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Post by Gilvan Blight on May 19, 2008 8:16:55 GMT -5
Okay as this section is pretty dead, I thought I would try to make it a bit more active by doing a report on my 3.5 edition D&D game that just started up.
I figure this may turn out to be an interesting campaign log. If you were in the game and have anything to add feel free to post. Heck I may even make posts here worth a minor amount of XP. I'll probably be writing these a day or two after the actual game and by then some of the night may already be a bit fuzzy so if I mess anything up feel fee to correct me.
A small bit of background: the style of play I am going for with this campaign is classic D&D. I'm not worried about how the party got together, how they know each other, how they got to the town they are in, or even exactly why they chose to accept the call for help, or hook for the adventure. I plan on running it episodic style, where each adventure starts with a "...and this month our brave adventurers find themselves...." I had originally planned on running the Dungeon Crawl Classics series of modules from Goodman Games and starting with a 0 level module where the players would start with only NPC classes. I found a disadvantage to the DCC series though compared to some official D&D modules I had also picked up. The D&D modules, especially the 1st level on is designed for a beginner party and DM. This is excellent as for most of us, myself included this will be our first 3.5 experience. The module includes most of the rules for an encounter along with the usual text box and stat blocks. So if it notes there is a chasm, it gives the jump DC to cross it and explains how it got that DC. It also lists tactics for the DM to employ when portraying the enemies which is very useful if you aren't familiar with how each mob fights. The DCC is written for someone who is already very familiar with the rules. It's encounters literally just have a description of the area the fight is in and a stat block for the mob encountered. Due to this I swapped from planning to run a Hardcore Hack and Slash Dungeon Crawl ("Where each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeon crawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you fear, and the secret doors you know are there somewhere."), to running a more current style, still keeping the episodic style and trying to run with a classic feel.
A note on my DMing style: I don't care much for encumbrance, and if you forgot to tell me you took off your hooded cloak before going into church the Matron isn't going to punish you. I do follow the rules of whatever game I am running, but I'm not too worried about the little details. I'm more worried about the action of combat or the roleplaying of characters in town. I'm not much for the fiddly bits. So as far as this D&D game goes, I'm going with Encumbrance by Armour. I'm also ignoring all the Variant rules in the DMG.
The Party: The party thus far consists of the following. This may be pretty malleable as I know some of the players won't be able to make it to every game, and a couple extra people noted they may stop in for a session or two. On of the advantages of the episodic style is that this shouldn't be too much of a problem, as long as I can find a good place to break each session.
Characters are listed below in this format: Character Name - Race/Class - Handle (name on this forum)
Ice Talon - Male Elven Ranger - Talon Beldam - Male Human Monk - Lobo Gelna - Female Half Orc Barbarian - Pandoragreen Elolyis (sp?) - Male Elf Sorcerer - Gorechyld Catan - Female Elven Thief - Tuzey (not on the Forum) Gabriel - Male Human Cleric of St. Cuthbert - Night Parade.
The module I started this game with is Scourge of the Howling Horde a 1st level module put out by WotC.
The adventure started with our heroes responding to a call from help from the Town of Barrow's End. Word of their request came from the local rumor mill and did not include any specifics. The party traveled a long winding and well worn cart path on the long walk to Barrow's. About 4 hours from town they were suddenly halted by the sounds of battle ahead. The took up a combat formation with the Barbarian and Monk in the front, the Ranger and Sorcerer in the middle and the Cleric in the back. The Thief was no where to be seen probably disappearing into the underbrush off the path. Keeping at least 5 feet between each other the wary group crested the ridge to see a fierce battle being waged between 5 elves and nearly twice as many goblins. An overturned cart lie just off a curve in the road, rubble was scattered in all directions and two cart horses lied bleeding in the center of the cart path.
The Gelna rushed forward in a flurry of blood lust nearly working herself into a rage. Leaping one of the downed horses she entered a melee containing an elf surrounded by 3 goblins. The rest of the party advanced more cautiously, readying weapons. A lucky shot from Gabriel felled one of the goblins, and the Thief was still no where to be seen. As the party advanced they watched as all but one of the elves was brutally slaughtered by their attackers. After finishing off most of the elves the goblins began to prepare for the advance of the party readying Spears and shields. The lone surviving elf was wounded badly and summoned all of his strength for a final attack, it was a worth while effort as his cleave tore through two of the goblin attackers, unfortunately it was all he had in him and he collapsed to the ground. This left our party facing five remaining goblins.
The group continued to advance with the Sorcerer, Ranger and Cleric firing arrows and bolts into the goblin ranks and the Monk and Barbarian fighting toe to toe. The Thief re-appeared at the edge of the field of combat firing crossbow bolts from the cover of a stand of large trees. The goblins sent one of their number to Tie up the Monk dropping its spear for a vicious looking morning star, the remaining used the 'shoot and scoot' tactic and tossed spears as they backed away from the advancing party. The fight did not last long at this point. In under half a minute it was over, with all of the goblins laying vanquished.
