I have been toying around with playing C&C for a good bit and finally decided to give it a go. I wanted to try a few things and do a greyhawk C&C but, my players were itching for some eberron and I have gotten house rules together for it so we decided to try a modified version of The forgotten forge.
For character generation i allowed them each to have some extraordinary ability provided b their backstory
The party consisted of:
Gen (changeling rogue) armed with dagger and leather overcoat and
extremely good at looking like a half-elf
Marshal d'Deneith( Human Bard)Primes charisma, intellignce and Strength Dragonmarked heir armed with a Broadsword and a Breastplate and a chain helmet. I allowed his dragonmakr to be his distinguishing feature
Theo ( Half-orc Cleric) hes just wierd heaviest armor he could afford and mace i believe(whosdistinguishing feature was he was secretly a very good seamstress and could identify most clothing and its makers on the spot told you just wierd)
Dugan( gnome illusionist) need i say more( his extraordinary quality is that he has a pet badger who he talks to and confers with)
it took us a total of 40 minutes to get setup and that was with only one PHB floating around and then only an additional 15 to describe the rules. Needless to say I was impressed.
So it was a fairly balanced party. They had decided to be old war comrades from the last war living in Sharn together. They were hanging out at their favorite spot and the changeling was showing off her dart throwing skills (helped of course by the illusionist causing them to seem on fire)
They were then on their way home when they saw a body on a bride across the high towers. Theo runs up to check it out and smells that somethings is off, as though there were a warforged present. theo draws his mace and I have him roll a wisdom Siege check to listen. He hears the warforged trying to sneak up on him and readies a swing. The warforged jumps out at him and Theo, the big slugger he is completely misses. So the little warforged slices him with a rapier and actually knocks theo unconcious.
The rest of the team runs up to help. Marshal goes up to confront the thing directly with his broadsword and Gen Runs up beside him. Marshal swings and fails to connect and Gen uses the oppurtunity to slide under the bridge(requiring a dex and a str seige check and she wound up using an action point to pull it off.) and use its under carriage to mount a suprise back attack next round. Dugan of course did not get to close but does manage to daze the small robot using the Daze spell, which he descirbed as being a conjured hammer cracking the scout in the head.
So as it sat there unable to act, Marshal grabbed it and held it completely still while gen popped out from under the bridge and eviscerated the beast.they looked on the body and it was of some provost from Morgrave university and he had with him a journal of some sort that radiates magic. They also found his name to be bonal geldem and 2 gold pieces and 9 silver
However by this time someone had called for the watch. The warforged was wearing a cloak and looked an awful lot like a halfling or gnome. The watch showed up and they got taken downtown in the back of a Watch owned skycab.
Once they got there, Marshal sweet talked them and told them the whole story and even got the guard to provide for healing for Theo.
As they leave cloaked woman gives them a sheet of paper and tells them if they want to know the truth about the death of bonal geldem they will meet her there. On the sheet of paper is an address leading them to the Broken Anvil tavern.
They are directed into a smoky back corner of the room where they meet a strikingly beautiful heir of House Cannith who tells them that Bonal geldem was murdered by minions the evil messianic figure of the warforged,the lord of blades who was after his research. He was researching a lost centuries old House Cannith forgehold which has long since been built on top of. She asks them to produce the journal which she then puts her signet ring into and suddenly a few of the pages become illuminated, including a map to the old forge She tells them it is 57 levels below even the modern sewer system. She promises to pay them 250 gold pieces each if they follow the map and produce the ancient schema( a blueprint of sorts for magical item forging) hidden there. This was of course much longer drawn out with a good deal of roleplay.
