Building Bhakashal – Randomization

I built Bhakashal on a foundation of random rolling. This isn’t a particularly controversial idea, but the scope of the randomization is perhaps something that people might not be familiar with. There are several sources of randomization.

1. Tables

There are tables for spells, magic items, encounter tables, personality types, gods, mounts, weather conditions and many other aspects of the game.

One of the primary goals of this randomization was to allow the referee and players, in tandem, to procedurally generate the game world as they play, rather than detailing every aspect of the game world in advance. The latter is simply impossible, and even the more restricted guideline of detailing only what the referee thinks will be needed, is still fundamentally challenging. One of the truisms of role-playing games is that the players will go to places and do things you didn’t anticipate.

My original reason for using procedural generation was the sheer size of Bhakashal as a city, I looked at the closest equivalent fantasy city in size (The City State of the Invincible Overlord) and the sheer number of entries was formidable. Either you would have a hopelessly large descriptive section (which would be unwieldy) or you would pare down the details to the point that the referee was generating a significant amount of material in play, which defeats the purpose of providing such a descriptive section in the first place.

As I progressed it became clear that procedural generation using tables was the core mechanic for creating the setting. Rather than pre-generating the content, I created weighted tables that allowed on the spot generation of many aspects of the game world.

Note that weighted tables are key here,  e.g., the odds for each option on the table are not equal, they are weighted to reflect their commonality in the game world. Thus, this isn’t complete randomization, it’s randomization within a set of options that are determined by the nature of the game world.

In addition to allowing the referee to present a large game setting without getting overwhelmed by the details, it also gives the game some variety at each individual table. For example, spell casters with spell selections determined by random generation are tactically opaque, e.g., you are unable to predict what spells you enemy casters will have, as spells are randomly determined.

This has a myriad of benefits for game play.

Another benefit of randomized tables is the possibility of solo play. All aspects of character generation, encounter creation, faction interplay, every aspect of the game is driven by weighted random tables, so it is possible to play solo without a referee if desired.

The last benefit to this randomization is spontaneity, not only are the players surprised by what happens, but so too can the referee be surprised by what happens. When running games, it is very easy to fall into patterns that become predictable and unappealing for you and your players. Randomization keeps things fresh.

2. In-Play Randomization

There are two kinds of randomization in-play of interest here, encounter reaction rolls, and general odds rolls for actions. Both require active interpretation of prompts by the referee.

NPC Encounter Reaction Rolls - Bhakashal expands upon the traditional role of the encounter reaction mechanic by extending it to all encounters in the game world, not just those between parties in “parley”. Encounter reaction rolls are a mechanism for resolving NPC and monster actions that allow the referee to use weighted randomization to choose rather than choosing responses themselves.

Bargaining with the merchant for a new sword? Encounter reaction rolls indicate if the merchant will be giving you a hard time. Ask the caravan master to detour the caravan to allow the party to investigate a ruin? Encounter reaction rolls determine if you are left to your own devices.

As a general rule, an encounter reaction roll is made whenever a NPC has to make a decision, there is a conversation going back and forth, and when the conversation leads to the NPC having to decide about something, the roll is made.

Any given conversation will have a roll made, then the conversation takes a new direction based  on the roll, and later in the conversation another roll will be made, until the conversation ends through actions on the part of the participants.

The chief advantage to this system is that the referee is called upon to interpret the result in question, and in doing so will end up filling out some aspect of the game world. My favorite example of this happened when a group of PCs where purchasing mounts, when the reaction roll came from the merchant it was very positive, so he gave them a terrific deal.

However, as a referee I have to interpret that result, why would a merchant give this random group of PCs a good deal? I decided on the spot the merchant had been robbed recently, so he had to move stock in order to make the gold necessary to pay off his debtors and suppliers.

The party asked why they were being given such a deal, the merchant shared the information, and they decided to help the guy out. And that became their first adventure.

In a more “traditional” game the purchasing of mounts could be resolved by email between sessions, or it would be a matter of the referee looking up the price and telling the PC, or perhaps adjusting based on the setting economics. But it would be a passive, simple roll or determination. In Bhakashal, there is an encounter, and an encounter reaction roll shapes the response of NPCs to PC actions. Introducing encounter reaction rolls to our game fundamentally changed the way we played, as it meant that:

a)        predicting outcomes became harder

b)       there was no default  to combat in regular NPC encounters

These things meant that the PCs gathered more information, formed more alliances, and generally looked at NPC interaction differently.

 

Monster and Animal Encounter Reaction Rolls – Bhakashal also has encounter reaction rolls for monsters. These are based on the premise that monsters and animals will not automatically attack everything they encounter. Monsters and animals are not stupid, they don’t attack large groups unless the have the numbers, they don’t eat everything they encounter, etc. Bhakashal uses a weighted table to determine how animals/monsters react to threats, the weighting does make them tend towards hostility, but it leaves open the possibility of peaceful interaction, or just fleeing the scene, so every encounter isn’t guaranteed to end in violence.

General Odds Rolls for Actions

NPCs have to make decisions all of the time, and there are times when those actions are not immediately spurred on by player actions. So for example, a PC thief is watching a potential mark who is in their home. The home has a strongbox, and the thief is waiting for the mark to move out of the room where the strongbox is located so they can enter and try to steal it’s contents.

How long does the thief have to wait?

This may seem like a trivial decision, but there are profound game play and fairness implications to these sorts of decisions. If you decide that the NPC mark stays put a long time, the odds of the PC being discovered increase. If you make them move sooner, the PC has better odds. Referees make decisions like this all the time, and depending  on how you rule, they can have a strong impact on the game play for the PCs. A referee who routinely makes the mark stay put a long time makes casing and stealing from marks much more challenging, the ref that moves things along fast makes it much easier.

Essentially, any of these decisions impact play outside of the application of the rules, if you make these decisions by fiat, there is room for bias, or at the very least predictability on the referees part. If you randomize these decisions, then there is less room for bias, and greater unpredictability.

Gygax suggests randomizing aspects of play not directly covered by the rules, and Bhakashal embraces this idea enthusiastically. This sort of randomization is also a fecund source for creating the lore and environment of the game world.

Take another example, the PCs were travelling with a caravan, and the caravan came to a section of the route that had rough terrain that would make them vulnerable to attack while passing through. However, the most expedient route around this terrain would delay them by an extra 2 days, the least expedient route would delay by 3 days. What does the caravan do?

This is important as bandits monitor the rough terrain for travellers they can waylay, and the odds of encountering someone (friend or foe) on short detour are greatest. So, there are advantages and disadvantages to both options. At this point I would randomize the choices available:

1 – Take a much longer detour (safest, longest time)

2-3 – Continue through the rough area (most dangerous, fastest)

4-6 – Take shorter detour around the rough area (second most dangerous, second fastest)

 

The idea here is that the caravan master will want to minimize delays but maximize safety, arriving late is a big problem, arriving without your goods is a bigger problem, so this is reflected in the weighting of the odds, where the third option is the most likely.

Importantly, I narrate these choices to the party before rolling in the open for the results. This gives them the opportunity to suggest other options I may not have considered. For example, say one of the PCs suggests using an illusion to deceive any potential bandits. That is something that the caravan master would not have come up with, so it can be added to the list when suggested.

 

Once the roll is made, the referee has to interpret the result. So, say we rolled that the caravan master has decided to push through the rough, dangerous area, the referee would have to explain that decision if the PCs confronted the caravan master. That means the referee will have to pull on the threads of the game world to determine why this decision was made. Explaining the results of rolls is almost as much fun as making them. It can be an opportunity for role-play (the caravan master has something to prove to his boss), or an opportunity to drop adventure hooks (the caravan master is becoming reckless as he has debt collectors on his tail and delays let them catch up).

 

I have adopted this process for all of these sorts of decisions in the game, and it has led to some of the most interesting gaming experiences. I find that one of the biggest challenges of being a referee is making an almost endless stream of decisions about the game that aren’t really outlined in the rules. For years I just picked based on instinct, or went with a default decision to save time and effort. That sort of thing gets dull and predictable really fast, and in doing so breaks immersion in an important way. The game world feels less real if you can call what is going to happen all the time.

 

Randomization of these in game interstices, the spaces that are not explicitly part of the rules but a significant part of game play, makes the game far more fun, unpredictable and gives it a kind of depth that is hard to emulate.

 

It also lessens the possibility of the referee being biased against the PCs one way or the other. You have all no doubt played with the referee who always ends up making these sorts of decisions in a way that is harmful to the PCs.

PC - “Are there any ships in the harbor sailing to Monmurg?”

REF  – “No, not today”

PC – “Does the merchant have any young, fast horses in their inventory?”

REF – “I’m afraid not”

PC – “Are there enough branches lying around to start a fire?”

REF– “No, there are not”

Alternately, there is the magical referee, who always seems to answer “yes” to these sorts of questions.

