flying around the market) about the kidnapping, they quickly made themselves useful and captured one of the others... but not the one with the kid.
But the kid's father was a powerful mage, and knew a strange spell that would let Zanzibar easily follow the tracks of a person he'd seen -- like the kidnapper. The rest of the party had caught up by then, so they all went to follow the tracks to whereever the mage's kid was being held.
It turned out to be a small warehouse down near the docks. There were two entrances, and looking through a skylight, Zanzibar saw the tracks lead into one of the two elevated offices inside reached by ladders and catwalks. He also saw nets set up over the main door the party had been about to go in -- a trap!
So, the fighters (Rainna and Morgan) were sent around to the back door, and Rhiannon kicked in the front door and started yelling after the kid. The fighters -- and Samuel, invisible -- snuck inside, while Zanzibar hovered at the skylight, readying to shatter it and swoop down in as soon as the shit hit the fan.
But the evil mage inside running the operation tried to talk things out, to buy time to cast defensive spells. This would have worked better had his half-orc guards on the floor been in on the plan -- when they stumbled across Rainna, they attacked immediately, triggering a volley of readied attacks from the rest of the party.
Only that mage and the barbarian guarding the kid were at all dangerous opponents, though -- the defense of the warehouse really relied on the traps that never got sprung to supplement the weak skills of the rank and file defenders. Not to mention that the party didn't even bother attacking them, instead focusing on the real threats.
The barbarian charged out using the unconscious kid as a bludgeoning weapons -- fortunately for the kid, he missed on both of the swings he got before Zanzibar, Samuel, and Morgan took him down. The mage didn't last much longer against Rainna and Rhiannon and the kid's father, although he had the time to fireball his office and destroy his records.
Most of the defenders fled to call the guards and try to have the party arrested, but this didn't work well because they'd rescued the kid alive, and his father was powerful, noble, and most of all grateful. He handled things with the guard, then took the party back to his mansion where he offered them food, entertainment, and one of the staffs from his collection. Zanzibar naturally assumed that any staff the party was offered was his to use... but settled for a staff of travel (weakened from the standard version in that it didn't do astral projection) as something that would be useful for the whole party, instead of taking the staff of frost that would pretty much be useful only for him (as Samuel had plenty of area spells).
last session | next session
After the game, I decided to head down to Legend's because I was pretty sure that people would be there -- and I was right. I got to cuddle with Slox, play some magic (although I'd forgotten to bring my own decks), and watch 'Naqoyqatsi', which seemed utterly pointless to me.
Me: "I didn't get that at all."
Legend: "It was a condemnation of how artificial everything in the world is -- did you see how fake they made the nature scenes look?"
Me: "I thought the first half was a celebration of modern society, but then there was that scene with the gun and the nuclear bombs and then... they just showed random pointless stuff with no pattern after that."
Someone: "It's abstract art. It's not supposed to have a plot!"
Someone else: "Celebration? How do you figure? It was a HORROR movie!"
Me: "They showed all this wonderful technology and then a bunch of happy smiling people."
Legend: "Those smiles were so artificial, it made me sick just to look at them."
The conversation continued without me.
Right in the middle, the buyers came by to talk with Tom about something or other, so we had some time to chat and hang out... we didn't even end up finishing our shopping trip, and two weeks from now Tom'll still be moving, so we won't play. Sigh.
Prices in the city of Suzail were somewhat inflated, but fortunately for the party this was more pronounced on the big-ticket items than on the cheap items -- some of the cheap items were even available for a discount! Since they were selling a few big items they'd found (the ones too expensive to sell back in Wheloon), splitting up the cash, then buying a bunch of smaller items, this worked to their advantage overall.
They also sold the paintings they'd been lugging about for far more than they expected -- 30k for the ones the art merchant recognized isntantly, then a couple thousand here and there as the others sold on consignment. The necromancer's sword sold for 42k (list price was 32k), the headband of intellect for 35k (list price was 16k)!
They didn't know the city though, so it took them some time to find the merchants who dealt in selling magical items -- the blacksmith and mage's guild were obvious, as were the temples for clerical stuff, but the ring shop was disguised as a bakery and the cape shop they only found after a week of asking around. They actually located the black market before either of those.
