New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

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greycrusader
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by greycrusader »

A few notes and options for the second adventure in the Nether War series, Assault on the Nerian Nexus:

Scene One: If the GM wishes, the heroes might need to deal with panicked, fleeing civilians before taking on any of the villains in the opening scene; the throng of frightened bystanders running from the arcane battle in front of the mansion presents a danger to slower moving individuals (children, physically challenged, the elderly) or simply anyone unlucky enough to trip and be injured. Preventing such unfortunates from being trampled (and potentially killed) requires holding back part of the crowd (DC 15 STR check), evacuating them, or shielding them (if a hero does so with his/her own body, treat as a DC 4 Multi-Attack, Bludgeoning Damage). While such incidents likely present no real danger to the heroes, they may have to deal with several such incidents before getting closer to the Eldrich Edifice, costing them a delay (which comes into play in the finale). Characters with strange or imposing appearances may provoke even more fear from the crowd, and efforts to curtail the panic through force might worsen the situation. The best solution is for the heroes to calm the civilians by gaining their collective attention (be creative!) and then succeeding on a DC 18 Persuasion check; one degree of success quiets the crowd for a round, while two or more allow the player characters to calmly direct their evacuation from the area. Of course, heroes with appropriate psi-talents would be of great help in containing the situation.

Other possible Hazards include frightened police mounts (treat as heavy horses or even war horses) or attack dogs lashing out at civilians or heroes; calming the animals requires either Persuasion (at the usual -10 penalty) to improve their mood from "Hostile" or a DC 15 Expertise:Animal Handling skill roll. Heroes can also try to mount panicked horses and rein them in, either a DC 20 Athletics or DC 15 Expertise: Riding check.The poor beasts might also be mind controlled, perhaps acting out the last command given to them by a villain by an already defeated villain. The heroes should strive to harm the animals as little as possible, of course.

Although not detailed in the adventure, the Devil's Advocates head up a fairly large Freedom City outlaw biker gang; the GM should assume 2-3 members of the DA motorcycle club are present for every hero; either use their statistics from the Rogues Gallery book or just have a mix of the Criminal/Goon archetype minions atop motorcycles, wielding clubs, chains, blades, and heavy pistols.
Last edited by greycrusader on Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
greycrusader
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by greycrusader »

Scene Two: Note the heroes could certainly use the slower pace of this scene as respite, allowing them to recover from any injuries sustained in the first scene, but this counts as a Delay for the purpose of the final scene.

As the heroes interact with Seven through the magic mirror, a successful DC 25 Insight skill check indicates the young mage's concern over the situation subtly shifts to annoyance or even distraction as they continue to converse, as her attention seems focused elsewhere. While this heroes may attribute this to Seven being trapped in a nether-realm presiding over demonic subjects, team members with knowledge of Adrian Eldrich's former apprentice might note it as out of character.
greycrusader
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by greycrusader »

Scene Three (The text below containers spoilers; just select the text and hold SHIFT to reveal):

If the Gamemaster wants to bump up the challenge of this encounter, have the heroes arrive after Devil Ray and Vlad Dracula have already claimed their weapons from Adrian Eldrich's vault; in this case, the villains detect the heroes approach and lie in wait for them, taking cover behind a towering clay statue (actually a inert golem). They will attempt to surprise the heroes, attacking while they are flat-footed and vulnerable.

Devil Ray's PL can be bumped up by increasing the DC of the Perception Damage caused by the totem stolen from the vault, to pose a greater threat to a more numerous or luckier hero team.

Option: If the heroes are too easily overcoming the dire duo, allow Dracula to tap the dormant life energies of the golem, allowing a one time Healing effect for himself and his "partner', removing one Damage Condition from the villains. For additional fun, have the spell awaken the golem, and let it run amok, attacking everyone in the room, villain and hero alike!
greycrusader
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by greycrusader »

Scene Four (again, this post includes spoilers):

Prior to their encounter with the Glipse, the Hall of Mirrors is an excellent place to stage an encounter alternate versions of themselves, perhaps corrupted (Anti-Earth) or fascist counterparts, or even bizarre analogues (like the forms taken on by the Emerald City villain Ersatz); after a round or two of combat, the duplicates vanish, and any injuries the heroes may have sustained are healed when they exit the mirror dimension. If the GM uses this option, the battle with the doppelgangers should NOT count as a Delay in the 5th and final Scene.