Either referee is doing a disservice to the group, and in many cases may not even be aware of it. And these sorts of decisions make a significant difference to the game play experience. A referee who is constantly ruling against the PCs in these cases creates a game world where the PCs are at a constant disadvantage, luck, skill and planning aside.

Randomization of this kind is not for every referee. You need to be able to list out and assign odds to a small number of options at a moment’s notice. Thing is, I find that many people do this anyway when they are trying to make a decision about what an NPC is about to do.

Bhakashal explodes this process for all to see, then randomizes the results to make it exciting and unpredictable. And even more than all of that, it makes the process fair. By opening it up to the players, and rolling in the open, the players and the referee can see that there is no bias in the result. Any bias that there is can be found in the generation of the list of options, and as the players are given an opportunity to become involved in the process, the bias is at the very least acceptable to all at the table, which is all you can really ask for.

I think that the big advantage for me as a referee is that I find coming up with options and assigning odds to be easy and making choices to be hard. That difficulty is, in part, due to the fact that after decades of running games I became aware how much these sorts of decisions accumulate to shape the direction of play. I don’t want to have that sort of influence at the table, I want to shape the overall options to fit the game world and environment, but I don’t want to determine them completely, as it gives me outsized influence in what happens at the table.

Randomization minimizes this area of referee influence, and makes the game far more independent and immersive. Both the players and the referee get the sense that the game world is independent of them, and thus both more “real” and fairer.  This latter point has been one that my players have told me is important to them. They know I’m not “stacking the deck” and making things either easier or harder on the PCs. Instead, by using weighted tables and weighted odds distribution, the dice combined with the environment determine how hard things will be. The players find this combination to be particularly satisfying, they know when they overcome challenges that they were not coddled or punished, but instead they rose to a challenge and bested it, fair and square.

Building Bhakashal – Improvisation and Down Time

This Wednesday’s session was an awesome example of a whole host of interesting aspects about game play in Bhakashal, and a great opportunity to discuss “down time” activities, and hand waving, as the party had just completed an adventure and were transitioning to a new goal.

Let’s dive in.

My Wednesday group has just finished an adventure in the desert. They found the “Forgotten City”, and while they were there they opened up a hell gate. They negotiated with a pit fiend, releasing it in exchange for loot. However, the fiend betrayed them and fled to a desert city where a warlock resided, looking for revenge. The warlock showed up with the fiend in pursuit, a battle happened (where the PCs ditched the warlock and let him fight the fiend on his own) and the warlock left.

The party had travelled to the desert by accompanying a caravan. That caravan went on without them when they travelled the last distance to the Forgotten City. They knew where the caravan would be over the next week or two and knew that it would be in the desert city of Esham for several days so they could meet it there and head back to Bhakashal with them.

Travel is never hand waved in Bhakashal, they had a 5-day window to get to Esham and meet the caravan, if they missed the window, they missed the caravan, that’s how time matters in Bhakashal.

They travelled for 3 days to get to Esham, including encounters with giant scorpions and another caravan.

A few words about the “jewel of the desert”, Esham.

When I have to generate something as large as a city, I draw on the ample resources available to me as a Bhakashal referee, as Bhakashal is compatible with most old school source material. I found an old issue of Dragon that had an adventure, “Barnacus, city in peril”. I filed off the name, reskinned the city to fit a desert environment, and used that, rather than generating something from scratch.

That meant I:

1.      ---  Replaced all the elves and dwarves with equivalent Bhakashal groups

2.      --- Changed the mounts from horses to giant lizards

3.      --- I customized the random encounter tables: I rolled and determined that the powerful warlock (Haegemal the Heliotrope) who was attacked by the pit fiend in the previous sessions resided in Esham and might end up discovering the party and “having a word”, and I included an option for the PCs to meet the adventuring party they had met in the desert (who had retreated to Esham a few days before the party when they parted ways).

4.     ---  I factionalized the city, for example, I decided that the thieves guild in Esham ruled over a number of gangs, each gang competed for status and power within the guild, essentially the guild played them off against each other, taking a cut from everyone.

5.       --- I planted a few potential adventure seeds that the party might entirely ignore or pick up, for example, I decided that the city stayed closed for the night from midnight to dawn as they had an undead problem (a vampire with a group of jackalweres had been about in the area, the city leaders had sealed off the city at night to keep them out but weren’t telling the citizens to avoid panic).

There was one problem though, Barnacus is a city on a plain with a river going by, how was I to reconcile that? I could have heavily edited the map to clean things up, but that was a lot of work, and I was pressed for time.

One of the things I have come to realize about refereeing is that my job is to INTERPRET the prompts I am given. Since this city had a body of water, I had to interpret that in some way. I decided that the city was ruled by a bit of a megalomaniac and was within about 3 miles of the desert border, so they built a canal from the hills to the city, fed by water from the mountains. Haegemal bound a powerful water elemental to the canal to ensure that water would flow freely from the icy mountain heights to the canal every year.

This immediately created a host of implications, since desert dwellers want water, the canal would have to be monitored regularly with patrols otherwise everyone would be trying to get water to use for irrigation and other things and would dry it up or destroy it. Taking drinking water would be fine, and indeed, Esham’s ruler became immediately popular after allowing this to happen, giving parched, weary travellers a source of refreshment. However, anything else would be a problem, and the canal would have to be policed, drawing away troops and resources and creating dissent amongst the city’s population, who grew to see it as a profligate waste of resources.

One map feature had suddenly given my desert city a unique feature that had factional implications.

Now, since this was a brief stop before leaving on the caravan, we could have resolved everything with a few quick die rolls and a “two days pass and now you leave”.

But that’s not how we do it in Bhakashal, instead, we play it out.

The party arrived in Esham at about 2 am. They were blocked from entering until dawn, but not told why. This plants a seed of interest in the group as to what the problem is, but they aren’t willing to push it, and wait until dawn to enter. They pay the entry tax, tipping the guard who lets them in, and in exchange they are given a recommendation to stay at a particular inn.

They find a stable to take care of their mounts and get rooms at the inn. These interactions are simple and quick, governed by encounter reaction rolls with various modifiers based on them being outsiders, etc. Most of these interactions go fairly quickly, and unless the PCs want to try to get information from the NPC, or haggle a deal, they take up little time. Sometimes a conversation will prove fruitful and last longer, sometimes it will lead to more.

One of them asks around and finds the caravaner’s guild (a feature in my game world, every city has guilds and a guild dedicated to caravans) and through them locates the caravan they are joining to return to Bhakashal. The caravan master, Craight the Swift, is pleased to see them again (fearing they would  have died in the Forgotten City, or been gone too long to rejoin them) and they share details of their adventure. Craight has both saved and been saved by the PCs, so he is well liked, and the RP was a lot of fun. That took about 5 minutes.

Now that they have secured their spot on the caravan home, they have 2 days to kill before their caravan leaves, what are they to do for those 2 days? I asked the players and they decided on a few things:

1.        Several of them wanted to gamble, they were laden with gold from their adventures, and in real life the lads had been playing poker a lot, so they wanted to find a gambling house and play some poker.

2.        One of them wanted to go to the market and by an expensive, high quality “executioners hood” cloak

With all the talk of 1:1 time games downtime has become a bit of a buzz topic on Twitter. Bhakashal doesn’t run on 1:1 time, for a number of reasons. My players are not interested in making sure they exit the “dungeon” by sessions end, switching back and forth between groups when one group is in time jail, and since travel is ubiquitous in Bhakashal, the presence of “safe spaces” to retreat to isn’t always a given.

Having said that, Bhakashal is premised on the idea that time matters, and that you don’t hand wave the time required to do most tasks, instead, you play through them.

These are perfect examples, gambling with your newfound gold and buying things (e.g., “going shopping”) are standard examples of the kind of thing that many 1:1 time games relegate to back and forth email exchanges to “speed things up”.

That’s not how we roll!

The party split and we dealt with both groups separately.

First the gamblers. Three of the party members when to a gambling house, the first one they picked was the high-end place, so they wouldn’t look out of place dropping big bets.

They immediately sat down at a table when several of the players there left. I created two NPCs on the spot, a Chitin (insect folk) Mercenary named Mulk “the Cobra” Yigil, and a Saan (lizard-folk) Thaumaturge (Bhakashal Thief/Magic-user) named “Diamond” Drigart. One of the key things to remember when running sandbox games is that you don’t need to fully stat NPCs on the spot, you certainly can, or you can draw on a pregen that you have already made, but you can also just pick a race, name and class and only detail further as you need. For flair I gave the Mercenary a pet puma that sat at his feet named Grim.

Now, if this was a downtime activity in some games the referee would have say rolled dice and resolved the activity quickly, saying, “you play poker for a few hours with the locals and manage to come away ahead, with an extra 30 gp in your pocket”, or something like that.

No thanks.