The party set to giving proper burial rights to the Elves with assistance of Gabriel the Cleric (who also gave proper rights to their foes). The Half-Orc not wanting to see good meat go to waste began to skin and strip the dead horses. At this point the Party came upon their first employer. Frightened by the fight and shocked at watching a half-orc slice up her horses, Halfling Merchant, Sten Goodseller coward under the tipped cart sobbing. After a bit of reassurance things would be alright, the worked with the group to get her things in order, get the cart tipped up right, and set up a deal with the party to guard her way into Barrow's End. Some hilarity ensued as Elolyis attempted to convince Gelna to pull the cart, which eventually ended with Gelna pushing and Elolyis pulling (when the Half-Orc could see him, else he just sat on the front of the cart).
A few hours later, perhaps an hour out of town, just when it seemed they would reach Barrows end safely, the adventurers were suddenly assaulted by a Goblin Druid and his Tamed Wolf who burst from the woods ahead. Surprised, Beldam (who had the front, as Gelna was pushing the cart) only managed a glancing kick before he was overwhelmed as the Druid burned him with his Flame Touch and the wolf circled behind, leaped on his back and took him down. The rest of the party most still in shock began to ready weapons and advance when Elolyis stood up from the cart and uttered the magic words: "Exit light, enter night, take my hand, you're off to never never land!" The druid fell to the ground snoring. The wolf was finished off and Talon bound the Druid tossing him into the back of the cart for later questioning.
For the remaining hour or so into town the party hear repeatedly from Sten that this behavior by the goblins is very unusual. They have been cohabiting this area with them for years. Each society pretty much ignoring the other. Never before had their been such attacks, especially on a guarded caravan.
Reaching Town the party set up shop in the local Inn. Here they met their Patron, the inn's owner, a portly woman named Mailee. She set them up with rooms for the night and noted that she needed to await a moneylender who would be in town in the morning before she told them of their call for help. The party set about provisioning as well as taking a quick walk about the town. The town is a small one with only about 100 citizens. There is no formal watch or governing body, the Inn keeper Mailee has become the defacto mayor. Besides the usual Farms, blacksmith, mill, and houses, the town contained a non-denominational Church run by a young female Cleric of St. Cuthbert, Sten Goodseller's modest shop, a odd Purple building with yellow stars painted on it called Mysticallity and run by an eccentric Elven Wizard who makes most of his money telling the villagers futures.
Besides re-provisioning and drinking a fare share of the local Wines and Ales and getting a good night sleep, and meeting the locals, a lot of the town time was taken up trying to identity three items found on the Goblin Druid that was encountered outside of town. He had in his possession two wands and a scroll. Both the party Cleric and Sorcerer were unable to decipher anything about any of the items and the local Wizard wanted a ridiculously amount to properly identity the items (110 gold each item, due to the rare pearl required in each identity spell). Eventually the party made a deal with the Wizard to at least tell them the type of magic each item held. At this point the found out the scroll was Divine in nature and that both wands used Abjuration magic and required a key word to use. Remembering the tied up Druid the party went and questioned their prisoner. This lead to a large debate as to whether to torture, intimidate or deal with the Druid. It ended with a decision to trade the two key words for the goblin's freedom. A wise decision? We'll see later in the adventure.
The next morning the adventurers received their Quest. A dwarven Moneylender is putting up 500 gold for the good of the village for any party of adventurers to remove this goblin threat. It was re-iterated that this threat is unusual as the town has known about the goblins for years but that they had always kept to their own in the past. The adventurers bravely agreed to take up this task in defense of this nice honest and Honorable town. The Dwarven moneylender agreed that they will probably "... have to do." The next step was to figure out where the goblins are coming from. Talon provided the necessary tracking ability and the party set off for an area known as The Howling Hills..........
And that is where we broke for the night. To resume in two weeks time.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jun 2, 2008 11:00:17 GMT -5
Okay last weekends session started with a bit of Lateral Reincarnation. This is a term from Feng Shui the Roleplaying game where the time line gets changed and characters suddenly find themselves changed in some way, a different class, a different family, a different lot in lift etc. After the first session of an RPG I always allow my PC's to laterally reincarnate their characters. This is mainly done so that the players don't get stuck playing something they don't enjoy playing which can usually be determined during the first session.
The biggest Change was Gorechylds character, who was re-born as a Human Fighter named Bullvies (sp). A few other minor fixes were done to other characters. Or Half-Orc got quite a bit better with her weapons (as we forgot to add in Strength bonus to damage) our Cleric learned Spellcraft, and our Thief spent some skill points on Search.
After all of the character fixes we started on the adventure proper.
The party journeyed from town about 3 hours north to an area called The howling Hills, avoided by the simple townsfolk as haunted due to eary singing and wailing that permeates the area. Talon dispelled most everyone fears by explaining a rather unique geological feature in the hills that caused the effect (someone in one of my games actually took Knowledge: Geography, can you believe it?). Unfortunately it was a simple enough explanation for our Half Orc, who spent the remainder of the session spooked and looking for ghosts around every corner.
No ghosts were found though, but a whack of goblins were. As the party approached a cave entrance they were spotted by a couple goblin guards and their guard dog. The party advanced taking the occasion shot with ranged weapons while dodging goblin javelins. The Half Orc bravely charged forward only to get bitten by the dog and back one of the goblins into a corner. The other backed off and called for help. As the party finally reached the cave two more goblin reinforcements moved in and attempted to take a defensive position on a 5foot ledge above the party. Beldam the monk outmaneuvered them though and managed to take out one of them. He held off the two remaining as the party advanced and moved into the cave. Some how the one goblin, originally backed into a corner by Gelna still fought on, now near surrounded by 3 members of the party. He fought valiantly for 3 more rounds before being splattered into unrecognizable bits by Gelna. It took another 2 rounds for the party to finish of the remaining goblins who used their knowledge of the caves to get cover and high ground bonuses where possible and managed to score some wounding blows on the party. The worse was yet to come though.
