Putting it all Together
So let’s take the last encounter as an example. The Divas want to get into the Temple of Wee Jas and blow it up since their investigations have shown that Jasidian clerics are behind the assassination attempt, and because the new construction is blocking the rising solstice sun from shining on the Church of Pelor. The written scenario assumes the Divas will come to the Temple of Wee Jas, but also assumes: a) they are 12th level characters (they are 11th), b) they can break a DC 40 lock on the door (they have no rogue), and c) they have no intention of burning the place down.

a) Encounter Level – The Shackled City wants this to be Encounter Level 13. Using the Encounter Calculator, a party of 6 12th level characters would be 13.2, so this is reasonable. But my party is only 12.2, so I need to take this into account. I decide these are hired guards who won’t fight to the death. Their orders are to try to capture the PC’s, or draw them to the real fight deeper in the Temple. This makes the encounter a bit easier. Then, reading about Stone Giants, I realize their only real tactic is throwing rocks and melee fighting. Not good for capturing. But, if I make them Elders, then they get some spells and can use them to trap the PC’s. But this makes the encounter harder. So I lower the level of the fighters. In the end, I have a level 13 encounter using 2 Stone Giant Elders (CR9) and 4 half-orc fighters (CR6) to make my encounter. Challenging, but the fight is not to the death, so probably okay.

b) The Lock – I don’t have a rogue, so I make the front doors unlocked. But then I need to add some guards, so I do that. I make these half-orc fighters (CR 4) since they are there to deflect the attention of regular citizens. The Divas can certainly come in and get captured.

c) The Unexpected – I have a paladin who thinks the temple destruction is dumb, so she’ll be missing. Oops. Now we’re down a character. The Divas are planning to blow up the temple, so there may not be a “real fight” to draw them to. Oops. Need to adjust. After all the fun role playing, the encounter starts at 9:00. Oops. Too early to stop, to late to start. Well, let’s go for it.

Improvising
Since they are going to blow up the place, I decide to make this encounter the “real fight” and scale down the following one. I don’t change the strategies of the enemies though since they don’t know the plan. Since I’m doing this at the last minute I add some extra fighters. And, since the Divas’ plan is to bluff the guards away, and they’ll likely succeed, I add 2 more fighters, figuring they can bluff another two out of there. And even if they don’t, these are more people to question before blowing the place up.

Learning From Experience
There’s still things I would keep the same. Making the stone giants elders is something I would definitely keep. That mud geyser was fun. It’s also very fun that one of the giants got turned into a cat. It completely foiled the plan to stone shape walls around characters, then turn the stone to mud miring the characters, then turn the mud to stone trapping the characters, but hey, turning a giant into a kitten is hilarious! And, I would have still started the encounter one week and finished it the next. It was an experiment, and it’s good to know it’s doable. Not a good routine thing, but good to know.

To do things differently, I would not have added the extra fighters. Since the last battle was so epic, making another large fight right after was exhausting for everyone. Also, I misjudged the Divas. I didn’t expect them to really kill everybody. My fighters didn’t have a place to run. Worse, there was no one left alive to question. I should have kept the Divas on the original track to blow up the place. True, there was useful information and plot elements to find, so it’s good for them to search. But, in hindsight, they can blow up the place – there’s always another way to gain information.

Ah, live and learn.

The most important lesson here is this: Just because the Divas changed the scenario, doesn’t mean the scenario needs to adjust. Players should be rewarded for creativity, initiative, and zeal. They want to blow up the temple, they should be able to. Remember the brilliant plan to walk around the Lucky Monkey and go in the back door? I didn’t adjust that encounter and it was awesome. Remember the crazy idea to investigate Orak’s rat problem? Killing 30 goblins was a blast.

I’m awarding myself 4000XP for this encounter.

For the post “What’s a gaming session without food” there was an advertisement titled “Portland Baking” which listed a link to the Western Culinary Institute. Good banana bread!

For the post “Of Enemies and Friends” there was an advertisement titles “Giantess Shrinking Man.” I guess it was triggered by Tad fighting a Giant? It’s not in the post about a man playing with women and using small dice. In any case, it sent you to a site using the search terms “shrink” and “man” to find related products. Give me a break. Like anyone would use those two search terms together.

For the post “Props to the Props Mistress” there was a link titled “Recipes for Making Slime.” Well of course I clicked. I mean, who wouldn’t?

Link #1: Smile Makers Official Site – spellchecker is apparently working overtime. Flubber–>Slime–>Smile
Link #2: Recipe for Making – uh…making what?
Link #3-5:Various food recipe sites
Products: Slime Science Kits – thank the science gods!

This is an hilarious topic to me. I think we need to track this.

There is a spell called “assay spell resistance.” Our sorceress cast it the other night. Michelle, the DM, was having trouble locating the monster in the MM. So one of the other players found the info really quickly on Google. We decided that for our group, “assay” would now be called “Google.” As in, “I’d like to cast Google spell resistance on that demon.”

A brief replay. (This is as I remember, apologies if I have it incorrect.)

Round -2
Ragnara and Cinder approach a door and it slides open. Surprised, they both jump back and the door slides shut. Ragnara approaches again, and the door opens again. As she steps back, the door closes.