They did identify the magical painting -- it was a map of sorts, showing a photograph of a specific mountain they'd have to track down, with the lightning strike in the nighttime phase pointing out a specific location on that mountain. They decided to keep it, in case it was a treasure map.
The symbol on Rhiannon's mace ('The Key', the evil necromancers called it) was the symbol of a long-destroyed lichling. She couldn't figure out much besides that, but at least now she had a name to go with the symbol and a place to start looking.
Portable holes were being sold by a 'wiccan' outside of town, but they never got around to visiting her before something happened. After about a week, while the items they were getting improved instead of just replaced were still being worked on, someone tried to pickpocket Zanzibar -- and failed, but Zanzibar chased after him anyway, spreading his black evil-looking wings and swooping over the crowd the thief was dodging through. The thief knew the city *very* well, though, and was able to dodge into an alleyway where Zanzibar got tangled up in clotheslines and laundry and lost him.
But Zanzibar *was* in position to see three rough-looking men stuff a different kid into a sack. Staying hidden, he cast his 'stony grasp' spells to try to grab the kidnappers and hold them, but they were too slippery for the hands to keep hold of and two got away, with the kid. Zanzibar chased them, and when he yelled to the guards who arrived (to arrest the evil-looking demon flying around the market) about the kidnapping, they quickly made themselves useful and captured one of the others... but not the one with the kid.
But the kid's father was a powerful mage, and knew a strange spell that would let Zanzibar easily follow the tracks of a person he'd seen -- like the kidnapper. The rest of the party had caught up by then, so they all went to follow the tracks to whereever the mage's kid was being held.
It turned out to be a small warehouse down near the docks. There were two entrances, and looking through a skylight, Zanzibar saw the tracks lead into one of the two elevated offices inside reached by ladders and catwalks. He also saw nets set up over the main door the party had been about to go in -- a trap!
So, the fighters (Rainna and Morgan) were sent around to the back door, and Rhiannon kicked in the front door and started yelling after the kid. The fighters -- and Samuel, invisible -- snuck inside, while Zanzibar hovered at the skylight, readying to shatter it and swoop down in as soon as the shit hit the fan.
But the evil mage inside running the operation tried to talk things out, to buy time to cast defensive spells. This would have worked better had his half-orc guards on the floor been in on the plan -- when they stumbled across Rainna, they attacked immediately, triggering a volley of readied attacks from the rest of the party.
Only that mage and the barbarian guarding the kid were at all dangerous opponents, though -- the defense of the warehouse really relied on the traps that never got sprung to supplement the weak skills of the rank and file defenders. Not to mention that the party didn't even bother attacking them, instead focusing on the real threats.
The barbarian charged out using the unconscious kid as a bludgeoning weapons -- fortunately for the kid, he missed on both of the swings he got before Zanzibar, Samuel, and Morgan took him down. The mage didn't last much longer against Rainna and Rhiannon and the kid's father, although he had the time to fireball his office and destroy his records.
Most of the defenders fled to call the guards and try to have the party arrested, but this didn't work well because they'd rescued the kid alive, and his father was powerful, noble, and most of all grateful. He handled things with the guard, then took the party back to his mansion where he offered them food, entertainment, and one of the staffs from his collection. Zanzibar naturally assumed that any staff the party was offered was his to use... but settled for a staff of travel (weakened from the standard version in that it didn't do astral projection) as something that would be useful for the whole party, instead of taking the staff of frost that would pretty much be useful only for him (as Samuel had plenty of area spells).
last session | next session
After the game, I decided to head down to Legend's because I was pretty sure that people would be there -- and I was right. I got to cuddle with Slox, play some magic (although I'd forgotten to bring my own decks), and watch 'Naqoyqatsi', which seemed utterly pointless to me.
Me: "I didn't get that at all."
Legend: "It was a condemnation of how artificial everything in the world is -- did you see how fake they made the nature scenes look?"
Me: "I thought the first half was a celebration of modern society, but then there was that scene with the gun and the nuclear bombs and then... they just showed random pointless stuff with no pattern after that."
Someone: "It's abstract art. It's not supposed to have a plot!"
Someone else: "Celebration? How do you figure? It was a HORROR movie!"
Me: "They showed all this wonderful technology and then a bunch of happy smiling people."
Legend: "Those smiles were so artificial, it made me sick just to look at them."
The conversation continued without me.