We played a few rounds of poker, using dice to indicate bets (e.g., when you bet 5 gp, you place a die with a “5” up in the pot). I love running “games within games” like this, as it gives me an opportunity to run NPCs that are sources of information about the game world. We played 4 hands of poker (PCs won 2 hands, NPCs the other two), with the party betting high as they were flush. The players LOVE gambling, and love having the dosh to play big.

The great thing about NPCs is that the party doesn’t have any idea of their LEVEL, so they treat them with some respect, their pronouncements take on a sinister edge, and they do lots of speculating that I can draw on if I’m stuck. Through conversation while gambling the PCs found out about the public distaste for the costs of maintaining the canal (“A canal in the desert, they are MAD”) and that the “no admission at night” rule was linked to religious extremists who were pressuring the governor to adhere to their beliefs (not true). Unfortunately, they stopped playing before they found out that Haegemal lived in the city.

I made a note on the random encounter table to increase their pick pocketing odds after they left the gambling house, as there were thieves afoot who looked for recently arrived adventurers throwing around gold in gambling houses. This all took about 20 min.

Halfway through the game we switched over to the PC who was going to buy a cloak. This particular PC was a mercenary, the party big boi, he has the most HP and does the most melee damage in combat, with his favorite weapon, a big bardiche. He went to the market and looked around to find a tent where they were selling find quality clothing. It was early evening and quite busy (evening is cooler so it brings out many more people), and the market was filled with locals, visitors… and thieves!

I rolled to determine how long it would take the PC to find a tent selling what he wanted and got two turns. Each turn I rolled to see if the PC was pick-pocketed. In the second turn it came up positive. I rolled to see if it was successful and if it was noticed, it was successful and unnoticed!

The PC went into the tent to look at cloaks. There was some discussion with the vendor (an old, blind Chitin named Hijim who shared his shop with a pair of oversized pet spiders to dissuade shoplifting!) The player loved that he was almost blind and they had a great conversation, eventually they decided on a price. The PC reached into their pouch and found the bottom had been cut out and there were no coins left!

Since the theft had occurred outside of the shop, the thief was long gone. Interestingly, the PC lost about 50gp, not a trivial sum for most, but for an adventurer who had just come back with thousands of GP of loot, it was inconsequential.

However, they were pissed about being stolen from, so they wanted blood!

I rolled a reaction roll for the shopkeeper when he found out that the player had been robbed. The result was strongly positive. My job as a ref is to interpret that. Perhaps he was worried that a report that someone was pick-pocketed outside of his tent would get around and push away customers, perhaps he had been robbed before and was still angry, perhaps he was worried that regular thefts near his tent would make the city watch suspicious he was in cahoots.

The shopkeeper told the PC, “The pick pockets in the market don’t keep your coins on them, in case the city watch collar them and find their ill-gotten gains, they usually go down to the docks and give their loot to their handlers and return to the market.”

With that, he was off to the docks.

When he arrived, he found a group of 8 on the dock, four were emberi (human) thieves that worked the market, four were chitin enforcers (3^rd and 4^th level fighters) and one was the group leader (an ogre). The PC walked up and demanded that they return his money.

At that point I made a reaction roll, and it came up slightly positive, so the leader told two of his enforcers to “get rid of this guy”, thinking to scare him off, and not wanting to bring down the city watch on them for slaying visitors unnecessarily.

Two 4^th level Chitin fighters surrounded the PC, a 7^th level fighter. The PC gets 3 attacks every 2 rounds, and does decent damage with the bardiche. The chitin drew four short swords each, allowing them 4 attacks per round with penalties to the “off hands”

The chitin with the better bonuses faced front, the other chitin stayed on the PCs flank and back, negating DEX and shield bonuses to AC, and giving to hit bonuses when attacking from the rear. The fighter gets an AC bonus using  the longest weapon (the bardiche is longer)

Initiative was rolled, I rolled terribly (a 6 for each chitin, the worst possible result) and the PC rolled well (a 1, the best possible result), and even with weapon speeds added, the PC attacked first. He swung and missed with a roll of 2. For his second attack he rolled a hit.

In Bhakashal when you hit the enemy for the first time you roll their HP on the spot. The PCs then realized this guy was 4^th level, and they got cocky. I reminded them that a 4^th level fighter is nothing to sneeze at, and two are definitely a threat. They weren’t worried.

The bardiche strike did enough damage to reduce the Chitin to just above half their full HP in one swing! Then it was their turn. 8 attacks in total, two hit, and two more were critical hits. Since any hit in Bhakashal can be a critical hit, any hit can turn the tide

The damage done wasn’t significant, d6 per short sword with bonuses of +1 to damage for one and +3 to damage for the other. I roll for criticals, in this case there was an extra attack and a double damage. The extra attack was a regular hit, so in total that was three hits, one for double damage.

Not nearly enough to down our tank, but it did drop him to about 2/3 of hit total HP in one attack, it got his attention, and I could see the wheels turning. We rolled again for initiative, this time he lost. Initiative can chain like this, due to the dice you get two attack routines in a row. The chitin got 8 more attacks, this time 3 hit and 2 were criticals.

I rolled for the three regular hits, and then for the criticals, this time I got temporary blinding and knock back. The knock back felled the PC to the ground, costing their next action, and their eyes were blinded by blood. I rolled up the damage from the criticals and added it, the PC was now down below 1/3 of their total HP, and the next attack belonged to the chitin.

You could see it on his face, the player realized that the two combatants surrounding him gave them bonuses, and that 8 attacks per round was more than enough to ensure that at least some of them hit, and some of them would be criticals. And criticals can shift the tide.

At this point I rolled an encounter reaction roll for the leader of the gang, and he decided to call off his men and tell the PC to scram, he didn’t want to deal with the city watch tonight. The PC was suitably bloodied and beaten, cut in multiple places and blinded by blood, sitting on his ass in the dirt.

“If anyone asks, Nulgam Nix’s crew, Baya and Gurst gave you a thrashing, you blooded Gurst, next time he sees you he has my permission to cut off your arm.”

The PC fled, found the party, and promptly reported the thievery and assault to the city watch.

Now we have an enmity, and a potential encounter to add to the random encounter list, the PCs running into Nulgam’s crew, and if the run into Gurst, it could get ugly.

That’s where we stopped.

Sessions like these are the reason why I hand wave virtually nothing in the game. Yes, some encounters can be brief and involve little RP, you don’t HAVE to interact more than the bare minimum, and depending on the rolls many of these encounters will be largely uneventful. But all contain the potential for something more. Some of our best gaming experiences have happened due to a random roll at the merchant’s tent, or while gambling with the crew of the ship.

They also have the benefit of making the game world seem more real, just like 1:1 time makes the game world seem real, playing through activities like this and interacting with NPCs in the process also make the game world feel more real. It provides opportunities to learn more about the game world and the immediate environment, factions, etc., and shows the players that nothing is given to them, they have to go out and get it.

Adventure awaits!

 

 

 

 

Building Bhakashal – High Level NPCs

Our session this week involved a high-level NPC, something they don’t come across that often.

My Wednesday group opened a hellgate in the Forgotten City, they bargained with a pit fiend, Baeral, releasing him on the condition he would lead them to great treasure. Baeral betrayed them and fled to a nearby desert city to gain revenge on a warlock, Haegemal the Heliotrope.  

The party eventually decided to leave the city after looting it. I rolled to see what happened between the Baeral and Haegemal. It ends up that the fiend attacked, the warlock fled, and used divination magic to determine what happened. He then decided to find the party and convince them to help him return the fiend to the pit. He flew across the desert, Baeral in pursuit, on an Opinicus. He asked the party for help, and they agreed. They went to the hellgate to await the pit fiend.

Now, a brief word of context. Haegemal the Heliotrope is a Technal Magus Warlock from House Ghan in Bhakashal. High level Bhakashal Warlocks are very powerful, Haegemal had captured the pit fiend and used it in rituals for months before it broke free. It was thirsty for revenge. Haegemal, as a representative of powerful Bhakashal warlocks, had to be a big deal. As an NPC he was modeling what was possible, and he was of a level to be a patron as well.

He had to have the flash.

I rolled him up according to the rules for NPC creation.

A few things to note. First, he has a broadsword, Bissandrith’s Sword of Cleaving, the sword only has a +1 bonus, but can hit any target, even those normally restricted to weapons of higher “+”, or whatever other restriction.

Warlocks with swords are PURE BHAKASHAL.

Next, his major magic item is Konkarrin’s Iron Sentinel. Konkarrin the Cyan is the Magus Warlock of House Viinos (18th level). The Iron Sentinel transforms you into enchanted iron and gives you low AC and a bunch of HP.

However, you can’t cast spells while using it.