An additional option for the Possibility Shards is they may automatically "awaken" and work a change on any hero carrying them; after a shard has been in a character's possession for more than 5 minutes, roll each round thereafter, with a result of 11+ indicating the shard activates, subjecting its' bearer to a DC 15 Affliction effect (3rd degree only, Resisted by Fortitude, Transformed as listed in the text); this effect is Subtle, requiring a DC 20 Perception skill roll to detect unless/until the character actually transforms.

If the heroes use the Possibility Shards in combat (either as melee or thrown weapons), allow them to apply the full DC 15 rank of the Affliction, regardless of PL limits; however, a shard vanishes after striking a target, regardless of whether the Affliction take effect or not.

If a hero rolls a Jump Start for a Transformation result, award a Hero Point for the setback. Alternately (my preferred option), characters regressed in age may use the Seize Initiative advantage up to 3 times without spending a HP (reflecting youthful vitality), while those made older gain Skill Mastery (any of choice) and Teamwork, to simulate additional years of experience.


Should the GM use the option of showing the heroes events from possible future timelines, they might catch images from their upcoming confrontation with Medea. Any heroes who succeed on a DC 20 Insight or Perception check gains a +2 circumstance bonus to their Initiative for the first round of Scene Five; three or more degrees of success grants a +5 circumstance bonus.

If any team members are hurt, the Gamemaster may rule they automatically remove one condition during the interim of this Scene.

Hope a few out there are enjoying these! All my best.
Last edited by greycrusader on Fri Jul 03, 2020 1:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
greycrusader
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by greycrusader »

Scene Five/Finale:

If the GM believes the team is winning too easily, consider the option of allowing Medea to summon "time-duplicates"; echoes of herself from a few seconds in the past and future, one for each hero. These are PL 8 versions of Medea, except they lack her Summon ability and are treated as semi-minions, in that they disappear after failing two Toughness checks (or a single check by two or more degrees). They do act independently, and the real Medea can use all her other powers while the duplicates battle the heroes.

And that's it! All my best.
FuzzyBoots
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by FuzzyBoots »

Assault on the Nerian Nexus was run with 3 PL 8 heroes (they wanted to keep the characters from Master of Earth), so I did the PL 10 Abracadaver, the already injured Devil's Advocates, and Sandstone, with Sandstone taking down the Devil's Advocates while the players focused on Abracadaver, then running inside. It took a while to get through the library scene because the players were convinced that the books were a trap, and kept trying other methods of getting out before Seven made the suggestion that the library might be lonely. The fight with Dracula and Devil Ray went more smoothly than I'd hoped, with one of the players managing to disarm Devil Ray of the artifact a few rounds in, using their Attack Teleport to set it in the library. Dracula mind-controlled Sandstone the first round, but that just meant that from the third round on, she was focused on pounding him, eventually deciding to pursue him when he escaped, and then the heroes managed to hit Devil Ray with a 2nd degree Disabled Affliction, and before he could shake it off, they managed to knock him out. Of course, now they're convinced that Devil Ray's artifact was the goal of the game and that Sandstone has escaped with it...
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by FuzzyBoots »

NetherWar 2: The Pentagram Peril and NetherWar 3: Broken Strings have dropped, the latter just today, I think. Already trying to figure out how to adapt them for the PL 8 trio that my players have decided to stick with...
greycrusader
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by greycrusader »

I'm quite interested-how did the first adventure end up playing out? And how was it the heroes were teamed up with Sandstone? Did they finally confront Medea?

I like how you handled matters, btw.