They descend into the sewers but cannot find the valves they need to open to get to the lower levels of sharn underneath the sewers. So hey go to a market and place and they solicit of goblin merchant to guide them after buying several of his mostly useless wares(sunrod, only used once or sealing weak only partially used up or apple only sort of spoiled etc.) He guides them o the valve and he shows them down the stairway
As they descend a small stairway that leads toward the valve they come out of a foot corridor and start walking across this ledge on the edge of the filthy waters. Then out from the shadows a warforged rogue back attacks Marshal and he is hurt badly but remains standing and out from the shadows on the other side two feral looking shifters appear. The warforged strikes and the shifters throw javelins before hopping over to fight. on this ledge. Dugan uses color spray to knock out one of the shifters and Theo runs over to heal Marshal. Marshal then swings and connects with the warforged but the warforged remains standing.
Then just as gen is going to go, one of the sewer valves flies open and knocks theo into the water. He begins to drown and so gen goes in after him and swims he two of the to the point where they are almost out of the water but still need to get onto the ledge somehow.
The next round commences and Marshal, torn decides to exalt theo's swimming rather than fight but he does leave keep his sword ready to parry and rolls a seige check to try and knockback the warforged's next strike,which with an action point he does make the really high check needed to do such a thing(I said 22 even with him being a strength prime)
The remaining shifter then tried to avenge his brother by going for the gnome. he clawed the poor little guy and he went down.
Next turn theo managed to swim out and gen managed to get them up on the opposite side of the sewer. Marshal meanwhile stood in there like a champion and had the good fortune of the shifter being blown into the sewer by another valve burst and then he swung his broadsword strong and connected and brought down the big lug of metal.
They then found the valve they had to open and followed the tunnels down into next week's session.
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I have to admit C&C's fast paced tempo really fit they way things are supposed to feel in eberron and gave the pulpy adventure an incredible feel. Everyone was quite happy with how things went, well except Theo, poor guy never got to attack. the action point sysem works incredibly well with SEIGE and I look forward to finishing the forgotten forge with this group.
they also liked not having to rely on skills for their characters. the yfelt that if their character should know something that he did and if he should be able to do something that doesnt have major chance of failure he should be able to. (I.E. knowing what warforged are without making a knowledge local check or being able to tell that that was the symbol of house cannith because as a member of House Deneith I would know)
Also Marshal loved that talking himself out of a situation depended on what he said and how he argued and had no chance of being botched by a die roll.
The only complaint we had all night was that we couldnt make the fights last long enough!!
So all in all I am happy with this system and it seems like a great way to have some fun.
The forgotten Forge - C&C meets eberron session 1
Re: The forgotten Forge - C&C meets eberron session 1
moggthegob wrote:
The only complaint we had all night was that we couldnt make the fights last long enough!!
HEHE! That's true!
I've been a huge Eberron Fan since it first came out and a proponent to using C&C and Eberron. If you forget all the D&D 3.5 specific stuff and just come up with general guidlines to convert stuff then you're in for one heck of a ride. All you need is a good story, lots of action, and Eberron 'FLUFF' as appose to 'CRUNCH'.
I'm glad there are others out there that like the combination. During my 7 months at a Local gaming event, I had MANY people playing, watching and eventually begging to join my permanent game. They all seemed to like the fast pace I put into the game mixed with the sort of modern but yet fantasy setting. The train heist aboard a lightning rail was a major draw. I had atleast 7 lurkers/watchers while 5 players gawked at the high impact Eberron and C&C offer.
Fantastic stuff!
TIP.... if you run anything at all, you have to run the GRASP OF THE EMERALD CLAW. Feel free to elevate the action as much as possible. For example... in one scene, the party had to meet an anonymous informant down by the docks. As they fought in the old distract, one of the old abandoned storage facilities began to collapse. When it finally did, it set off a chain reactoin that caused neighboring buildings to do the same. The battle went on with debris falling all around them including a roof top falling on top of a player... luckily there was a missing sky light! LOL! Then I kept the action going by making the docks themselves start to give way moments after the fight ended and they stood around 5 collapsed buildings. They ran for their lives as the boardwalk planks snapped apart behind them.
It was nonstop action made easy with SEIGE!