The party was gathered, and Baeral appeared in the sky to the East, death in his eyes. Haegemal took out a scroll and cast Globe of Invulnerability on himself while the beast approached. Baeral positioned himself about 300 feet in the air above them. Then the Pit Fiend spoke, his voice like damnation and fire, “Haegemal the Heliotrope, your soul shall be mine to play with.” Haegemal snarled back, “Come collect your toll fiend, I shall pay you dearly.”

I rolled to see how the fiend would attack, and I ended up with teleport. Pit Fiends can at will teleport no error, the fiend had been to that location before, so he can teleport there at will. I decided that when the fiend appeared after teleporting amongst the party members we would roll for surprise, if it won, it got the drop on the party and could have one free attack. This is one of those make it or break it situations, the dice could end things with one roll, as the fiend in proximity to the party would be carnage. If the party won surprise, the fiend appeared amongst them, and the party attacks it first. We rolled, the party won surprise, Haegemal and the party had a chance to act.

However, Fiends also  “shed Fear in a 20’ radius”. So, even though the party won surprise when the devil teleported, the Fear effect is in play automatically as soon as he was in proximity, so all had to make a save.

Two of the 7 party members failed, and left in terror, running as fast as they could. Then… the rest of the party took off too! I’m not sure if it was the way I role played the fiend, or the fact that a fully loaded Bhakashal Magus Warlock had shown up, but they decided this was out of their weight class and booked it.

Abandoned, Haegemal had to act.

As a referee, I know what is going to happen, but Haegemal doesn’t, he has no idea what ability the fiend was going to use, from gating in another fiend to wall of fire to psionics. In that situation I roll between all his options, to be fair. Haegemal decided to use the Iron Sentinel. As a referee I will then interpret the dice. Haegemal had gambled that the fiend, due to his sheer hatred, would want to get up close and personal to destroy him, so he opted for defense.

Another issue here is that the party has all fled, so they have nothing to do. That’s not on. So, I handed Haegemal’s sheet over to the party, they were told to each take turns directing his actions, and I ran Baeral.

Game on!

Haegemal was covered by the Globe of Invulnerability and was made of enchanted iron. Bissandrith’s Sword of Cleaving was drawn. His surprise action done; he decided to charge and on charge longest weapon strikes first, so Haegemal charged and swung at Baeral with the Sword of Cleaving.

Haegemal gets +6 to hit with the sword (this includes level-based, proficiency, strength, and magic bonuses), and +3 for the WvsAC adjustment against no armor for a total fixed bonus of +9. Also, charging gives you +2 to hit, so +11.

A pit fiend has an AC of -3, in Bhakashal you add the AC to the to hit roll, so in this case you deduct 3 points. So, the total modifier to hit for Haegemal is +8. To hit for full damage, Haegemal needs to roll a 20-24 with bonuses, to crit requires 25+ with bonuses. So, he hits on 12-16 and crits on a 17+, the player rolling for Haegemal rolled a 14, and since he was charging the damage is doubled. Haegemal normally gets a +1 damage bonus from STR, this increased to +4 with the Iron Sentinel, so I add +3 to the damage bonus for the weapon for a total of +6.

In Bhakashal when damage is doubled you roll the base dice damage, double that, and add bonuses. The next player up rolled the damage, he rolled 6 hp of damage, doubled to 12, and added the +6  damage bonus for 18 total. In Bhakashal when you damage a creature for the first time you roll their hp. A pit fiend is 13 HD, so I scooped up 13 d8 and rolled them, and it had 72 hp, less the 18 done by the sword, for 54 hp left.

“Haegemal swings a wide arc across the fiend’s chest, leaving behind a bloody gash, wide as the blade, spewing foul ichor”

The fiend hissed, “scratches warlock, I feel nothing!”, I rolled for his action, and he retaliated by casting a Hold Person, hoping to neutralize Haegemal instantly. However, the Globe of Invulnerability abjured the spell.

The fiend regenerated 2 hp, back to 56.

Initiative was rolled again and Baeral won, just barely. I rolled for a choice of attack, as Haegemal was made of iron the fiend might not go for a direct physical attack. But I rolled and he did just that. Two attacks, unfortunately I rolled terribly, a 2 and a 5, so both attacks missed. “The fiend clutched at the warlock with his deadly claws, but he ducked beneath its massive arms, fast as a mongoose”.

Then the players had Haegemal curse the fiend out.

Haegemal was up, and the next player rolled a 19 for a critical hit! The player chose extra attack, the next player rolled a 17 and got another critical hit, they were screaming at this point, egging the player to choose extra hit and get a crit chain. The player went for it, and the next player rolled… an 18, to DEAFENING SCREAMS and chants of “CRIT CHAIN! CRIT CHAIN!” For the third crit the player asked for double damage. There was much heated disagreement about this, “CRIT CHAIN, CRIT CHAIN” was chanted again.

Players always want to press their luck.

But the player was resolved and chose double damage. The first attack did 3 + 6 = 9 damage, the second did 4 + 6 for 10, and the last rolled 5 x 2 = 10 +6  for 16, the three attacks together did 35 hp damage! The fiend had 21 hp left.

“Haegemal, crouched under the fiend’s arms, thrust his sword into it’s guts, pulled it back out and pivoted around, slicing an arc into the devil’s side as it’s momentum took it forward, the warlock completed the arc of the swing and brought the blade around to cut open the fiend’s back, as it howled in pure rage.”

Baeral regenerated 2 hp, up to 23.

Initiative was rolled and Baeral won. Now the fiend was desperate, I rolled, and it decided to Gate in another pit fiend. Unfortunately for me, I rolled too high, and the Gate failed.

Haegemal wasted no time and swung at the beast again, this time he missed.

Baeral regenerated 2 hp, up to 25.

Initiative was rolled again, and Baeral won. The fiend attacked twice and hit twice, the first time was a regular damage hit, the second was a critical. I rolled for critical effect and got double damage. The fiend rolled 7 hp damage from the first hit, 10 doubled to 20 for the second, for a total of 27 hp damage to the warlock. Fortunately, in transformed state, the Warlock has 100 hp, so he was down to 73 hp.

The fiend hissed, “your skin is not invulnerable, I will eviscerate you!”

Haegemal attacked and missed.

Baeral regenerated 2 hp, up to 27.

Initiative was rolled, this time the player rolled a 1 and Haegemal won. There was much shouting and banging of the table. They wanted to finish him off.

The devil pounced on the warlock while he swung his blade. The player rolled a 17 on the nose, another critical, and opted for another attack. This attack, however, only hit for half damage.

The first attack did 12 hp damage, the second did 8 /2 = 4, for a total of 16, and 11 hp remaining.

Baeral struck twice on landing, the first was a miss, but the second was a critical. I rolled for effect and it was a knock back, sending the warlock sprawling. He also did 10 HP of damage, lowering Haegemal to 63 hp.

“Baeral leapt forward, hoping to crush Haegemal beneath his bulk, but the warlock struck first, drawing his sword along the belly of the foul beast, and eliciting a howl of agony. The devil landed and lashed out, his huge fist sending his foe back through the air and to the ground.”

Baeral regenerated 2 hp, up to 13hp.

Initiative again, Baeral won, and I rolled to see what he would do, knowing that he was on his last legs there were options for fleeing or even attempting to return hell through the gate. Instead, he cast a Symbol of pain on the Magus Warlock.

One of the players rolled his save and was successful.

“The devil stared at the warlock while tracing out a glowing symbol in the air, the warlock stood his ground, pushing back against the magic, and the symbol wavered and dimmed”

Now it was Haegemal’s turn. He took out his Dust of Disappearance and faded from view. The devil howled in white hot rage.

“Coward, FACE ME!”

Baeral regenerated 2 hp, to 15.

Haegemal charged the devil, hoping it would think that he had fled and not prepare for the attack on charge longest weapon strikes first, and Haegemal struck out a mighty blow. One player rolled a 16 for the warlock, enough for a hit, but not a critical. Damage is doubled on charge, another player rolled 7 HP damage, doubled to 14, added 6 for the damage bonus for a total of 20 hp.

“The devil was swaying, ichor flowing freely from multiple stab and slash wounds delivered by the Technal Magus Warlock of House Ghan, as it stood seeking out his enemy, his head separated from his shoulders, flying through the air and landing, face first, in the dirt.”

And the table lost their minds, screaming, jumping up and down, dice all over the place.

At this point they weren’t even interested in what happened to their PCs, they were basking in a victory over a powerful pit fiend and talking about asking Haegemal to be their new patron! I suspect the Heliotrope wouldn’t be interested, given that the party had fled as soon as the pit fiend showed up.

I rolled to see if Haegemal was going to go after the party or not, given their betrayal, but the powerful warlock decided to leave, and I will have him meet the party at a later date, perhaps he will show up the next time they meet their actual patron, to have a few choice words, LOL.

