Celebrity Game Table; Sword and Fist Web Enhancement

We have a double-shot of online stuff today. First up is another Celebrity Game Table article, The Campaign Kick-Off by Ed Stark. Here he discusses how he started playing in someone else's 3rd edition game, but soon took the plunge to do his own game. He decided to let his players create 6th-level characters rather than starting at first, and ended up with an interesting group: The halfling thief who is actually a wizard, the cleric of Wee Jas who is far too friendly with the undead (I've seen this before...), a barbarian, and a multiclass rogue/cleric/something else.

The backstory was a Thanedom where the Thane was dead and his rightful heir was away. The local council kept him in the dark long enough to consolidate power in their own hands, and the players were hired by the heir to recover the sword of office (buried with his father). Typical stuff, right?

Ed got creative in the dungeon, giving the players mystic puzzles and challenges to overcome rather than the usual undead/traps combo that covers most tombs. And that allowed him to get encounters with sharks, shocker lizards, and frost elementals, among other things. The barbarian died, but the quest was successful. And although he had originally intended just a one-shot, he was persuaded to continue the game by the players, so he must have done something right.

However, that's all we get on this particular campaign other than a few very general details on what the group did afterward. Still, it's an interesting campaign premise, and starting the characters off at a higher level made for some fun encounters along the way.

The second online release was the Web Enhancement for Sword and Fist. I suppose I should have reversed the order I reviewed that book and The Speaker in Dreams to coincide with their web enhancements; I'll try to do better on that in the future.

Anyway, this web enhancement actually comes in two parts, both of which are encounters for PCs to have to deal with, using the new crunchy stuff from Sword and Fist. The first is a Ravager encounter. Or, rather, multiple ravagers. These servants of Erythnul are not interested in negotiation or stealthy exploration; they're here to fight, and they're good at it. The page comes with a table to figure out how tough to make the ravagers based on the party's average level and abilities. Since a ravager is a minimum 6th-level character due to the qualifications, these are tough baddies for a low-level party, and only one is recommended as an opponent if the party is below 6th level. There are stats given for several levels of ravagers in case you want to use tougher ones, too. Nasty encounter, and as I said, it's going to be straight-up combat the instant they come into view.

The second part is the Murderous Weapon Master. This is simply a single warrior who, for whatever reason, challenges a party member to a duel. Like the ravagers, several different levels are statted up, although this is a one-on-one encounter. We are also given several possible reasons why the weapon master is challenging the PC, for both good and evil-aligned weapon masters. Good ones might have been told the party are evil and wanted for some crime; or a family member once condemned a member of the weapon master's family to a long prison sentence, and the weapon master wants revenge. Evil ones might just feel like fighting, someone breathed in an offensive manner, or whatever. Evil ones don't really need a valid reason anyway.

So, there isn't a lot to these; they're just fight encounters. But they do offer an interesting addition to the material in the Sword and Fist book, which is kind of the point, isn't it?

Next up there's a gap, so I'll get The Speaker in Dreams reviewed before the next Map-a-Week. Until then, take care.