Throwing caution to the wing, Beldam the Monk advanced into the room the goblin support had been coming from (after the door was splintered to near dust by Gelna). He was ambushed by 4 goblins. Two set up behind a makeshift barricade created from the card table they had recently overturned, and two others hiding in the corners all with readied actions. Beldam survived the initial assault but not unscathed. The party was bottlenecked at the doorway with most people just taking pot shots with ranged weapons despite the cover and firing into melee penalties. Two of the goblins went down but things were not looking good. At this point Gelna built up to a rage and charged forward into the room bull rushing the table. Such was her strength and momentum that the barricade and the one remaining goblin behind it, flew across the room a full 15feet smashing into the opposite side of the room and totally splattering the poor goblin. Finishing off the remaining guards was done in short order.
At this point, only two rooms into the Dungeon the party was looking pretty rough. The cleric was already out of healing magic and most members still had a few nicks and cuts. It was decided to barricade up the door as best they could and head back into town (after a lot of debate about setting up camp in the woods or in the entrance cave). Before leaving the party gathered up the coins the goblins had been gambling with as well as some spare equipment and a pair of master-craft dog bowls.
The party returned the next day to find the goblins had re-maned the entrance. The fight went quicker this time around in the main entrance chamber with most goblins being wiped out before they could even pull back to the higher ground. One goblin to manage to escape and call for help from a 'Big Bronk" though. At this point the party proved they don't learn from their mistakes as Gelna charged into the second room and was ambushed by another set of 4 goblins, all in nearly the exact position as when they ambushed the Monk. What can you expect from a Half Orc Barbarian though? This time around the fight went a lot better for the characters, and after this point the cleric actually had a few spells left and only a couple people were at all hurt. Thankfully the Cleric also remembered the Wand of Cure Light wounds he had found last session, negating the need to go back to town and give the goblins time to prepare for another assault.
From the initial rooms the party entered a small winding corridor only to have their Fighter, Bullvies come face to mace with Big Bronk's Morning Star. Pinned in a small 5 foot corridor, the huge Bugbear was making short work of the fighter, scoring a couple of telling blows. The party shuffled around trying to make room and fall back to the entrance cave where they could have a more even fight. Whether fortunately or not, Gelna would have none of this, and instead of backing out charged Bronk. The battle was not a close one as the Half Orc finished off the Bugbear in short order. After cleaning up the mess and stripping Bronk of some obviously magical and masterwork items the party set about exploring more of the Howling Hills.
At one point they found a secret door in Bronk's room and could hear what they thought was the sound of some form of sport being played, perhaps some sort of arena. Thinking about the parts of the dungeon they had seen before, the party guessed that this secret door and another set of double doors they had seen before opened into the same room. Catan worked out a plan where the party would split up and she would send a signal, and both groups would barge into the room at once. It worked beautifully, and 6 adult goblins playing and doing crafts with their kids were taken totally by surprise. The party ruthlessly cut down all of the adults as the kids ran from the room slipping into small cracks and passages in the cavern walls.
The threat to their children sent a rush of 4 goblins into the room, as well as backup from two Bugbears. The bugbears were spotted drinking some potions before disappearing down an passage unexplored by the party. They appeared a round later as the party was mopping up the final goblin, from a door in the side of the common room the battle was taking place in. Talon was rear guard but missed with this readied arrow and was quickly taken down by the Two Bugbears bulging with extra strength from the potions they drank. Countering Magic with Magic Gabriel called upon St. Cuthbert's blessing and caused Gelna to double in Size. The now "Large" Half Orc finished of the final goblins and moved to attack the Bugbears. Before she could make it over to the pair, Bullveis and Catan managed to flank one of the Bugbears and Catan's sneak attack finished it off quickly. The second bugbear was finished off shortly there after.
At this point the party caught their breath and took stock of where they were, what treasure they had found and their current health. It was undecided what would be their next step and the night was latter then expected so we stopped at this point.
So now the party has explored a section of the Howling Hills and has met quite a bit of resistance. They still have no clues as to what is driving the goblins to act so hostile. They have found some evidence that these caves my have had previous occupants though, from masterwork secret doors, indistinguishable from rock to masterwork dog bowls with symbols of Moradin the Dwarven God. The goblins are well alerted to the Party's presence though and one can only assume they are busy now preparing for the party's next move.....
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jul 1, 2008 10:30:07 GMT -5
Finished up Scourge of the Howling Hills Saturday night.
The party composition is the same, no more lateral reincarnations.
The game started off with everyone trying to figure out what to do. The party was in rough shape, with Talon at Deaths Door (-3 HP), and most of the front line fighters in only slightly better shape. After a full half hour of deliberation it was decided to use up some more charges in a Wand of Cure Light Wounds found earlier in the adventure (though the party had no idea how many charges it held) and move on wards through the Dungeons.
