Third Installment of the RPGA version of Sinister Spire

November 5, 2008 By shent_lodge

Well the group ventured further into the pages of the adapted RPGA 3.5 LG module for Sinister Spire last night. The session was officially part two of the mod so the players started over a little happier, mainly, because their RPGA rewards cards could be reactivated, because I handed out an adventure record (AR) at the end of the previous session. Also making the players happy was that a couple had also leveled up due to that AR, one of those players being my wife. What bothered about the game last night was that there was this push by the group to hurry up through the module, using the “get r done” approach. That attitude almost ended in a TPK, but I was able adjust and turn an encounter that would have killed the whole party into something of a lasting “wow I survived that” memory. I also cautioned the players afterwards to relax a little, and that we will get through the mod in one more session.

Later, after all the players had gone home, I had a conversation with my wife about the game. My wife said I was too easy on them after I told her how the “real” bad encounter that evening was supposed to unfold. My reply was she had taken 70hp of damage in the first three rounds, and her PC only had 50hp to start with. I dealt out an average of 40hps of total damage to everyone in the party in three rounds, not just a couple people, the monster had damaged everyone, if I had run it exactly as stated, the average damage could have been nearly 60hp to every player in the same amount of time. Most RPGA 3.5 PCs have about 54 hit points at 6th level or less. The RPGA characters in the game last night had been built up over many, many, sessions over the past year, if they had all died in that instant, whoosh game over. What fun is that? In my home game players can drop like flies, and I don’t pull punches there, because they can always build a new PC quick, or have access to resources to bring a PC back from the dead to try again. The key here is try again. If the RPGA players, under 3.5 rules, had died there is no do over for them, they lose everything they built up with that PC; they only get one try to play the mod, just one. All I did was delay one round of monster attack to give the players a chance against a monster and a room that was designed to scare beefed up, totally cheesed out and magically “blinged” out home game PCs. She was like well if you put it that way… Thanks.

Anyway, the game presses on, and I expect one more session to complete this module, then I will be glad to finally be over with it.

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