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 »

Thanks so ever much for the feedback! The PC who traveled INSIDE the Glimpse's pocket dimension was quite innovative, and I admire your GM skill in improvising the realm. Do you mind elucidating on this? Oh, and how did you explain the disappearance of the psi-assassin between sessions 2 and 3?

There was additional material I considered for the adventure, "side-treks" if one would, but word count had to be considered, as 11K was the maximum allotted. Rather obviously the Nexus could serve as a recurring plot device and source of adventures until such time as it is reclaimed by a Master Mage. Likewise, Sallah's stats had to be jettisoned to make word count, unfortunately. But he is detailed in subsequent entries in the Nether-War series.

I'm glad you enjoyed the inclusion of Glimpse and Warden; they (along with the option of adding Arcanix to the mix) were meant to provide heroes with a bit of non-combat oriented challenges, ones where they had to make judgement calls or deal with moral ambiguity. This could also come into play with a couple of other villains encountered during the adventure; one GM on these forums had Sandstone mistaken for a fellow hero by a team of PL 8 rookies, and she just played along, helping them stop Medea and co. in return for guiding her through the maze (and sneaking some loot along the way).

Initially the idea of Cypress as Nexus-guardian played a bit more of a prominent role, but got pared down in editing. Sounds as if both you and the players proved resourceful.

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

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greycrusader wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 1:14 am Thanks so ever much for the feedback! The PC who traveled INSIDE the Glimpse's pocket dimension was quite innovative, and I admire your GM skill in improvising the realm. Do you mind elucidating on this? Oh, and how did you explain the disappearance of the psi-assassin between sessions 2 and 3?
Re: Hal Walsh (the urban mystic) walking into the mirror dimension:
This was the mystic's players first session with us, but he had a bit of a history as a Kirby-era comics fan (like me), so he was more willing to lean into the bizarre nature of it all. I was a little relieved that he decided to use his characters dimension walk power in that way, instead of just using it as a "push button" to escape the hall of mirrors.

But I'm not gonna lie, it caught me off guard. I resolved that it should be a means to get more info about Glimpse, but I didn't know what else the Time Traveler's Codex might say about chronozoids that might be relevant later, so I took a game break to look it up. For the most part, the info in the TTC really didn't bear that much on the situation, so I imagined a bizarre multidimensional landscape like you see in Doctor Strange (or the Realm of Discord from Sentinels of the Multiverse).

Since this was his character, I let him described how his dimension travel power looked; he used Dark Tower as a source and said he basically just made a what looked like a physical door and stepped through (which is consistent with the way the Warden and the Door Wardens operate in the Freedomverse). I took it from there, describing the scene as the rest of the heroes saw it: He stepped into his door, and they saw a blurry warped version of him walking into the field of view in the mirror.

To the mystic player, I made him make a will save to cope with the mind bending nature of being in the mirror microcosm, but once that was done, let him communicate Glimpses plan a little less cryptically.

Re: Explaining Mister Black's absence in scenes 3 and 4

I didn't really explain it, but if someone had asked or it became relevant for some reason, I would have assumed he decided to stay with the unconscious Sallah or spent some time interfacing with the AEGIS agents about the serpent cultists or other events in the Nexus.
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Psion
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

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A little late possibly, but this might be relevant:
FuzzyBoots wrote: Mon Jun 15, 2020 3:02 am By the by, has anyone bought Masters of Earth off of the Green Ronin store, and can verify whether they have the complete set of HeroLab files? The DriveThruRPG package is missing a few of the listed character profiles and I wanted to check to see if they were in the Green Ronin release before I complained.
My players wanted to level up the Hero High characters for the rest of the NW adventures, but the heroes weren't in the HeroLab package for NW0, so I had to build them from scratch.

Of course I just now discover that all the Hero High characters can be imported into hero lab via the developer tab if you have the Hero High expansion (go to Develop->Import Stock Hero, and pick Hero High Supporting Cast).

I found out why my build of catalyst was over on points: the build in the Book (and NW) has her Force Field, Flight, and Life Support in her removable rod as well as her bio-energy control, though the sheet does not say this.
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

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Psion wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:38 am A little late possibly, but this might be relevant:
FuzzyBoots wrote: Mon Jun 15, 2020 3:02 am By the by, has anyone bought Masters of Earth off of the Green Ronin store, and can verify whether they have the complete set of HeroLab files? The DriveThruRPG package is missing a few of the listed character profiles and I wanted to check to see if they were in the Green Ronin release before I complained.
My players wanted to level up the Hero High characters for the rest of the NW adventures, but the heroes weren't in the HeroLab package for NW0, so I had to build them from scratch.

Of course I just now discover that all the Hero High characters can be imported into hero lab via the developer tab if you have the Hero High expansion (go to Develop->Import Stock Hero, and pick Hero High Supporting Cast).