Heading deeper into the complex the party reached the end of the nicely carved Dwarven halls and entered into poorly worked tunnels. The first room the party found was owned by the Hobgoblins who took Talon out. They had a nice fancy chest in the corner, and the party continued the trend of throwing common sense to the walls as Bullvies opened the chest and was surprised to find a fusillade of darts flying at his face. Thankfully what little sense he had, did have him say "Stay Back" before opening the Trapped Chest, which may have saved some of the other characters as the hail of darts filled a 15foot area in front of the chest.
After exploring the area and divvying up the treasure from the now un-trapped chest, the party found themselves confronting a giant mushroom. There was some entertaining interplay between the characters at this point as they discussed what the ranger called a Shrieker. The mushroom was dispatched quickly but not before notifying everyone in a 5 mile radius that it was being attacked.
This set the stage for an Ambush that took Bullvies out of commission. Stepping past the Shrieker Bullvies disappeared around a corner. A few seconds later as the party advanced the corridor a smoke-stick landed at Catan's feat filling the corridor with smoke. Based on this the party split up, with Catan and Beldam advancing through the smoke, and the rest circling around to another entrance to the room. Catan was the next to be attacked by whatever lay in the room ahead, but only had her hair singed by a Burning Hands Spell. Gelna was the first to advance into the room from the other side and as she approached the smoke filled corridor she called out to see if anyone was there. This lead to an amusing moment as she wasn't sure if it was Catan she was swinging at or their mysterious attacker. Thankfully there was a Hobgoblin Wizard between the two party members as Gelna's Axe swing would have cleaved a horse. Dragging the unconscious Wizard and unconscious Bullvies back into the room, the party finally learned what had driven these goblins to attack the nearby village. So as to not ruin this for anyone that my want to play the module I won't give it away. The largest bout of Roleplaying occurred during this encounter. The party was firmly split on weather to leave the Wizard who had given them their information, on condition that she and her mate live, alive, dead or tied up. Half of the group was of the opinion all Goblins are evil and the other half seemed to believe that even thought they may be evil this one provided much needed information. The argument on this one took up nearly an hour of gameplay time, and was pretty heated. Eventually the Wizard was left alive and unbound.
Besides learning who their main adversaries were, the party also learned of a safe place to hold up within the dungeon. Soon after they set up shop in an ancient Dwarven Temple now converted to service of the dark Goblin god Maglubiet. Here Beldam continued the parties bumbling trend by setting off a shocking grasp trap after finding a hidden compartment in the Dwarven Alter. At this point the lack of proper use of the Rogue in the group turned into a bit of a running gag. The gag continued after the party had rested up and as they investigated a shaman's room. The entrance of which was trapped, and consequently set off by not one but two party members, as the thief sat back and laughed wondering why they weren't using her to check for these things.
The first proper use of the thief occurred back in the common room at a set of cheap wooden double doors. Each door was thoroughly checked and double checked for traps, locks or anything else unusual, before Bullvies opened both to discover the Goblin Privies. The scent of which had half of the party sickened for the next 10 rounds. Fighting quivering stomachs the party explored a set of natural caverns and a Kitchen that held a couple nasty surprises that left Gelna with -6 Con points and short a pair of boots. Satisfied that the complex had now been thoroughly searched, the party rested up for their final confrontation.
The Final fight had two parts, both of which were way too easy for the party to face. I suggest to anyone running this adventure to buff up the last too rooms significantly, especially if the party has the help from the Wizard so they are prepared for what lies ahead. Before facing the final foe the party buffed up pretty insanely. The First round had an Enlarged Gelna down a Bulls Strength Potion and lay the smack down in the area of 25 hit points of damage with just one hit, due to her now 30 Strength. This made the main boss seems like a Kitten, and really made for an anti-climatic ending. In addition the party had buffed up on appropriate potions of resistance, making the mobs attacks literally useless. If I ran this adventure again I would definitely buff the baddies or at least change the terrain so it favors the enemy more.
So with the final fight completed, and the entire goblin complex thoroughly raided the party returned to town as Heroes, even brining the corpse of the big boss back as a trophy. Everyone leveled up to 2nd level. The party received their agreed to reward, sold off some of their loot and then prepared to head off North, where they were told they could drop off a Mythril Dwarven Holy Symbol they found on their trip to the Howling Hills.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jul 26, 2008 23:21:34 GMT -5
Finally found time to play again tonight.
Party was smaller then usual with Talon and Gabriel not able to make it.
This session we started on the WotC Module, Barrow of the Forgotten King. Note there is a good chance there will be some spoilers in here, so if you plan on playing the module I suggest you stop reading now.
The beginning of the session launched with everyone arriving in town, meeting the locals and spending some of their treasure from the first adventure. This was all done informally with no roleplay. Found something odd with 3.5 here, the party couldn't find anything to buy. By 2nd level everyone pretty much had what they wanted, and didn't have enough money to start buying magic items. This seemed a bit odd to me. Most gold was spent on expendable items like potions.
The hook was that the party was hired to investigate some recent disappearances at a local mausoleum, and offered even more cash if they actually eliminate whatever the mystery threat is.
The first encounter occurred as the party got to the graveyard. They were ambushed by a couple of Wolves acting way too smart for their species. The first round of combat had one of the wolves hurting but not much else. Seeing things going well enough for his wolves a hiding Warg charged in on the second round. The dogs were overall pretty ineffectual, with both wolves going down quick and the Warg fleeing. They party then entered the Mausoleum to start their investigation.