Epic session, the players LOVED IT, and they got to see what a powerful Bhakashal warlock can do. High level spells and powerful magic items make Bhakashal warlocks badass and dangerous to know. Also, it showed that even if the players are not directly involved in the action, you can bring them into it by handing over dice rolls and even NPCs to them to operate.

They were talking about the fight on the way out the door, and they will be talking about it at school this week with their friends. The epic tale of how Haegemal the Heliotrope destroyed the pit fiend Baeral will be told again and again.

That’s the stuff!

Building Bhakashal - Trust the Process

In a sandbox style game, the referee leaves things open and the PCs actions drive the play. This concept is hard to explain to someone who is used to running a narrative focused game where the DM constantly tweaks things to keep the game going in the “right direction”.

I have no idea what the “right direction” is for the game.

So how do you adapt to this? When I am asked what the role of the referee is in Bhakashal, I tell people it is to interpret prompts, whether these be character actions, random encounter rolls, encounter reaction rolls, etc, etc. The beauty of this is that I don’t know what’s going to happen until the game starts, I have no expectations.

I think many DMs do not work this way.

This week’s session had an interesting moment that shows how this works at the table.

The PCs are trying to find the Forgotten City, located somewhere in the Sea of Dust, a gigantic desert. However, they don’t have a location for the city, they just know its out there in the desert somewhere.

Here’s the key part: I had no idea when we started how they were going to find it, and neither did they. It’s not my job to make this happen for them, they have to create opportunities. It takes a lot of faith to do this, there is a strong pressure on the referee just to tell the PCs what they need.

I have learned over the years to trust that things will either work out (they will find the Forgotten City), or they will pivot. There is no “fail state” here, in a fully sandbox game, you either find what your are looking for or start looking for something else. It doesn’t matter if I don’t know how they will figure out where the Forgotten City is, we just play and find out.

I know this would drive some ref’s nuts, “but what if they can’t find the city”.

But what indeed.

They have been travelling through the mountains to get to the desert. It has been a long journey, 5 days across the ocean, then 2 days to the mountains, and 6 days through the mountains to get us to the beginning of today’s session.

The last thing that happened in the last session was that a group of NPCs robbed the caravan warlock, Mahl Unoss the Puissant. Unbeknownst to the party, Unoss was taking a powerful crystal ball with ESP to another warlock to exchange it for another powerful item. Two NPCs created a distraction and snuck up on the caravan at night, then stole the crystal ball. They had planted a spy on the caravan to watch how Unoss handled the item, and to slip something into his drink so he would be sleeping at the time.

Just like a group of PCs would do!

The NPCs were a dual class warlock (magic-user)/phantasmist (illusionist) and a spider (thief). They fled into the night and Unoss eventually woke up and discovered the theft. He absolutely had to get this item back, and he asked the party Slayer (ranger) to help him track the thieves. Three party members went with him, the party Warlock, Mercenary (fighter) and Slayer. The Slayer took some time to find their trail, and the pursuit was on. The NPCs had mounts waiting in the trees and were quickly on their way.

Then the party made its only tactical error, their Slayer is a Garudin (bird-person) and flew into the air to find them rather than relying on tracking on the ground. People lament how flight is overpowered, but in this case it meant that the NPCs had a chance of spotting him, and they did. If he had stayed on the ground and tracked from there they wouldn’t have known they were being followed. Since one of the NPCs was a phantasmist, he made an illusion to confuse the party and it worked, they went off in another direction.

The party then tried to find the trail again, it took some time, but they did, however the NPCs were now quite a bit ahead of them. Eventually the NPCs made it to their base where the other party members were waiting, then one of the NPCs, Luxifal the Cerulean (the warlock/phantasmist) doubled back with his party and approached the PCs (as an illusion).

Now, both Luxifal and Unoss are Bhakashal warlocks, so they are haughty, arrogant and don’ t take any guff. Luxifal proposed that Unoss and the PCs leave now otherwise he and his companions would have to slay them all. I rolled an encounter reaction roll to see how Unoss would take this sort of threat. It came up very high, so it was my job to decide how to interpret this, why would Unoss react positively to a threat?

My job is to interpret this in a sensible way.

I decided that Unoss is a smart guy (17 Intelligence!) and that he didn’t think Luxifal would just show up on his own to confront the party, thus the rest of his group were probably hiding and ready to ambush them, so rather than pushing back, he would try to talk him down.

Unoss and Luxifal traded jibes for a while, Unoss insisting that he had to have the crystal ball back, Luxifal insisting that it was now his and that Unoss should leave.

Then one of the PCs asked Luxifal if they could offer him loot in exchange for the crystal ball.

That was unexpected. The party had recently scored a huge haul and converted it into precious gemstones. Each one had several thousand GP worth of gems on their person. They pooled their gems and made Luxifal an offer.

One thing I love about this style of play is that it isn’t obvious whether or not a NPC would take what amounts to a bribe. And I don’t have to make that decision, the dice will. The sum they offered was significant, so I added a small modifier and rolled, the result was strongly positive.

So Luxifal agreed to the deal. We spent a bit of time coming up with an exchange protocol, the party didn’t trust Luxifal and they didn’t trust him. Eventually the crystal ball was obtained and returned to Unoss.

You might ask, why did the party voluntarily give up thousands of GP in gems to get an NPC’s crystal ball back?

There are two reasons. First, over the last 6 sessions the party has travelled with Unoss. The party warlock spent time talking to the NPC about magic, they even exchanged scroll spells at one point. Also the party has had several random encounters with Unoss around, they were both impressed by his abilities and Unoss and the PCs had saved each other a few times. They felt a bond with him.

Good NPCs will do that.

Also, the party has learned over and over again that it’s not about YOU being the most powerful person in the room, its about alliances and networks of power. If a powerful person owes you, that’s a win. Unoss is a powerful warlock and they did him a HUGE favor.

However, this is Bhakashal, and a powerful warlock like Mahl Unoss the Puissant does not want to be owing the party a favor any longer than he has to. So I was actively thinking about how he could pay the party back.

On the way back to the caravan, Unoss and the party were talking about whether or not they should have fought the NPCs, and Unoss’ mission. Unoss asked them for more details about their mission, keen to see if he could help and pay off his debt. They mentioned that they were looking for the Lost City, and they didn’t know how to find it.

They were thinking of finding a sage and asking them, or perhaps looking for local guides who knew the desert well who might have stumbled upon it. The problem was, according to them, that any guide they found would claim to have found the Lost City, but the party had no way of knowing if they were telling the truth or just fleecing naïve adventurers.

That’s when the penny dropped for me, I instantly knew how Unoss could help them. I waited to see if one of the players would figure it out.

And they did.

The party mercenary (fighter) got excited and said that Unoss could use his ESP crystal ball to check to see if the guides they found actually knew where the city was. It would take time, many would genuinely think they knew but not actually have any direct experience. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was a good plan, and it gave them a way forward.

I could have just given them a map (I actually rolled a map in a treasure hoard several sessions ago and rolled a 1 in 100 chance that it was a map to the lost city, it wasn’t!), but instead the game just dropped this into my lap. The possibility of Unoss having his crystal ball stolen was a random encounter option, it might not have come up, then the party wouldn’t have even known he was carrying it. The party helping out, so Unoss owed them a favor was also unexpected.

The lesson here is that I didn’t have to give them anything, the game eventually created the circumstances for success. The best part is that the players were proud of themselves, through their actions and clever thinking they had a plan to find the place they were looking for, and I didn’t just “give” it to them, it emerged organically from play.

This is why travel shouldn’t be “hand waved” just to “get to the adventure”.

Trust the process, and let it happen.

 

 

                                                    Building Bhakashal - Combat!

My Wednesday group started up again this week, and they were giant hunting. I’m going to recount the events, with some gameplay commentary along the way. We have a lot of non-combat time at the table, but this session was all fight.

Their caravan had been ambushed by fire giants, and they had lost a number of mounts, goods and people, but managed to flee. The players decided that the giants might pursue, the caravan was still big and slow, and tempting. So, they doubled back and watched from a distance, the party warlock (magic-user) got to use Wizard Eye to surveil their cave. Eventually two of the giant’s left to go hunting (or so the party assumed) and they came up with a plan. 

Initially they decided to attack the remaining giants while these two were out hunting, so their forces would be lessened. But then they decided to try and slay the giants out hunting first and come back for the giants in the cave. This was smart, smart as they were fighting fewer giants at each interval, smart as they were attacking the giants outside of their lair where they had fewer advantages, and smart because this was their first direct fight with giants (the last time they just fled) and they would learn from a smaller skirmish.

One of the PCs is a Garudin (a bird-person), he tracked the hunting giants from the air, and directed the party to an ambush point. The giants were heading to a forest, the party positioned themselves between the giants and a stream that ran through the forest, assuming they might hunt there or go there for water. They picked a clearing with no large boulders lying around for an ambush. The party tanks hid around the area and loaded up missile weapons. A lower level Thaumaturge (thief/magic user) prepared a scroll with Cone of Cold. The higher-level party warlock prepared to cast Sjin’Saar’s Corrosive Decay, a Bhakashal spell. The party Phantasmist (illusionist) prepared Pharin’s Sky of Bone, another Bhakashal spell. 

