Playtest Report: Magical Miscreants & The Curse of the Elf Whisper Part 2

by David McClellan

Party returns to town and with their downtime level-up.
Acquire/rediscover some new spells, and experiment with a new school of magic.
Level-up took 10 minutes, mostly spell selection.

Keith Zone hauls Mario Navarro to the authorities, will return soon.

Water Wizards recover very quickly compared to ordinary mortals.

Party returns to bog.  

Encounter Morgo the Hillgiant guarding his three elven brides in the mud-bungalow.

Regret leaving behind Keith Zone, he would smoothly deal with this situation.

Lance notices Morgo's weird eye amulet, chooses not to vaporize it in the pursuit of science.

Morgo hurls boulders at party

Party avoids being squished.

Aldehyde casts Chiseled Champion on Morgo's next boulder.  Rolls out of his hands and clunks him over the top of the head.

Party takes advantage of Morgo's vision clouded by canaries.

Morgo tramples party, Lance chooses to get out of the way.  Aldehyde goes for the gold and cuts him down while getting stomped on.

Lance takes weird eye amulet around Morgo's neck.
Does not wear it (Drat!)

Party descends into mud bog. Room is dark and no-one has learned magical light.

But wait!  Lance's get's creative with his Flamboyant Glamour and dons a shining pimp coat.

The flickering lighting illuminates large ogre sized shapes among the room, a full dozen.

Aldehyde lights a torch next to one of their heads.
Zombie Ogre's head is now on fire, the remainder are animated by the presence of fire.

Lance's shield proves to be a lifesaver against the heavy hitters.

Aldehydes wicked nagi-double-nata makes short work of many of them.  

DM forgot to use both Giant and Undead quality.
Where is my mind?

by FireflyPhotosAust

Party avoids suspicious water filled dead end (DM misses out on crocodiles)

Party finds a shining pool of water amidst the filth and brackish water.
With the ring of swimming earned from the pixie grove Aldehyde plunges in.

Shining pool is obviously a trap.

Lance casts Boomerang Banish, temporarily banishing the water elemental while they hop across the room before it comes back.

Party makes it into deeper level.  Encounters three beautiful elven brides.

Brides tell them they were trapped by Morgo.  They hail from the kingdom to the north and fled when Ygwannach summoned by their sister Illumenine destroyed the kingdom.  Have been trapped here ever since.

Aldehyde is mesmerized by beautiful elven brides.  Finds story fishy but hard to resist private chambers.

Sharp Eyed Lance is double-suspicious given all the arcane hullabaloo, organs in jars and weird sacrificial altars littered around the room.
Aldehyde not comfortable with creepy private chambers, suggest they relocate to sunlight.
Definitely-not-a-hag-in-disguise, refuses.
 Aldehyde intentionally miscasts Walsh's Forcible Visceral Internal Exchange.  All denizens of the dungeon make a saving throw or are shunted out of the dungeon. 
Party makes their saving throws.
Elven Princesses make their save.
Rest of the dungeon is now sitting on the front steps.
Gygaxian naturalism and Darwinism are about to take hold.

Game adjourns so we old people can work in the morning.

Playtest results

Double weapons may be too darn good.  Although I like the simplicity of combining Two Weapon Fighting & Zweihanders.

Consider swapping the combat bonus into free whirlwind attack.  Penalty may need changing as well to fit in with combat stances.

Show the d12 some love.

Stat minimum for additional information is a lot easier for the DM and less arbitrary than constant die rolls. Encourages players to examine, research and improvise when their stat is not high enough.