This lead them to a set of steep stairs heading down into underground crypts. Here the party decided to try a new strategy. Instead of just walking into the room, and then either getting ambushed or ending up right in a fight, Gelna (Half Orc Barbarian) decided to charge down the stairs into the room. This may have been a good plan, except for a botched balance check that sent her tumbling down the stairs instead of charging. The embarrassment didn't end there though, hitting bottom she rolled another 10 feet sending her down a second set of stairs for even more damage. It was one of the most amusing moments in any of my gaming history.
After Gelna gathered her pride and the party spilled into the 'empty' preparations room, Beldam was surprised by a quick punch to the nuts from one of the 'corpses' on one of the prep tables (it was laying down, and just swung out a fist at the first thing to approach according to the module, due to this and the fact I rolled max damage we figured it had to be a money shot). This started a round of combat between the party, two zombies and three skeleton archers. The party finished this one off relatively quickly with little more damage.
At this point the party found a reason to go back to town: a small girl who survived the attack. Instead of questioning the girl, the party instead discussed the best way to dispose of the zombies and skelies so they wouldn't come back to life. Not the best thing to do in front of a little girl when the zombies are her Father and Grand Father. After this mess the party headed back to town, got healing from the local cleric and then headed back down for more investigation.
The next big event was the discovery of a personal crypt for two Wizards, lovers from the town from years past. Catan, our Thief was the first to enter this room, which was oddly in pristine shape with no signs of wear or even any dust. The reason for this became evident as small flying clockwork beasts came flying out of holes in the wall and covered Catan in small stings. She immediately felt weak on her feat and felt her agility draining fast (Clockwork Menders do Dex Poison). Rushing to save their Thief the party charged in and attempted to battle these tiny insect like beasts. It was a long fight as the clockwork bugs were tiny and hard to hit and kept buzzing in and out of cover behind sarcophagi and a statue in the room. After this one room, the party was already in sad shape (Catan was at -10 to her initial Dex, and Beldam was also at -4 or so). So the party decided to go back to town and visit the local Cleric again (note our Cleric didn't show up to play tonight). Here I found out why the party doesn't have anything to buy at this level, they need all the money for paying for spells to do things like heal and repair agility damage.
After healing up the party returned to the complex only to be baffled by a puzzle. This I really don't want to give away so I won't go into any detail. Lets just say it took a long time, and the party spent more time trying to figure out how to open the door to the room, then actually solving the puzzle in the room. The one amusing part of it was that the Half Orc Barbarian who couldn't Read was the one to eventually figure out the Puzzle.
Here is where we ended for the night. Overall it was a pretty good session, I had hoped to get one more room after this done, but we did spend a lot of time making jokes, especially after Gelna fell down the stairs.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jul 30, 2008 13:57:03 GMT -5
SO far so good IMOA. Still hoping to run across more unusual beasties and enemies than the standard goblin/orc/hobgoblins/skeletons etc that are pretty much standard fare for D&D. But I guess that will happen at higher levels. The main attraction of these modules are the rich abundance of magice stuff you can find, so I am banking on seeing much more in the near future. Hate waiting 2 weeks to play but free time is at a minimum these days.. not like when we were all 18 Looking forward to next session! Buliwyf
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Aug 10, 2008 11:50:40 GMT -5
Still hoping to run across more unusual beasties and enemies than the standard goblin/orc/hobgoblins/skeletons etc that are pretty much standard fare for D&D. Well Gorechyld go his wish... This last session we continued where we left off. The party composition was quite different though. Gabriel The Cleric and Ice Talon the Ranger returned from a trip to a nearby Dwarven Stronghold where they returned a lost Relic of Moradin. Catan and Beldam though felt some aftereffects from the stinging poison of the Clockwork beasts. The party down in the depths of the mausoleum returned from town to get their Thief and Monk inspected by the local Cleric and met up with their previously absent members. So we started the session with only Four of Six players and started back in town so that the players missing last week got a chance to gear up and shop before heading back in. I was tempted to make the two returning players go through the wonderful puzzle experience the rest of the party had to deal with last week, but decided against it as I didn't want to loose a large chunk of playing time for only those two players. So we started this session just past the Puzzle room. The party found themselves on a slightly winding set of stairs and landings heading deeper into the Ancient complex. It was obvious that this area wasn't used by the citizens of Kingsholm, but was much much older. Things happened quickly as Gelna stumbled upon to Wolf Skeletons left behind to slow the party. Being stuck on a set of 5 foot stairs the party had issues trying to get into any position to mount a good attack, so instead Gabriel called upon St. Cuthburt and his faith caused the undead dogs to flee. Gelna pursued only to be slammed by a Large Zombie Ogre laying in wait in a room at the foot of the stairs. Gelna was badly hurt taking more then half of her hit total from that one hit. This panicked the group quite a bit, and everyone moved slowly into the room trying as best they could to avoid any attacks of opportunity. Fortunately the Zombie Ogre was tough but slow, and it eventually scummed to a combined assault, as the party focused on it and let the dogs cower in the corner. One nice strategic move was done by Gabriel as he made the two frontline fighters, Gelna and Bullvies Invisible to Undead. This caused the Ogre to attack the heavily armoured and fully healed Cleric over either of the now wounded front line fighters. After mopping up the Ogre the party quickly finished off the cowering Dog Skellies (seems in 3.5 only if the Cleric who