Skip to main content

Friday Night Pathfinder Horror on Roll20: Session 1

The first session for any campaign can be a bit daunting for any GM.  A new group of people, a new group of characters that no one knows, a new setting, maybe even some new rules and new tech -- it all adds up to a lot to learn, keep track of, and keep moving.  The first online Friday night Pathfinder horror game lived up to all of that.

In the first session of using a tool like Roll20, I knew our focus had to be about tech, first and foremost.  If the players can't talk, roll dice, interact with me and the other players in meaningful ways, the game is going to be a failure.  As expected from pre-session testing, the audio on Roll20 was flakey on a couple people's laptops -- namely in that they could only hear a few of the audio sources, not all.  Some players couldn't hear other players.  That is a non-starter.  Luckily in the background, I had already set up a teamspeak3 server.  I gave the IP, password, and download location and we were up and running with good audio inside of 10 minutes.

The first page in the adventure was in town.  This gave folks a chance to move their characters around, use emotes (/me), and talk in character over audio.  It was a nice time to get folks familiar with the new play style -- role-playing over audio chat.  The second page was a local parade that I admittedly railroaded the group into attending.  Earthquake and bam! -- they are in the Darklands.

Suddenly torches become an issue and some characters have them.  The players now get to play with dynamic lighting and exploring. Leave it to odd chance that the adventures pick the correct of 4 tunnel options right off the bat.

So we suddenly have our first battle.  One character is out front and there are goblin dogs -- 4 of them.  It is amazing in this horror setting how quickly the party is ready to sign up to running away and letting a PC die. Luckily, they didn't. The fight was tough because of the limited access through the narrow tunnel.  To complicate things there was a tentacled creature dropping from the ceiling onto PC's heads trying to grapple them.  It took a bit, but the PCs finished off the goblin dogs.

Boy, is the party obsessed with the ceiling now.

So the party found a secret tunnel to crawl through and decided (without investigating the rest of the area!) that they would crawl through it.  Two characters were less than happy to follow the party, but had no other option, since they had no torch and didn't want to be left in the dark.

Through to the next area the party had a brief encounter with a venomous snake, found yet another dead body, and ran into more goblin dogs.  This time there was a complication -- the sound of the PCs hollaring about goblin dogs drew the interest of ghouls -- lots of ghouls.

Unfortunately, at the end of the session, there was another quake, a large rock fell, and the party's cleric, Isaac, was crushed.  He managed to get off a healing surge before dying.

GM Observations

  • Having 8 characters is a bit much for such small map grids.
  • I can't keep track of all of the rolls happening in the chat window.  I need to figure out how to change the font or something.  I ended up have all the players call out their character's initiative rolls as I typed them into the turn tracker.
  • The turn tracker had to be reloaded on each page?  That doesn't seem right.  I must be missing something.
  • The auto-colors Roll20 uses are never optimal.  Can I reset those?  I need to check.
  • My encounters need toughened up to kill off PCs.
  • Need to have my sanity rules ready to go for next time.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5E Starting Gold and Equipment for Higher Levels

The DMG has a rough recommendation for starting gold and equipment for higher levels, but with my groups running one-shots, we wanted to nail it down to level by level. Here's my DMG-inspired table. Generally I allow equipment to be traded in during character creation for half book value, where applicable. I also, as a GM, offer to make custom magic items for players who can't choose. A list of magical items by rarity can be found here  with stats available in the DMG. I also generally allow players to buy healing potions (2d4+2) for 50gp and greater healing potions for 250gp (4d4+4). PHB items are available at book cost at creation. I do not allow other equipment to be purchased except in game. This is generally based off the "high magic" campaign. Level Starting Gold Starting Equipment / Magic Items 1 - 160gp  OR Standard starting equipment 2 210gp Standard starting equipment 3 285gp Standard starting equipment 4 365gp Standard sta...
3 comments
Read more

Rules for Flying Creatures in 5E

I'm not one for just throwing my players willy-nilly into something new without an idea of how it would work.  Flying races are on the horizon for one of my games, so here are my clarifications for flying creatures: A flying creatures requires a minimum space of at least 3 times their height in all directions in order to flight. For example, a 6 ft tall flying creature requires a room to be at least 18 ft in all dimensions before they can fly in it. A flying creature can attempt to grapple a creature.  If the the target or grappler are flying, grapple attempts are at disadvantage. If neither are flying, grapples are per RAW.  The state of flying or walking is determined by the last square you have moved.  To change between walking and/or flying, you must use at least 1 space of movement.  Movement rules per RAW apply (PHB pg 190 "Using Different Speeds") A successful grapple check by a flying creature can allow the flying creature to potentially carry th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Exploiting Weakness in D&D 5e: A Guide for the Evil Plotting GM

I wrote a similar article to this on Pathfinder, and though this is a pretty evil topic, it has been of use to a lot of folks out there.  So, now, I think, is the time to start a similar article for D&D 5e.  This will be a living document to be updated with suggestions and more information as I find better methods. In general, 5e is a lot more challenging for a GM, because the classes are reasonably balanced and because the game mechanics don't have a lot of scale over the 20 levels. Here's a general list of things to increase the difficulty for the party: Increase the number of foes and the CR (ignore the book CR system if it isn't offering a challenge) Spells against the PCs low saves.  A high level sleep spell, for example, could take out a party with no elves. Drag out the opportunity for the long rest.  After 2 short rests, the 3rd battle of the day is tough. Hit the most vulnerable PC first. It almost always forces another teammate to take an acti...
1 comment
Read more