welcome to behind the screen with me Robert Hartley i am the
GM or games master for this lovely chaotic group Viva La Dirt League
and i'll be taking you through a few of the epic or crucial moments in the campaign so far
so come with us on the journey and learn a little bit about what's going on behind here
so back in episode 14 the guys had just returned from lightwood
having just recovered some of their stolen goods from the bullywugs
and they were taking a little down time to rest and recover and level up
and then wham i smashed them with assassins
oh what the
so what had happened there was i just sick of their [ __ ] and
i just wanted to kill them all separately
uh what are you doing
well kind of
but no
i i wanted them to feel like they were in peril real risk of death
and then Ellie who was a level above them and a guest star
was going to come in and feel like a real hero to save each of them in turn
and that would have eased the transition that is often found with guest stars and things
where you get a sense of why are you following us
who are you
why are you suddenly part of the group
because if she'd come in and save their life she kind of has earned her right to be there
wow thats how it's done boys
all right
needless to say it didn't quite go that way with
each of the guys just taking out their respective assassin with relative ease
sometimes you just can't prepare for the dice
so what i'd been using for the stat block of the dirt assassins was a modified spy stat block
for the hit points you can see that rather than using a set number i tend to use a range
and i kill them when it makes the most story sense to do so within that range
i calculate it as the first two hit dice are maxed out
as i do for the player characters
and then we take the minimum average and maximum of what they could have rolled
and that gives me the range
so given that the spies had an average of about 25 hit points
they had advantage on the attack
they were likely to go first in the initiative
and they did sneak attack damage if they hit
they could have been quite scary
what did you do for
so at this point
you're meant to die
from my perspective i've set up these assassins to be really scary
and really dangerous
and do a ton of damage on a single hit
so Ellie coming in to save them when they're like why is Robert trying to kill us
it would have really set that bar high
they're on the floor the assassin's about to take the final coup de gras blow
and then somebody arrives at the door this strange wood elf who's going to
save their life with some bardic tunes or whatnot or heels or whatever she does
Crikey Dingos what the bloody hell is going on here
as it happened she just had to turn up at the door and witness them tying up
to her perspective innocent strangers
oh [ __ ] i'm not abusing an old man i swear
help me
alas it was not meant to be
yeah you guys seem like a bit of alright
so i had a vision that frank was a badass assassin
he pretended to be a frail duddery old man
in order to lull his victims into a false sense of security
and then he turns around and slash slash slash
due to the dice we now have frank as a duddery old pensioner who just is desperate for money
and and really needed a job so he took a hit on someone that he couldn't possibly take out
ooo not this again
but hey leads to a good story doesn't it
and my dog got eaten by goblins recently
that way i keep the spell
yep
i couldn't afford the tax on it
oh this is making me feel bad
so let's look at how badass Eldwina could have been
i've got a character sheet right here
at the time they were a level three
uh and she was a level four bard
she had the folk hero background
she's got a decent dexterity intelligence wisdom and charisma
and even her strength and constitution aren't negative
she's got no negatives at all
decent speed decent armor she was meant to be a real badass and help them out
oh well
all you need to know is i'm on the run from the high elves of the isle of Straya
and i'm looking for a group to blend in with
so any dms watching if the things you prepared and expected don't necessarily go the way you intended
don't worry about it it can still lead to a story that is just as much fun
and the players they don't even necessarily need to know that that's not what you'd prepared
this is the worst birthday ever
so now go back and watch that assassins episode and imagine what frank could have been
instead of oh no
think oh yes
thanks for watching i'll see you on the next behind the screen
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