turned the Undead approach too close or attack does the 'spell' get broken. Unusual change). This is when things started to turn around, everyone made it into the room and started concentrating on the Ogre Zombie, and Gabriel had just cast Hide from Undead: After cleaning themselves off and a bit of healing magic the Party pressed onward. The next challenge they faced was a rope bridge across a thin cavern. The cavern walls were only about 10 feet apart, but the drop to the bottom was about 10 feet as well. At the bottom of the cleft was some standing watter, no clue how deep. After some discussion it was decided that Ice Talon would cross first being the lightest and fairly dexterous. Unfortunately he proved just how un-dexterous he was by slipping on a loose board and plunging 10 feet down into the water, taking significant damage. If this wasn't enough, something was waiting for him in the Water, and he was quickly bashed and knocked unconscious and pulled under. Bullvies and Gelna bravely jumped in after the Elf trying to save him as whatever it was pulled Talon to the opposite end of the chasm, still underwater. With not even a round to go Gelna was able to pull Talon from the grasp of the 'whatever' and prevent him from drowning. At the same time Gabriel attempted to move carefully across the bridge to the opposite side, as his heavy armour wouldn't do him well in the water below. As he reached the end he discovered just in time that the bridge had been sabotaged and made it across just as the last ropes broke and the bridge tumbled into the cavern. The next quite a few rounds and even more game time were devoted to trying to kill whatever it was in the water. The beast was completely invisible in the water, making locating and hitting it very difficult. All the while it kept trying to drown the Party. Twice Bullvies was pulled under, once even to the point of unconsciousness, and Twice he was saved by the Efforts of Gelna and Gabriel. This was actually a rather tense and amusing fight with everyone stabbing near randomly at the water, not even sure what they were fighting. FYI: it was a Flotsam Ooze the party had encountered. 100% transparent in Water, giving it Invisibility and thus 50% cover, and only then if the attacker picks the right square. One of the more amusing moments, the beast attempted to attack Bullvies then slid between his legs to be in better position, to the sensation of this unknown thing moving by his nether-regions Bullvies commented "Reminds me of that time I was Drunk and went to that Bathhouse... I was being touched all over by who the heck knows what!" After spending what seemed like an eternity battling water, the party composed themselves on the opposite side of the chasm and decided to rest. At this point Catan came out of the shadows laughing at their recent plight. She had snuck in earlier and had trailed the party. (Player showed up late after work). Now being fully rested the party moved into the next room. Here they discovered the cavern their prey must have used to enter the complex. Here there was a short battle versus a messed up beasty called a Choker. Here's where Gorechyld got his wish... this is definitely not your usual goblin: After defeating the Choker (who was felled by a well placed shot by Talon causing it to loose it's grip and fall 40 feet, only to be smacked by Gabriel's mace on the way down), the party investigated a hugely long tunnel up to the surface. Here the party split up, both due to not wanting everyone on one ladder at once and due to the fact that two of the members were leveling up to level 3. This would be a mistake... Reaching the top, Talon Gabriel and Catan found a giant statue and an old campsite. Not long after looking around they were confronted by another horror, this time a Runehound. This is a nasty white hairless dog like creature covered in runes. It's tooth filled head sits atop an extra long neck that sprouts from the center of it's back. (Sorry couldn't find a pic, and needed to sup for the pic below). Here we see the party as the first confront the Runehound as is breaks from cover of the trees and attacks with it's Vile Spew: This fight went very poorly for the scattered party. First Gabriel was stuck fast by vile spew. After spitting it's horrendously gross attack the Runehound retreated behind the nearby giant trees and hid. At the same time Gabriel attempted to free himself and Catan and Talon moved into cover. A second round went by with the Runehound hiding, Gabriel struggled and Catan and Talon readied their ranged weapons. On the Third round the hound appeared again, The archers fired but their weapons couldn't hurt the odd runic skin of the mob. It quickly took out Talon with a shot of green spew. The fight continued with the Hound hiding behind trees and popping out to spew at the party. Eventually Gabriel broke free and managed to charge into combat with it. He did manage to wound the thing but went down to a nasty bite a round after. At this point Talon was down and bleeding, Gabriel was down and Bleeding and the Thief Catan, true to her calling, fled to the hole in the ground back down to the mausoleum complex. Here we see this point in the battle: While Catan attempted to flee down the Ladder Gelna and Bullvies attempted to climb up as quick as they could to help their fallen party members. It took many rounds but eventually Gelna made it to the top (10 rounds of climbing). Here she valiantly battled the Runehound almost falling herself. Here Catan gained some courage and snuck up from behind and fed Gelna a healing potion as she struggled to escape from some web like Vile Spew. After feeding the potion Catan moved to a place behind the statue so she was ready to sneak attack the beast from behind, flanking it with Gelna. The beast died shortly thereafter. By the time Bullvies finally climbed the 200 feet to the top he arrived to find out that Gabriel had sucummed to his wounds but that Ice Talon had some how stabilized before moving onto another Plane. Here the party gathered up the dead and wounded and made the long sad trek back to town. They inquired about the potential of having Gabriel resurrected, but the donation the Church required was unobtainable at this point in their careers. Instead they enlisted the help of a local Druid who constructed a new body for Gabriel's soul to inhabit. So we ended the night with the party beaten and battered, but all present. Two of the members had reached 3rd level, and another had died and thus dropped down to the start of 2nd level. Gabriel had a near death experience, but is now back with us, though a little shorter... as he was now a Halfling!