Then they waited. 

Given their concealment and the choice of ambush points, they had a 4 in 6 chance of surprising the giants, the giants had a 1 in 6 chance of surprising them. The dice decided, and the party did not achieve surprise, but neither did the giants. I have to interpret that result in a way that makes sense to the players, as they did set up an ambush. I decided that the giants spotted them from the middle of the clearing as the late afternoon sunlight reflected off of the metal of some of the PC's weapons. 

I tend to randomize everything in the game. The party had picked a clearing, and the giants were about 80 feet from the trees, so I rolled to see what the giant’s would do, given that there were an unknown number of attackers and there were no boulders around. I randomize this stuff as it keeps opponents unpredictable. The first giant took out a javelin to throw at one warrior he had seen, the second charged towards the woods nearby, targeting another warrior. 

We do individual initiative, and charging targets deal with missile fire and spells before they reach their target, depending on their speed and the initiative rolls. Crossbows fired. Crossbows don’t do that much damage, but there is always the possibility of a critical hit, in Bhakashal, just like Talislanta, any hit roll of 25 or greater (with bonuses) is a critical hit, and the attacker can choose their impact, pick a weapon critical effect or roll on a list of combat criticals. 

The first shot was a regular hit for minor damage, but the second shot was a critical, and the PC decided to disarm the giant, so the crossbow bolt hit the giant’s hand, causing the javelin to be dropped and the giant to howl in pain. Another crossbow attack missed.

The PC warlock, Borunn the Majestic, took out an iron rod with a drop of mercury on the end of it, whispered the words, “Fürödjön a vas tűzében” three times, and a swirling mass of dark green fire appeared at the end of the rod. The Warlock pulled back the rod and whipped it forward, the emerald sphere flew into the clearing, exploding when it reached the middle and filling the whole clearing with swirling dark green fire. The charging giant was about 30 feet from the trees when this happened.

Sjin’Saar’s Corrosive Decay hit both giants, the party had picked a clearing they could fill with the spell. The Corrosive Decay causes all ferrous weapons and armor in the AOE to save or disintegrate. Due to the nature of saves and the fact that you roll for each major item, armor, each weapon, that sort of thing, it almost always gets some objects, but rarely gets all. 

The javelin throwing giant lost its armor and a sword, the charging giant lost its battle axe and sword, so was now without weapons. When the giant was 10 feet from the edge of the clearing and was headed to reach in for one of the PCs, the party Spider (thief), the Phantasmist’s spell, Pharin’s Sky of Bone, kicked in. To cast this spell the Phantasmist (Josteloth the Gossamer) took out a bone fragment from a polar bear (this material component is EXTREMELY RARE in Bhakashal, so this was a dear spell to cast). The Phantasmist placed the bone between two flat palms and whispered, “Obloha z kostí, pokryje svět”, three times over, crushing the bone fragment to dust.

I was not rolling well, and each giant failed their save, the sky and surroundings went completely white as if in a furious snowstorm, they couldn’t see properly, they would get brief glimpses of their targets that would then fade to white. The weaponless giant near the trees reached in to try and grab the Spider anyway, and between the tree’s concealment and the hit penalty from the spell missed badly. The Spider then climbed up the tree a bit. Two of the party tanks sprung from the trees and attacked the disoriented giant. A two-handed sword and a wicked bardiche were wielded, one missed and the other did minor damage, as the giant’s wild gesticulations seemed to have kept it from harm. 

The giant in the clearing took out a new javelin, but the spell made it too hard to target anything. The giant threw its javelin where he thought one of the tanks was and hit the other giant instead (the spell randomizes all missile fire due to disorientation). Unfortunately for the javelin-throwing giant, its armor was gone. The party Slayer (ranger/assassin) targeted him, he got a critical and his choice was to have the giant lose its next attack. Criticals always have to be interpreted, in this case the crossbow bolt hit the giant in the shoulder joint, causing enough pain that an action was taken removing the bolt, this caused the loss of an attack. The party Spartan (monk) charged into the clearing as soon as the bolt was fired. An 8th level Spartan moves pretty fast, and due to the critical got to attack before the giant could respond.

The Spartan delivered a flying kick at its leg, which was another critical due to the modified AC of the giant. In Bhakashal, you can pick from a list of combat criticals, use the critical associated with your weapon, or make up your own critical, as desired. The Spartan picked toppling the giant as his critical effect, this both did damage and lost the giant a round getting back up. The Spartan then ran to the side, as the party Thaumaturge now cast Cone of Cold from a scroll, icing up the side of our now toppled giant. The giant made its save and took less damage, but this was followed up by another round of missile fire from the party as the giant lost its attack. The mighty fire giant was badly wounded, toppled, riddled with crossbow bolts, leg damaged and half its body covered with ice.

The giant near the trees was flailing around, weaponless, trying to hit the two party tanks, both of them landed hits, one for minor damage, one for significant damage. Still, Fire Giants are 10 HD creatures, I roll for HP, and this bad boy had 65 hp to start.

Then the party Spider leapt from the trees with a sword out for a backstab, what we lovingly call a “Crom”. 

That was sweet. 

Morale checks were rolled, the javelin-throwing giant failed and tried to leave, but the Sky of Bone spell had mixed up its perception and it fled in a random direction. This gave the party warlock a chance to cast Magic Missile, which did enough damage to slay the monster.

“Your bright missiles cut through the air and effortlessly reach the target, each one that strikes the fleeing giant racks its body with a shiver of agony and carries the stench of flesh burnt by lightning, a faint smell of ozone permeates the air as the giant topples, lifeless.”

The giant near the trees did manage to land a blow on one of the party tanks, sending him flying into a tree with a critical hit. Unfortunately, the combination of the backstab and the big damage attack last round left the giant vulnerable. One of the tanks finished him off with a cleaving bardiche blow, lopping off its head. Last session one of the giant's had lopped off a PC's head, so this generated a lot of shouting.

The party had a brief celebration then started to plan out the attack on the remaining giants. 

This group has been playing with me for 3 years now, and they really have absorbed a lot of strategy from past experience. They know the value of an ambush, of splitting up their enemies’ forces, and of using distance attacks and spells that do more than just damage. They have learned to sequence, e.g., not always cast AOE spells AFTER your tanks have charged in. They also coordinate missile and melee attacks to avoid friendly fire. Bhakashal’s combat rules allow you to run around between attacks, this mobility is important as it allows more tactical play, the players have absorbed that lesson.

I should add that these PCs are all in the 6-8th level range, so they get criticals regularly in combat, something that was not the case as much at lower levels. It has been rewarding to see the mechanics work as intended at the table. We also got to see some Bhakashal spells get a workout, that was fun. Initially the lads were enamored with the standards, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, big damage for sure, but they have seen the value of spells that disable, distract and otherwise disadvantage their foes. Removing armor and weapons with the Sjin'Sarrs Corrosive Decay made a big difference here, as did the disorientation created by Pharin's Sky of Bone.

Next session should prove to be interesting, as there are 5 fire giants in their lair, when we were wrapping up there was talk of summoning monsters and sending them into the cave to soften them up before the party gives it a go.

They are learning!

 

Building Bhakashal – Overland Travel - The Caravan - Part 2

What a session! Sometimes when we play I want to write up a journal for people because the session has great examples of how we handle circumstances that come up regularly in the game. I think people get a lot of odd ideas about how sandbox style games are run, and particularly how games that rely heavily on randomization and dice mechanics work at the table. Also, my games are “full Bhakashal” now, with the custom classes and mechanics, so if you want a preview of what you will be getting, this is pretty good.

My Wed group is on the classic sandbox adventure. After finishing their last adventure (White Plume – they bailed after a few early deaths and had to deal with the consequences for many sessions), they quite literally looked at the Greyhawk map, saw “the Forgotten City” on the map, and decided to go there.

It doesn’t get more sandbox than that.

This involved a week long sea voyage and so far 4 days of overland travel to get to the mountains, across the mountains is the Sea of Dust, their destination. The start of their trip is detailed here:

https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2023/11/building-bhakashal-overland-travel.html

When we left off in the previous session, they approached the mountains and a Roc bore down on the caravan. The way we run initiative and combat, an aerial attacker bearing down from a distance can be hit by missile fire and spells before they arrive, depending on the distance and speed that can be more than one attack per combatant.

Everyone took out missile weapons and got a shot in before it arrived. However, it was windy, the Roc was coming in fast, and as the caravan was over 500’ long, only some of the guards were in range for crossbow shots. Of the 30 or so that were in range, only 2 hit!