All my best.
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by FuzzyBoots »

greycrusader wrote: Fri Jul 24, 2020 12:39 am I'm quite interested-how did the first adventure end up playing out? And how was it the heroes were teamed up with Sandstone? Did they finally confront Medea?
We haven't been able to complete the adventure yet. One of the players works in the post office, and has been slammed with work lately. They weren't actually allied with Sandstone. They just avoided her initially, assuming she was a hero they were unfamiliar with (they failed their Expertise checks to identify her) Due to various delays, they were still behind when she encountered Dracula and Devil Ray, and by the time they caught up, the fight was in full force. I figured that, much like the first fight, it gave them, as three PL 8s, a better chance to survive the fight if the villains were already battered. Sandstone got hit by Dracula's charming gaze early on and, when she shook it off, she held a grudge, plus half of the team were teens (from Master of Earth), so her tendency to protect kids meant that she was less likely to pick a fight with them.

I'm looking forward to how they deal with the mirrors. We might be playing tomorrow night.
greycrusader
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by greycrusader »

I really like how you handled the adventure so far! I love that they figured Sandstone was another hero-after all, they didn't know her, and she was fighting a couple villains when they first showed up.

Here's a couple suggestions for when you get to pick up play:

1) If any of the heroes transform due to the effects of the mirror-shards, allow their "new" selves to be more experienced, boosting them a PL level temporarily; rather than add a full 15 points, just boost one of their Attacks or Defenses to that level.

2) Extend the time it takes to reach Scene Six (the conclusion) after the Mirror Mosaic, and let the heroes run into Sandstone again. Since she doesn't have any expertise in magic, and the Nexus isn't guiding her (she is a villain, after all), the blue collar bad guy is just plain lost. She offers to team up with the players so they can all get out of the mansion. Just as long as she gets to keep any minor magical loot she's already taken. As a PL 12 ally might be a little unbalancing, Sandstone may still be injured from the various battles.

3) Drop most of the additional abilities listed for Medea in the final scene, aside from her Favored Environment, levitation, and perhaps ONE magical trap.

Be generous with Hero Points, because they are definitely in for a tougher time throughout the series than larger teams or PL 10 heroes.

All my best!
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by FuzzyBoots »

Heh, it took us almost four hours, but we got through the end of it. First off, they went back to find Devil Ray and found he was gone (I kept things open as to whether Medea had recovered him, Warden had popped in, or he got out on his own. They assumed he just escaped on his own, going further into the house. They figured out the nature of the mirrors reflecting different realities, and made several skill checks to try to resolve how to do the mirrors at the end before trying to make the jump, and just barely missing the DC and bouncing back. They took Glimpse at his word, and immediately set him free (it probably helped that the backstory of how one of the characters, the adult in the group, got introduced to the adventure because they'd gotten trapped in a coat closet at the mansion for an indeterminate amount of time in the process of travelling through time and space). They took the shards, but failed their checks to figure anything more out from them other than that they reflected slight variations of reality that became more definite as they concentrated, and that they were very sharp at one end (my attempt at hinting at their purpose and the method of usage. They then encountered Sandstone, who claimed to have been trapped for weeks walking the halls (hinting at the way time doesn't quite work right, and that they needed to impose their will on the house to do something other than keep moving forward at that point). After a few badly-timed attempts to trick Sandstone into providing more information, they reached an uneasy alliance with her, and then promptly decided that they would immediately leave the house since they now had located the person with the artifact.

I started requiring Will saves (or relevant checks based on what they were doing) and asking about intent as they started traversing the corridors with the save DC increasing as they continued trying to leave the mansion without actually addressing Medea and giving the people who got the best Insight checks emotional flares of the house being frustrated that they were leaving without finishing the job. They assumed it was malign influences keeping them from leaving, so they were thrilled that they kept making those saves to get out. In the library, they decided to read the books again, this time with the character doing the reading specifically picking a book related to their character's knowledge base (gardening) and succeeded by two degrees, which made them realize by way of analogy to planting a garden in 4D space that the Nerian Nexus could be coerced with Hero Points or Presence checks. Then, they suggested that Sandstone attempt to make the halls go the way she wanted to go since they decided that the shards they were carrying were anchoring them to the house. She made her Presence check and walked right through the corridor (the house being glad to be rid of her, but also so that I had an excuse to drop her in the final fight if they needed her) and shortly thereafter, when they tried to follow, they failed their check and found that the corridor dead-ended. It was at that point that they decided to contact Seven for advice. She was increasingly irritable, and called them children a few times, which they did note was odd given she's not much older than them (hinting at Una's increasing influence), and when they said that they'd recovered the artifact (at this point, assuming it was Slake, which they'd identified as Dracula's personal spear albeit not much more than that) and she thanked them for retrieving the Alternity Atlas, it dawned on them that they had the wrong artifact. With the intent to reach the Observatory (having been told by Seven that that was likely the location), they got there in short time.