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Aug 11, 2008 7:30:37 GMT -5
Yes a very intense fight on both occasions ( the water and the hound). I think that proved to this young adventuring party that it is BAD to split up. especially when your front like heavy hitters are not with the group. The rune hound was a new one for me (thanks for the varity DM) and I just wish I could have got to grips with it. oh well maybe next time there is a horrible warped spawn abomination I will ge to see it WAIT.. what am I saying! Leveling up nice and fast with these adventures.. yeah! I might get a character into double digits this party! I must say it was humorous to see Gabriel reincarnated as a halfling but as far as him hanging around with the party from now on I would imagine it wont happen. no fun playing a char that you dont like. Other than that still having a great time! Maybe someday we will get to have an "all day" session one weekend. I doubt all our schedules will coinside but heres hoping. Till 2 weeks from now... the fighter will be carousing in the tavern till we venture forth again for more plunder and adventures!
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Aug 19, 2008 9:50:14 GMT -5
4 more days till I can stab stuff again... how fun!!!
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Aug 25, 2008 11:10:06 GMT -5
Well our last game, which shall be named the Decaf Debacle, was last Saturday. We had a full house, with all players present, even though the Thief (sorry Rogue) was a little late getting to the table. The session wasn't our most memorable, and consisted mainly of long combat encounters. The game started on a humorous note as NightParade elected to continue playing Gabriel the now Halfling Cleric of St. Cuthburt. He had all of us laughing as he played through his character dealing with these odd new Halfling Urges including ridding himself of his 'nasty uncomfortable boots' and having 2nd dinner and packing a doggie bag before heading back to the Dungeon. I know technically Halflings in 3.5 are more thin and Kender like but it was rather amusing so we went with it. Once back in the dungeon proper the party got to find out just how tough and unbalanced Varags really are. The reason I note this is that I had recently read a review on Monster Manual IV that goes on about how the mobs are much tougher in this book, and how mobs with similar challenge ratings from IV are way stronger them mobs from I-III. The review specifically looked at the Varag. You can read this review here: www.timewastersguide.com/review/1525/Monster-Manual-IV. Now the party fared better then the review party with no casualties, but a ton of healing spells were used as were a few potions. It was not an easy fight. After dealing the the Varag the party wasted half a days time trying to get through a barred door, then gave up and ran into a diplomatic encounter. This played out well and the party eventually talked their way past the threat and moved on to the final room of the night. The final encounter was vs. a Hobgoblin Were-Rat. This went poorly at first due to bad writing in the module. For some dumb reason the 'read the box' text gave away far too much information that the party couldn't possibly know when entering the room. Due to this I had to fudge the room so that the party had a definite advantage on their foe. This meant the fight was fast, though not fast enough for Bullvies to not have to spend the next week or so worrying he may be deceased or even worse become a Lycanthrope. It could be interesting to see this develop. This encounter ended with the party capturing the Were-Rat alive and getting it to pass on a wealth of information about the enemies the party is pursuing through this complex. There was yet another good RP section where the party debated on whether to kill the rat man or not that pretty much ended with Beldam declaring "I'll let this one go, but, this is THE LAST thing we let walk away EVER!". At this point over half the party hit level 3 and based on the Module being run, I let them level up while still in the Dungeon. While half the party leveled, the rest of the players stated to get rather bored, then started to doze off. By the time the leveling was done, at least 2 of the players were half asleep and blurry eyed. We decided to finish up the room we were in (which still had a simple puzzle to solve for some good magic items) and call it a night. We check the time and it's only 10:30! WTF. Normally we play till 11:00 guaranteed and then often play for up to two hours more depending on people work schedule. This night no one had any obligations but half the party was falling asleep. Which made no sense as they were all pounding coffee. This is when we found out that they had been drinking the coffee that was upstairs by the coffee maker and not the big tin of coffee Gorechyld brought. The coffee by the coffee maker was brought over a couple YEARS ago by Church and was Decaf. It's been sitting there untouched for years. So that is why this night shall be known as the Decaf Debacle. Next session I'll make sure that old tin is tossed out.
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talon
Level 2 PC
Posts: 48
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Post by talon on Aug 26, 2008 10:08:13 GMT -5
its was still a good night even it was a early one can't wait for the next game night
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talon
Level 2 PC
Posts: 48
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Post by talon on Sept 8, 2008 18:55:17 GMT -5
it was a ok night my character was killed in action now what should i play in the game.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Sept 9, 2008 15:04:21 GMT -5
Talon beat me to it....
Our last session was a bit of a debacle. We only had half the party show up, and spent most of the night waiting for the other half. After about half our time was gone I left it up to the players to decide if they wanted to try a very challenging encounter with only three of them. The consensus was that they would go for it.
So we only did the one encounter. For the sake of continuity the party split into two groups. Bullvies, Catan and Gabriel took a Western Passage (The Players not present) and Gelna, Talon and Beldam took the eastern passage (the players present). After exploring the area, quite noisily and being very paranoid that a series of statues was going to come to life and kill them the active party came across a room guarded by 4 Varag Skeletons. Just beyond the Skeletons they could see a Hobgoblin cleric over the bones of a large horned creatures set of bones. Note: the party could have snuck up on this cleric and caught him just about to raise the 4 skeletons but they made about as much noise as possible while exploring the area outside of the Cleric's chambers so he was ready for them. A rules question came up around this: what the heck is a parties Move Silently score when they aren't actually trying to move silently? We didn't dig too deep into it as Gelna rolled a 1 on her check anyway.