Round -1
Cinder searches the floor, but finds no pressure plate trigger. She also tries spot around the area to see if there are motion sensors of some kind. Even with a high roll, she sees nothing.

Meanwhile, Ragnara continues to test the door. Approaching slowly door opens. Approaching quickly, door opens. Retreating slowly door opens, retreating quickly, door opens.

Surprise Round
A red hot piece of metal burst through the door while it is open, hitting Ragnara for some major damage.

All players must roll for initiative.
Looking back, what would you have done differently?

Round 1
Ragnara is not very wise, and when attacked will run toward the attacker. Thus, she runs into the room.
Acgar – uses a ranged weapon
Cinder – uses a ranged weapon
Sadi – holds action, guarding the rear
Myntilly – uses a spell to deal damage
Indira – uses a ranged weapon
Submeera – sings to inspire courage

And…

Fire Giant – has only Ragnara as a target, so attacks her

Round 2
Ragnara – uses a melee weapon against the giant
Acgar – uses a ranged weapon
Cinder – uses a ranged weapon
Sadi – holds action, guarding the rear
Myntilly – uses a spell to deal damage
Indira – uses a ranged weapon
Submeera – runs into the room as a double move

And…

Fire Giant – still has only Ragnara as a target, so makes a full attack on her

Ragnara dies.

What do you notice? How would you play this differently?

It started one of the first game nights when the heroes had used a lot of their daily powers and it was only early afternoon. The Divas felt their characters needed to rest before going on in the adventure, but it was really too early to go to sleep.

What’s a role player to do?

Well a real person might take a nap and wake refreshed, but maybe not to full power. And the discussion began.

“Can I just rest for 4 hours instead of 8 and get half my spells back?”
“Is there a spell I could cast that would make my rest more restful?”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could rest at a spa in town and get a massage?”
“Ooh, yes, then you might even get all your spells back in just 2 hours.”
“Hey, there should be a spell called Spa that does that.”
“Yeah, maybe it needs some oil and a sprig of lavendar.”
“There could be Spa, Lesser and it would take 4 hours to get full rest, while Spa would take 2 hours. And Spa, Greater would take only 1 hour.”
“Yeah for Spa, Greater you would need oil, lavendar, and a sexy masseur.”
“What would it take for Spa, Mass?”

And the running joke began. Almost every evening there was an excuse to wish for the Spa spell. We made some serious attempts at creating it. After all, Heroes’ Feast summons a meal that takes an hour to consume and provides players with extra strength, extra defense, and resistance to poison. And if you can think of it, it probably already exists and has been posted to the internet. But it wasn’t on the internet.

A parallel phenomenon was happening as well. I was the DM for the first two chapters of The Shackled City Adventure Path. This adventure path was first published in Paizo’s Dungeon Magazine over the course of a year. I’d been working off of a CD that had PDF files of all the magazines and the extra materials posted to the website. After two chapters, I passed the DM duties to Angel. At that time, Angel had purchased the re-formated, re-bound, re-published book of The Shackled City. All the information from the magazine published in one omnibus. Angel used this to DM the 3rd chapter.

After the chapter that Angel DM’ed, she gave the book to me. I turned to Chapter 4. And found that it was the chapter we’d already done. Turns out we were on Chapter 5.

Looking through the book, I discovered that Paizo publishing had made a new chapter and inserted it between chapters 1 and 2. This new chapter, now numbered Chapter 2, featured a new adventure, with relevant plot points, interesting additions to the backstory, and several adventures.

And Orak’s Bathhouse.

Well. By this time the Divas had grown to 9 player characters, 3 animal companions, and a full year had passed since we joined the group. There were a lot of loose ends to tie up, plot to summarize for the new members, and details to introduce before the next chapter. What better way to gather all this information than have the characters spend two weeks in and around Cauldron, then meet at the Bathhouse.

Perhaps I am a victim of my own enthusiasm. Of course there needs to be bath soap props to give away. And there needs to be a reason the bathhouse wasn’t open for the first year the heroes had been in Cauldron. I mean, they’d wanted to go to the spa for a year, and they know the city pretty well. Surely, they would have gone to Orak’s by now.

The Chapter 2 adventure had wererats in it, so I decided that Orak’s Bathhouse had suffered from a “small rat problem” for the past year. But it had now been contained and Orak had re-opened for business. I blocked off a corner saying it was under construction.

The Divas loved the bathhouse. And wouldn’t leave it alone. Feeling dusty and grimy after fighting a fire? Let’s go to the bathhouse! And what is up with that corner? Oh. Wererats!

Did I expect this? No. Would I go along with it? Oh, hell yes.

The Divas made short work of the wererats. They are 8 characters leveled 6 to 8 and the Chapter 2 adventures are scaled for 4 characters at level 3. Of course after the wererats they’re going down the basement to kill off the 30 goblins that lurk down there. Of course they are going to see every secret door, every trap, hear every sound.

[sigh] Remember when goblins were scary?

So now there’s a new question. Does the DM rescale the chapter for the adventurers? Or save herself the work and let the Divas smash through the basement?

I’m ready now. What choice do you think I’ve made?