I gave them the benefit of a surprise round, since they described themselves as entering stealthily and the adventure notes Medea to be distracted. They capitalized on it with one of them using his plant-based teleport to attack Tom Cypress (side note, he shows up as Tom Cyprus a few times in the PDF), which I treated as a Slam attack and one of the others charged with Slake. They managed to get two Bruises and a Dazed out of it despite Cypress's huge Toughness shift. An attempt was made to age Medea only to fall prey to her Immunity (which, in retrospect, is meant more for normal aging, but given how rare a descriptor it is, I decided it was covered). On her turn, Medea summoned the Erinyes who were an annoyance, but never really did all that much damage. Cypress got in a few really good blows including two criticals, one of which dropped a character to Incapacitated in a single blow. Medea was unable to use her spells for the most part because she was maintaining the summon, but her Taunting kept one of the characters Impaired for a while, and she did manage to turn the pool into a swamp, which meant Tom kept regenerating every time he moved back to it. Devil Ray lasted all of two rounds before the aging Affliction took him out (Cumulative and Impaired/Disabled means once you start failing, it's really hard to get back out). Once half of the Erinyes were down, Medea tried switching to other magic, but had little luck, and when she had been Staggered twice (the first time recovering by using the Recover action), she took the better part of valor and teleported out, leaving Cypress following his last order to stay in the swamp (I kept having him leave to attack, and Medea kept chiding him to return to the swamp, so I took advantage of it to let combat end there with him staying there after Medea bugged out. It was late, so we more or less signed off there, although I did have Warden pop in to offer to take the villains in, which the heroes agreed to. We'll have to settle out what's happening with the house itself next session.

Side note, one of my players seems to roll really well every time combat starts... it didn't really hit me until I realized that he'd made every save where I'd given the DC in advance, and generally by only a few points. He's always rolled well at the table as well, so this might be a matter of just subconsciously being very good at rolling the dice, but it did start to get evident. I may need to talk to him about it. He is one of those people who gets frustrated when the rolling gets in the way of what he feels ought to happen in the story, but cheating on the dice isn't the way.
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by FuzzyBoots »

Huh, and I hadn't noticed it, but Crystal Fraser weighed in on how to set Assault on the Nerian Nexus in Emerald City.
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Davies
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by Davies »

Crystal Frasier wrote:All this is to say: Magic isn’t a major force in Emerald City as depicted in Emerald City Knights, even if the city itself has several noteworthy magical villains.
I question her premise.
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Tattooedman
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by Tattooedman »

Davies wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:37 am
Crystal Frasier wrote:All this is to say: Magic isn’t a major force in Emerald City as depicted in Emerald City Knights, even if the city itself has several noteworthy magical villains.
I question her premise.
As do I.
Jabroniville wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 11:45 pm
LOl- "The Tattooed Man"? What kind of ABSOLUTE DILDO would refer to himself as "The Tattooed Man" :P!?!
FuzzyBoots
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by FuzzyBoots »

Hmm... my understanding is that, while there are magicians in Emerald City, they specifically try to avoid notice, much like all of the supervillains who want to avoid heroes swooping in and punching faces while spouting catchphrases. Within the adventure itself, the only person with magical powers who shows up is Seven, although some of the Stormers believe their powers to be magic such as Ghostlight and The Silver Sorcerer.

Going through the Secrets book, we have Kwan Wu (Shambala magic), the archives of St. Helen Hospital (includes sealed records on how to battle dark magic), Prospero's Book Club (noted to include some magical tomes), Madame Macabre (Demonic imbuement), the Rock clan's "Forsaken magic", and Area V (used to store all sorts of superhuman artifacts including magical ones). Now individual campaigns might make more use of this, but overall, Emerald City seems more geared to technological and psychic abilities than magic.
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