The party warlock cast Magic Missile, at 8^th level they get 4 missiles for 2-5 damage each, the thief/magic-user also had Magic Missile, though at a lower level of experience. Together they did a respectable amount of damage, Magic Missile never misses and has a terrific range. In Bhakashal, Magic Missile is cast by touching your forehead and drawing a sizzling energy spike out of your head, then whipping it towards your enemies, and it unerringly finds its target. Big fun.

Still, the huge monster dove, undaunted.

The caravan has its own Warlock (Mahl Unoss the Puissant), and he cast Lightning Bolt at the mighty creature. This was the last defense, fortunately for the party the beast failed it’s save, and the damage was sufficient to bring it between half and one quarter HP, so it could make a controlled dive, but it had to land.

Referee - “Mahl Unoss the Puissant sits tall in the saddle of his giant lizard, wrapping a glass rod with the fur of a slain Chimera, he whispers the words that release the power of the spell. The rod glows bright blue, and lightning appears in the air a full 300 feet from the warlock, materializing from nothing. The bolt shoots forward like a hungry beast released, and after another 20 or so feet suddenly forks into three nearly parallel bolts, all now a painfully bright blue white and ragged. They strike the raging Roc in the side and on its massive wing. The beast screeches in pain, and alternately flaps and coasts towards thick forest of trees, where the splintering of wood and more shrieking from the beast could be heard.”

In Bhakashal substituting material components can get you different versions of the spell, the Chimera skin allows the caster to split the bolt in such a way that it covers more area, and the target takes a -3 save penalty.

That was fun.

The Roc decided to land as far from the caravan as possible, worried that it could be taken when it landed. The caravan leader and the party agreed to leave it be and continue on.

They pressed forward and powered through the rest of the day to get as much distance as possible

They arrived in the mountains and started up the pass. At this point they had socialized with the caravan guards and animal handlers, as well as the Caravan Master Gylevan “the Jackrabbit” Mahgler and Mahl Unoss the Puissant, the caravan’s warlock. Gylevan is a retired 7^th level mercenary with a Razor sword, magic armor, and Boots of Striding and Springing (remember that, it will matter later). He likes to gamble and is well liked by his crew. The PCs have gambled with them, exchanged information, and were forming bonds.

Unoss is an NPC warlock that was generated as a PC for a one shot, I kept him around and have used him as a NPC in different campaigns, leveling him up as time passes in between uses. He served as an Akhaada (arena) warlock for most of his career (pre use as a one shot character), since then he has done some adventuring (the one shot and two others, also as a “hired gun” NPC warlock for a run at Forbidden City with my Monday group), worked as a ship’s warlock (for my Tuesday campaign last year), and is now a caravan Warlock for my Wednesday group.

Every day of travel the players tell me  if they want to do RP or not, if they say yes, we will role play out whatever scenario is appropriate, eating at the captain’s table, gambling with the crew, entertaining the crew with illusions, preaching, and converting the crew, etc. Players do fun things when they get the chance to RP “casually”. On an ocean voyage in a previous campaign one player noted he had a fishing skill, and he approached the crew members fishing off the boat and struck up a conversation, they cast nets together and he insisted that we roll to determine success.

Players will “game” anything if they can.

The NPC priest they had brought along, Cyga the Cauled, was becoming popular with the caravan, casting blessings, auguries and minor healing spells for the crew and healing the beasts of burden. A Seer (priest) of Omagh, god of death, she had converted about 10 of the animal handlers and 4 of the guards to her faith. She had also bested one of the guards in a sparring match, the Seer favored a mace in combat, and she bested the guard armed with shield and longsword in three passes. We played that fight, with a player running the Seer and me running the guard.

Day two in the mountains and we rolled an encounter with a wind walker. I adore elemental monsters, and air elementals are super fun, they can cause such havoc! When they rolled the encounter, I initially described it as a loud, howling wind. Then it started to ROAR, and then it became incredibly strong, and then one of the guards was shot into the air, high up, then plummeted down screaming. Oddly enough he made a saving throw and didn’t die from the experience, but the party was frightened.

They didn’t know what it was, and I wasn’t telling them!

The wind walker blew up dust and dirt that blinded the guards and spooked the animals. The party had no idea what they were facing. One of the PCs had a Bhakashal spell, Quen-Tharin’s Baleful Penetrating Gaze. It allows a form of X-ray vision.

When the wind walker picked up the next caravan guard and raised them into the air, the party phantasmist cast the spell and “saw” a vaguely humanoid outline of the wind walker attacking the guard.

That was a cool moment. That guard was dropped but the party slayer (ranger/assassin) is a Garudin (bird-person) and managed to catch them before they hit.

As a ref, I have to decide what the NPCs are doing when an attack happens, just like the PCs have to. But I don’t want to take advantage of my comprehensive knowledge of the situation, so I randomize what the monsters do.

What would the party warlock do in this situation?

Mahl has spells, items and scroll spells. The way the magic item tables in Bhakashal are structured is similar to the way they are structured in AD&D 1e, scrolls come up fairly often, and all mid-level warlocks will have a few scrolls. For Unoss I set up the following odds to determine his response:

1-4. Charm Monster

5. Wand of Conjuration

6. Scroll - Invisible Stalker

 

Charm Monster would end the fight there and then if it worked so I weighted that heavier. The wand would take time (to take out and use) and had charges he didn’t want to waste, and the scroll spell was a one shot, so he was reluctant to use it.

But it is his job.

I rolled a 6!

Unoss took out a scroll and cast Aerial Servant. He directed the servant to protect him and the caravan, and it attacked the wind walker. Two air elemental beings attacking each other, two raging storms locked in combat. I did a morale check on the walker to see how it would handle something that could impact it directly, it failed and fled, the aerial servant was too tough, and it was used to easy prey. The guards were grateful as the party saved one of their lives. The caravan continued on, and the next two days were tense as we rolled no encounters.

Every time I roll dice for encounters the players get antsy.

The party warlock became friends with Mahl Unoss, they had a few conversations as they travelled. The PC warlock asked Unoss if he was willing to trade spells, and a positive reaction roll led to a discussion. A scroll of Lightning Bolt was traded for one with Wall of Iron. This was a cause for some celebration, as the PC had been looking for Lightning Bolt (or Fireball) for a time, and they all waited with bated breath while he rolled his “to know”. It was successful, and now they have Lightning Bolt in their arsenal!

And you know at some point they will need Wall of Iron and not have it, LOL.

The third day in the mountains a storm hit, it was heavy rain and wind, but they pressed on as the wind walker had slowed them down. They rolled an encounter with fire giants. Given where they were I decided it would be an attack from above, they were in a narrow pass where the caravan had to go slowly and in a long line. The perfect place for an ambush. The rain concealed the giant’s from early discovery.

We rolled for surprise and fortunately neither side was surprised, so one of the caravan guards spotted the giants, 100’ above them. All hell was about to break loose, there were 5 giants, three together, and (unknown to them) two moving to flanking positions. The three together reached for boulders.

Roll for initiative!!!!

It was CRAZY.

The party warlock rolled a 1 and successfully cast Rope Trick, climbing up to safety. Two other nearby party members took their action running to the rope and starting to climb. The caravan master screamed to the whole procession to flee as fast as they could. The caravan has 30 giant lizards, loaded for bear, with on rider each, 50 guards (unmounted), and 10 giant lizard cavalry guards. At full charge they weren’t that fast, and the caravan itself was about 500’ long.

At this point I had to make a few hard decisions. In a situation like this, do NPCs protect themselves or protect others? Do they flee like everyone else, or do they do “heroic” things? I’m a firm believer in rolling for things like this. I want some spontaneity in my game.

I construct a set of weighted options based on the NPC’s profile, class, etc. So, for example, the caravan master Gylevan Mahgler  was a retired 7^th level mercenary (fighter), so he wasn’t easy to scare. I gave him these odds:

1-4: stand ground and direct flight of caravan

5: fire crossbow at giants

6: flee and try to seek shelter in the Rope Trick with the party

 

I rolled a 1, he was focused on getting everyone to flee as fast as possible, and he stayed his ground, shouting at the beasts and riders to move. The whole party except the Justiciar (paladin) ran towards the Rope Trick. That was noticed by the guards, animal handlers, caravan master and Mahl Unoss.

Unoss has his aerial servant (still around) lift him up into the sky, making him “hover” in the air far from the caravan line of fire. He then prepared a spell.

Cyga the Cauled, Seer of Omagh, was another example, what would a priestess of death do in a situation like this? I gave this some thought, what does a priestess of a death god think about death? Would she be indifferent to it? Would she seek to deal it out to others? Would she feel compelled to not interfere with death when it occurred? I decided that one of the options would be the priestess *courting* death.

So she might flee, cast Light on a giant to blind it (she was in range), use her Crossbow of Distance (good odds to hit but not much damage) or cast Sanctuary on herself, making it less likely the giants could hit her, and draw their fire.

