SCAP Fun
The Shackled City Adventure Path continues on. This is the first D&D session I've DMed in a long time in which there was combat from beginning to end, nearly non-stop. Combat was interrupted only by checking out the areas where the combat occurred, and walking to the next combat! But it only makes sense. The party has entered the lair of the Cagewrights, the powerful masterminds behind the scheme to open a rift to Carceri. The evildoers' scheme is nearly complete, and the only hope for the region, if not the whole world, is for the Jzadirune Company to stop the magical process that's already underway. So, the Cagewrights are fighting to the death to prevent the party from reaching the device they've created to open the rift, the Tree of Shackled Souls!
Sounds like fun, doesn't it? It is! I'm really enjoying DMing it. We were actually in combat (shocker!) when it reached 6 PM, scheduled quitting time. Two new combatants had just joined a battle that would have been over if not for their arrival. I told the Players, like I usually do, to make notes of their characters' conditions, spells, etc, because finishing the combat would take another hour and a half or so. But everyone wanted to keep playing to that battle's conclusion. So, cool! My prediction was accurate - we played until 7:30-ish. The XPs for this game brought the final characters up to level 16 (most were there already). It's weird (in a good way, though) to DM characters of such high levels. They are capable of so much, and the higher level spells are not very familiar to me. But the group isn't too big, so it doesn't take too terribly long to get around to each person's turn in combat. But there sure is a lot to keep track of mentally - sometimes too much, it seems like.
The thing I am trying not to get annoyed by is when a certain Player's PC has iterative attacks. He rolls and then says, "31?" and I say, "Hit." He tells me the damage, I make a note of it, and he rolls again. "34?" Wait, really? 31 was a hit, but you're asking if 34 is? Do you think the monster's AC went up between those two attacks during your turn? At one point he did it again, and after saying hit to his first number, I said "Miss" to the second, higher one, but a joke isn't funny if they don't know you're joking!
Nobody died in this game, which is good fortune, because even just a single failed save can result in death against spells like harm, destruction, and slay living, which the bad guys were casting. Blasphemy was pretty darned effective, though!
Sounds like fun, doesn't it? It is! I'm really enjoying DMing it. We were actually in combat (shocker!) when it reached 6 PM, scheduled quitting time. Two new combatants had just joined a battle that would have been over if not for their arrival. I told the Players, like I usually do, to make notes of their characters' conditions, spells, etc, because finishing the combat would take another hour and a half or so. But everyone wanted to keep playing to that battle's conclusion. So, cool! My prediction was accurate - we played until 7:30-ish. The XPs for this game brought the final characters up to level 16 (most were there already). It's weird (in a good way, though) to DM characters of such high levels. They are capable of so much, and the higher level spells are not very familiar to me. But the group isn't too big, so it doesn't take too terribly long to get around to each person's turn in combat. But there sure is a lot to keep track of mentally - sometimes too much, it seems like.
The thing I am trying not to get annoyed by is when a certain Player's PC has iterative attacks. He rolls and then says, "31?" and I say, "Hit." He tells me the damage, I make a note of it, and he rolls again. "34?" Wait, really? 31 was a hit, but you're asking if 34 is? Do you think the monster's AC went up between those two attacks during your turn? At one point he did it again, and after saying hit to his first number, I said "Miss" to the second, higher one, but a joke isn't funny if they don't know you're joking!
Nobody died in this game, which is good fortune, because even just a single failed save can result in death against spells like harm, destruction, and slay living, which the bad guys were casting. Blasphemy was pretty darned effective, though!