I found out why my build of catalyst was over on points: the build in the Book (and NW) has her Force Field, Flight, and Life Support in her removable rod as well as her bio-energy control, though the sheet does not say this.
Ah, thank you. Bres the Beautiful is also missing, particularly vexing since they also omitted him at the end of the book. I own the Rogue's Gallery book, so I imported him from there, and removed the Eye of Balor (and fixed the minor error with his Toughness where two points of it are unaccounted for).

And I think I made a similar change on Catalyst on the game I ran. Of course, half the players rebuilt the character sheet anyhow, as it wasn't terribly optimized.
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

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greycrusader wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 1:14 am There was additional material I considered for the adventure, "side-treks" if one would, but word count had to be considered, as 11K was the maximum allotted. Rather obviously the Nexus could serve as a recurring plot device and source of adventures until such time as it is reclaimed by a Master Mage. Likewise, Sallah's stats had to be jettisoned to make word count, unfortunately. But he is detailed in subsequent entries in the Nether-War series.
Hmm... while I did speak less than favorably about the use of "refer to the GM's guide for this archetype", is there a good match-up for that one? Side note, adventure #2 drops the bombshell that Sallah was not only Eldrich's faithful servant, but also his husband. Where you made aware of that when you wrote up #1?
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Psion
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

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FuzzyBoots wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:44 am Ah, thank you. Bres the Beautiful is also missing, particularly vexing since they also omitted him at the end of the book. I own the Rogue's Gallery book, so I imported him from there, and removed the Eye of Balor (and fixed the minor error with his Toughness where two points of it are unaccounted for).
They issued an updated version of the files that included Bres the Beautiful. (I got mine through the Green Ronin store and got an update email on July 22; they probably have the same update on DriveThruRPG.)
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

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Psion wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 12:48 pm They issued an updated version of the files that included Bres the Beautiful. (I got mine through the Green Ronin store and got an update email on July 22; they probably have the same update on DriveThruRPG.)
Ah, thanks. I see it. :-D And they still have the error in Toughness. Four points from Stamina, Two points from Defensive Roll... and it's 8/6?
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Psion
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

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FuzzyBoots wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:11 pm
Psion wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 12:48 pm They issued an updated version of the files that included Bres the Beautiful. (I got mine through the Green Ronin store and got an update email on July 22; they probably have the same update on DriveThruRPG.)
Ah, thanks. I see it. :-D And they still have the error in Toughness. Four points from Stamina, Two points from Defensive Roll... and it's 8/6?
The hero lab version has 6/4. Which honestly seems a little weak. But as he was only a "lieutenant" type in that adventure, it was probably fine. If I wanted to make him a major threat for my own scenarios, I might shore up his defenses a bit.
greycrusader
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by greycrusader »

FuzzyBoots wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:46 am
greycrusader wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 1:14 am There was additional material I considered for the adventure, "side-treks" if one would, but word count had to be considered, as 11K was the maximum allotted. Rather obviously the Nexus could serve as a recurring plot device and source of adventures until such time as it is reclaimed by a Master Mage. Likewise, Sallah's stats had to be jettisoned to make word count, unfortunately. But he is detailed in subsequent entries in the Nether-War series.
Hmm... while I did speak less than favorably about the use of "refer to the GM's guide for this archetype", is there a good match-up for that one? Side note, adventure #2 drops the bombshell that Sallah was not only Eldrich's faithful servant, but also his husband. Where you made aware of that when you wrote up #1?
No, actually. I think that is a bit of a retcon, in point of fact.

For Sallah, I'd go with the Crimefighter archetype from the Hero's Handbook, but adjusted down to PL 6 (he likely hit PL 8 in his adventuring prime, but that was decades ago); reduce STR, FGH, attack/defense bonuses and saves accordingly. His equipment consists of a semiautomatic pistol and a throwing knife (both bullets and blade are silver and blessed against supernatural foes), along with a few minor occult trinkets. Give him the Ritualist advantage, along with the power Mystic Longevity: Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison, half-effect, enhanced advantage-Diehard). He should obviously have a fairly high Expertise: Magic skill, along with maybe a rank of Variable (spells) or a couple Readied Rituals (from the Supernatural Handbook).

