Serge’s Database Dump: A Rejects’ Recap

18Oct/100

Serge’s Database Dump: A Rejects’ Recap

: Image via Wikipedia

I’ve mentioned the Rejects before; it’s a real gem of a game, with a premise I really wish I’d monopolized on more. From a creative aspect, at least: the whole point is about being somewhat unoptimal.

In this game, I play Serge, a Warforged Sorcerer. His backstory (not that it matters much) is that he used to be a servant golem created by a Gnomish Invoker, who “died” defending the gnome’s daughter while she was on a dangerous quest.

They rebuilt him (better, faster..etc.) using the prize the gnome recovered, and some Divine guidance. The essence of a magical storm, trapped in a gem. The newly-rebuilt golem was now a Warforged, possessed of a soul and the power of Sorcery…and indebted to Gond, the God of Invention.

Who sent our hapless hero to help out three others, on a quest of their own…

In this session, we wrapped up our excursion to the home of Jeff’s character, Kip (real name withheld, for his own dignity), our Gnome Barbarian. Yes, I know. It’s that kind of game.

Kip lives in a hidden land based largely on fairy tales; it’s a kingdom ruled by a wicked Queen (literally) right out of Snow White. We’ve faced down three intelligent boars, a big bad wolf, Rapunzel, and more.

So our mission was to infiltrate the Queen’s castle during the ball. I’ll tell you know: these aren’t your classic heroes. These are the other guys. They’re more than a bit off.

Kip, as mentioned, was a local boy turned hero, who went off into the world in search of fortune and glory. Everyone missed him…but not for long.

Rockon is our Goliath Bard, and Krakmur is an Invoker. He thinks he’s a Dwarf. He’s not.

Moving on!

So the idea was to use Kip’s contacts with the Gnomish community to get into the ball. This didn’t turn out all too well, seeing as how, as a group, we’re not courtiers by trade. Only Krakmur had any real disguise, and that was to use a potion that turned him into a gnomish lass…with Charisma 8.

Now Serge has a staggering force of personality for a ‘Forged. He may not understand the antics of the flesh-and-blood creatures around him (horrible Insight), but he can influence them, being trained in Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate. And not much else..

Either way, he was able to fast-talk the guards to get in.

Rockon claimed to be part of the entertainment, which also worked reasonably well.

Our next task was a skills challenge to infiltrate the castle without notice. We managed, but a combination of bad die rolls, and lack of critical skills, made this especially irksome. To his credit, Chuck was very reasonable at accepting whatever crazy uses for our skills we came up with, and we managed to get as far as the Library without much incident.

And then things went south. Kip managed to knock over some bookshelves (onto poor Krakmur..), summoning a gang of Minions…I mean guards. Easily dispatched, but the Her Highness walked in. The fight was pretty rough, as she was as mean as a badger, and we lack a Defender.

Shocking Magnetism seemed like a good choice. I’d pull her to me, and each turn she’d take damage for being next to me.

Problem 1: I don’t have the AC to be a Defender.

Problem 2: I don’t have hit points to be a Defender.

Problem 3: 3 damage per turn is LAME.

Add to the fact that my melee basic attack was nerfed (Thanks WotC!), and my big spells were chosen to hit multiple foes, and you can see how this went badly for me. She got me down to 4 hit points before I realized I needed to change tactics, and fast!

Our lack of useful skills and bad die rolls made a real mess of the next challenge, which caused us all to take unecessary damage. While I was away, Kip and Krakmur had the brilliant idea to re-enact Weekend at Bernie’s with the unconscious Queen.

It failed, badly. Chuck could have had us executed or thrown into the dungeon, but he showed mercy. Still, instead of being hailed as heroes, we were told to leave the kingdom for a very long time. And poor Kip was basically disowned by his Mother. Ouch!

Our next stop was Rockon’s homeland. Unbeknownst to us, Rockon had been banished for his own good…and sure enough, we walked into a serious grudge match, as Rockon was forced to take on the best warrior in his tribe, a level 9 Soldier!

We couldn’t directly aid him, so the honor duel quickly devolved into a WWE-style match, with the heroes trying to turn the crowd against the obvious favorite, and use our powers to assist Rockon while the crowd wasn’t looking.

It wasn’t easy, but thankfully, Rockon managed to be the last man standing. Unfortunately, the crowd rushed us, pissed off and wanting their Pay Per View money back. It would have been ugly, if the tribe’s wise man hadn’t showed up!

Our next challenge is to face the legendary beast whose name I don’t know how to spell. It lives to the north, swallows Goliaths whole, and radiates an intense aura of heat.

Remorhaz by RalphHorsley via DeviantArt

I looked at Tim immediately, as that description matched a dread encounter from our previous gaming days. The dreaded Remorhaz!

I think we’re in trouble this time!

Lesson Learned: Serge is not a Defender. If something happens to him, I’m definitely coming back as a Fighter or Paladin; we need one badly! Also: pick up some single-target powers that do more than 1d10+10 damage!