1. Flee

2-3. Cast Light to blind a giant

4. Use Crossbow of Distance

5-6. Cast Sanctuary on herself and draw fire

 

I rolled a 5, and she cast Sanctuary on herself.

The party Justiciar was another problem case, he could have headed into the Rope Trick for shelter, but he would have had to abandon his special mount, in Bhakashal you get a mount as your “warhorse” based on your deity, his was Iospha, god of fire, so he rode a giant boar.

No getting that up the rope!

They were sitting ducks under the giant’s rocks, and a giant’s rock thrown from above like this does enough damage to slay a party member in terms of HP alone, also, if they roll a critical it is instant death, crushed by a giant rock. But he wasn’t abandoning his special mount. So, he rode along, picking up guards fleeing on foot along the way who jumped and clung to his mount (giant boars are big), riding like the devil to get away from the giant’s rocks. He rescued 5 guards this way.

Then the rocks flew. Three huge boulders came down. There were 30 gess (giant lizards) each with a rider and 1-2 guards on foot, each grouping of gess, rider and guard(s) was counted as one unit. The party represented an additional 8 (all mounted), and there were 10 mounted caravan guards, as well as the caravan master and Unoss. A total of 50 targets sorted by mounts. I assigned numbers to everyone, and I rolled a d100 and divided it into two.

The rocks targeted two gess/rider/guards and one of the mounted guards. What the party didn’t know was that mounted guard was a high level NPC mercenary that was fleeing from a death sentence, he was posing as a guard to get smuggled out. They might never find this out.

The giant rolled a 2 to hit and missed. There were howls and screams when that happened.

The second and third boulder rolled a regular hit, the damage wounded the beast of burden and killed the guard and the rider on the second by HP alone, and a critical on the third slayed them all instantly.

Other than the Justiciar, the party had all fled to the Rope Trick, Mahgler the caravan master screamed, “UNOSS, stop them!”

I rolled again for the Warlock’s actions,

1. Magic Missile

2. Charm Monster

3-5. Lightning bolt

6. Aerial Servant

I rolled a 3, Unoss cursed the giants in the dead tongue of the necrovores of the underworld, the Vorunn, and he cast Lightning Bolt again, this time above the giants and against the loose rock of the mountains, triggering a small avalanche that blinded them and did minor damage.

This delayed their next attack, and more of the caravan made it out of the pass.

That was one round. 

The next round, the Justiciar made it to the end of the pass with his rescued guards, who he released, and he turned around to get more guards.

Cyga the Cauled turned to the giants and cursed them in the name of Omagh, challenging them to target her, trusting the Sanctuary spell of her god to protect her and draw their fire.

She’s a badass.

Caravan master Gylevan Mahgler, in a move that convinced the party he was mad, jumped from his mount and used his Boots of Striding and Springing to run and leap along, periodically shouting at the beasts to urge them on, and twice picking up fallen guards to spring them over to a fleeing mount that stopped to grab them. 

I rolled to see who the giant’s would attack, 5 attacks this round as the flanking giants were in place above them.

1-8. Unoss

9-12. Cyga

13-16. Paladin

17-18. Mahgler

19-20. Beast of burden

They wanted to slay giant lizards as food, and to get whatever goods they were carrying.  I rolled and the giant’s targeted Unoss, Mahgler, Cyga and two giant lizard teams, all rolled randomly.

The boulder hurled at Unoss had no chance, as the Aerial servant could easily move him out of the way, and it did. Mahgler was jumping around in a crazy pattern very quickly with his boots, so the giant took a penalty on the shot, it whistled overhead (missing by 1) and the Jackrabbit was safe! Cyga’s Fire Giant failed its save against Sanctuary, so it could not attack her, instead bellowing in a rage as it smashed the boulder into the ground at its feet, unable to cast it at her.

Cyga shouted praise to Omagh while shaking her holy symbol (her mace) in the air, “Omagh is my armor foul one, your rocks will break on my body!”

Two giant lizards and crews were pasted by boulders, but by now more than half of the caravan was out of the pass and harm’s way.

The Justiciar picked up several more guards and turned to get them to safety.

Unoss then cast his second spell, Stinking Cloud, this one was memorized. It hit the three giant’s standing together, and one of them plummeted off the mountainside when racked with coughing. The other two were incapacitated. I rolled and the two flanking giants headed back to save their comrades.

Mahgler waited until the last gess departed the pass, and he sprung back to look for survivors. The Justiciar and him cleared the pass and fled ahead. Cyga went with them, and the party closed the Rope Trick.

Then things got interesting.

The Rope Trick would last for two hours and 40 minutes. Would the giants still be around at that point?

Questions like this are a frequent occurrence at the table, there are no rules to turn to.

When something like this comes up, I throw it to the table, and we talk it out. I do this to be fair, to give the players a chance to make their arguments, and I do this as it’s fun. Players love to argue about stuff like this. I told them they were in the extradimensional space and couldn’t know what was happening outside. Should they “peek” and see? Would they be spotted?

They surmised that after the caravan was gone from the pass, the giants would come down to check on their wounded comrade, retrieve the dead for consumption, and to grab whatever cargo was not destroyed by the boulders.

How long would that take?

We talked it out and knowing the size of the giant lizards and the giants themselves, each giant could drag one dead giant lizard up the mountain to their lair at a time. There was also some retrievable cargo that wasn’t destroyed. They would assign a giant to watch to see if the caravan master or warlock returned. The party didn’t know if the giant’s knew they would eventually come out. They might just sit around and wait to see.

I rolled to determine what they did. The party decided to wait until the 2 hour mark then “peek” out. I rolled the odds that they would be spotted, and they managed to be unnoticed, what they saw was that all but one of the dead gess were removed, two giants were here, as well as about 5 hell hounds, and some cargo remained unmoved.

The closed up and waited until the spell was soon to end. When they peeked out again I rolled to see if they were noticed, and they were not. This time there were two giants remaining, one dead giant lizard, and one intact container of caravan goods.

They now have to decide how to get out of the Rope Trick without being noticed, as the giants were still around. If they manage to escape they have to ask themselves if they want to continue with the caravan or track down the giant’s in their lair to hopefully steal their loot.

Decisions, decisions.

As you can notice, I randomize a lot of the game, this keeps things unpredictable and inspiring:

I know a lot of DMs wouldn’t have had the party travel for a few days without encounters. The advantage to what I do is that they never know when an encounter is going to happen, and when it does, it won’t always happen in the “optimal” environment for a fight.

Many DM’s would “balance” their encounters by calibrating the monsters/NPCs/animals to the party’s level and power. Instead, I roll on pregenerated random tables that pay no heed to the party’s makeup or level. The Wind Walker encounter could have been a TPK, so too could the giant encounter.

Many DM’s would ensure that PCs were not targeted in that giant encounter, as it was randomly rolled and they didn’t have an opportunity to avoid the encounter, so it wasn’t “fair”. But that’s the nature of travelling through dangerous areas!

Few DM’s would randomize the actions of NPCs or monsters, they would instead pick the actions to ensure they were “optimized”, I prefer to roll randomly and see what happens as it’s unpredictable and it can lead to results that are even more awesome than what you planned.

Many DMs would not have bothered to have NPCs taking on prominent roles in the adventure, or interacting with other NPCs (e.g., the Seer converting guards), as the adventure is “all about the PCs”, but Bhakashal is a living world, and the PCs are but one tiny part of that world. NPCs aren’t cardboard cut outs or clusters of stats to occupy space, they have agency, perform heroic (and cowardly) acts, are sometimes irrelevant to the fight, and sometimes crucial. Nothing makes the game duller than “in the background” predictable NPCs that either contribute nothing or run everything.

Many DMs would have “hand waved” the travel portion of this adventure, fast forwarding the party to their destination. Not us! Travel is part of the adventure too! The party has had such awesome RP over the last few sessions, they have made friends, learned things about the game world, created stakes and formed alliances.

Unpredictability through randomization is, IMO, key to three very important aspects of the game:

1)     Surprising EVERYONE at the table. The referee controls so much of the game world, it is important to have things that even they can’t predict. An “omnipotent” DM that knows everything gets bored fast.

2)     When aspects of the game are unpredictable, including the actions of NPCs, the game world seems more REAL. Stories are often noticeably curated; you can often predict what will happen in the next part of the story because that result is “what the story demands”. Randomization throws a spanner in this, and just like real life, things rarely progress as planned.

3)     Randomization creates tactical opacity, the inability to predict what your opponents will do. Of course, it works both ways, your opponents are less likely to predict what you will do, and vice versa. Predictable combat is the height of boredom, and one of the reasons why many people complain that combat “takes too long”.

I have no idea if the party will pursue the giants or just continue on, and more importantly I DON’T WANT TO KNOW! Part of the fun is me not knowing what will happen next.

Onwards to adventure!