All my best.
Last edited by greycrusader on Tue Sep 29, 2020 2:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Psion
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

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greycrusader wrote: Tue Sep 29, 2020 12:03 am For Sallah, I'd go with the Crimefighter archetype from the Hero's Handbook, but adjusted down to PL 6 (he likely hit PL 8 in his adventuring prime, but that was decades ago); reduce STR, FGH, attack/defense bonuses and saves accordingly. His equipment consists of a semiautomatic pistol and a throwing knife (both bullets and blade are silver and blessed against supernatural foes), along with a few minor occult trinkets. Give him the Ritualist advantage, along with the power Mystic Longevity: Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison, half-effect, enhanced advantage-Diehard). He should obviously have a fairly high Expertise: Magic skill, along with many a rank of Variable (spells) or a couple Readied Rituals (from the Supernatural Handbook).
Now this is good quality bonus content. Thank you!
greycrusader
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

Post by greycrusader »

Psion wrote: Tue Sep 29, 2020 1:50 am
greycrusader wrote: Tue Sep 29, 2020 12:03 am For Sallah, I'd go with the Crimefighter archetype from the Hero's Handbook, but adjusted down to PL 6 (he likely hit PL 8 in his adventuring prime, but that was decades ago); reduce STR, FGH, attack/defense bonuses and saves accordingly. His equipment consists of a semiautomatic pistol and a throwing knife (both bullets and blade are silver and blessed against supernatural foes), along with a few minor occult trinkets. Give him the Ritualist advantage, along with the power Mystic Longevity: Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison, half-effect, enhanced advantage-Diehard). He should obviously have a fairly high Expertise: Magic skill, along with many a rank of Variable (spells) or a couple Readied Rituals (from the Supernatural Handbook).
Now this is good quality bonus content. Thank you!
You're welcome, though that should be "MAYBE a rank of Variable (magic spells)", not "MANY a rank"-he was a solider of fortune who got involved (both senses) with the mystic world, and picked up a few tricks and incantations, not any kind of major sorcerer.

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

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The fifth entry, "Three Made One", dropped last week. I've bought my copy. It seems pretty decent overall, and has several hooks to the prior adventures to reward players who took time to connect to people. There is a degree of "But Thou Must" in places for the solution, with alternate solutions to slugging it out requiring some fairly absurd levels of success. But overall, it's good, and it's an adventure path that is bound to leave the players feeling extremely important. One minor niggle I have is that the module makes a deal about how the heroes can finally communicate with Eldrich's departed spirit... and then it basically says that he has the same information as the Voodoo shop owners, etc. I was kind of expecting some payoff for that. I guess it does mean that the GM has to decide what happened to Eldritch and/or how aware he was of it.

Slight side note, this last entry is built for PL 11 heroes. Might have been nice for the Wrap-Up of the prior part to note that... I could see a GM starting up the next segment, and then losing a good chunk to all of a night of people deciding how they want to go to PL 11. I mean, it's not hard to adjust PL on the fly, but it's an additional mental burden.
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

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I would suggest if the heroes successfully summon forth Adrian Eldritch's spirit, they should effectively have the Favored Enemy advantage when squaring off against the Big Bad of the following scene in the adventure, due to the insights gleaned. Alternately, award them one extra HP/2-3 heroes present on the team, as a pool to be used as necessary in the scenario.
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Re: New Green Ronin adventure paths Starting with NetherWars

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In my case, my plan (as I have announced it to the players) is to effectively double their PP awards, but hold half of that "in escrow" until I actually decide to advance them to PL11. This sort of kills two birds with one stone (both handling the PL jump in the last adventure, plus the fact that unless the players have been saving PP, when they advance to PL11 they will be a ways off meeting their theoretical limits of their power ranks for their new PL). I could add some side adventures or extend the individual adventures, but the Saturdays we play are conceived as an "indie game day" event with a variety of games, and there are other games I want to play soon, so I don't intend to draw the campaign out.

I just finished running The Penetagram Peril, a bit earlier than planned. I let them tackle the "bloodstone quests" in any order. They did Subterra first, then Antartica. While in Antartica, they took down Sylph somewhat quickly, and the group's mystic used a "ghost hands" move object power to snatch the bloodstone as Sylph was as a last ditch effort tossing it into a GM fiat created portal that Hellqueen had opened. The players decided to study what they had seen through the portal to guess where Hellqueen was hanging out, and I decided to let them. Between Catalyst's scientific knowledge of volcanic sites and Hal Walsh's (the mystic's) expertise in magic, they deduced where she was.

The upshot of this is that they bypassed the Dakana scene and jumped straight to the final scene. The downside for them is I assumed Professor Fathom succeeded in grabbing the Bloodstone from Dakana, and the PCs arrived at the Maw just in time to see Fathom deliver the Bloodstone to Hellqueen.

The final battle was interesting. Hal Walsh (the mystic) decided to start demoralizing Hellqueen, and I decided to allow this to sort of play too her power loss weakness. Between Hal Walsh and Catalyst (and a bunch or hero points), they were able to beat down the Hellqueen personality and allow the Gwen Nugent personality take over, effectively ending the combat after she had only sacrificed on Bloodstone and Fathom's elemetnal stone.
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