So the party faced a higher level Cleric that knew they were coming. Things were going to be tough. The fight started with Gelna making a brilliant overrun attack that got her almost to the cleric. But it was too little to late as the Cleric still had room and time to raise a Minotaur Skeleton in his defense. The skeletons moved to block the other two party members from entering the room, leaving Gelna to face the Minotaur and Cleric alone. Beldam and Talon tried some strategic moves to try to get the skeletons to charge them, and tried a few other tactics to finish them off quickly but nothing seemed to work (I think the number of 3s Beldam rolled had more to do with it then actual strategy).
The Cleric spent the combat casting a wide variety of spells. He started by trying three de-buffs on Gelna - Doom, Cause Fear and one other I can't remember right now, but Gelna's Will was strong enough to resist them. All the while Gelna concentrated on the Skeletal Minotaur being less then effective. The Cleric continued his casting (making many Concentration checks and using Defensive casting) improving his armour and summoning a spiritual weapon to harass Gelna. All the while using 5 foot steps to get Gelna between and then flanked by the Minotaur.
Two of the Skeleton guards finally succumbed to the attacks of the other party members, and the Minotaur left the fight with the Half Orc and moved to block the doorway. Both Talon and Beldam were in melee in the area (Talon being a ranger found his sword much more effective against the undead then his arrows). After only one exchange of blows the combat looked grim. Talon was crushed between the claws of the Minotaur Skeleton (instantly to -13 HP).
In a fit of rage and revenge Gelna and Beldam finished off the Minotaur with Beldam's Bludgeoning Fists and Flurry of Blows doing most of the work. This left only the Cleric, who at this point only had a few minor scratches. The remainder of the battle saw the Cleric use up the rest of his spells while the party kept him flanked from two sides. One thing that really turned the tide was a great use of Stunning Fist by Beldam that caused the Cleric to drop his +1 flail. This left him unarmed and more importantly unable to strike attacks of opportunity. The battle still lasted another 5 or so rounds though as he was able to keep himself standing with minor healing spells and still had a high AC due to his magical armour spells (he had AC 23, which is pretty high for a 3rd level party). In the end he went down though, falling to the wide variety of axe slashes and pounding fists.
After this point the party took stock and headed back to town in order to raise their dead friend. They again contacted the Druid from the woods and asked him to reincarnate their friend (again unable to afford the 5000 gold diamond required for Raise Dead). The druid worked his magic and a new body was formed for Talon. The body of a Goblin! A Goblin, Talon's more hated foe, his sworn enemy, it was more then the (one time) elf could take. He was last seen screaming off into the woods near Kingsholm.
When last we talked it looks like a Dwarven Cleric of Moradin has heard of the parties quest to find the defliers of the home of King under the Mountain, and will be joining them. Which will also give Gabriel the option of retiring his Halfling Cleric which he has considered a few times.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Sept 22, 2008 15:19:06 GMT -5
It sucks that REAL life interferes with my Fantasy life... Stupid real life stupidness.... grrr....
Bulvies will be there swinging his 2 handed sword much to the dismay of the enemy next time I assure you!
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Sept 23, 2008 11:39:55 GMT -5
Well I've gotten in contact with everyone, we should have a nearly full group this Saturday. That Dwarven Cleric of Moradin I meantioned is still inbound from the northern realms and will take another couple weeks to arrive but the rest of the party should be good to go. I'm not certain if our Halfling Cleric will be with us or if he will have found a replcement.
FYI: this will swap the weeks we are playing to odd weekends instead of even. So the 27th, then Oct 11th. Not sure if we will keep with the odd weekends after that but will keep everyone posted, here and in email.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Sept 29, 2008 10:32:28 GMT -5
So the party continued deeper onward in the Barrow of the Forgotten King.
The game started off with Gelna and Beldam exploring some natural caves and entering an oddly finished room. Immediately upon entering there was a bright flash and they found themselves facing 3 humanoid shapes, indistinct in the bright light. After a bit of roleplay and surprisingly no bloodshed the two groups figured out they knew each other. It appeared that Bullvies, Catan and Gabriel had been teleported away by some source when entering the Clerics chambers. Whatever magic it was whisked BullVies and Catan here into this room. Along with a Mysterious Stranger, who the partied soon allied with.
This was Night Parade's new character, who's name I can't for the life of me remember, so we shall call him Captain Stealth for now. The character is an Elf, Sorcerer/Thief. An interesting combo. This first encounter went better then I expected actually with everyone roleplaying it out rather well. The one disappointment I noticed when thinking back on the game was that no one reacted to the fact Gabriel wasn't there. I think since the player was there (now with a new character) no one even though about the absent Halfling Cleric).
The newly re-formed group continued onward in deeper into the Barrow. They went through a series of natural tunnels and found them selves on a narrow ledge. Looking over the edge they couldn't even see the bottom. At the end of the ledge was a rope tied to a piton, leading to a precipice of rock sticking up and out of the darkness. It was 20 feet down from the ledge the party was on. As they began navigating their way across the gap, Bullvies suddenly screamed out in terror as a nasty known as an Eye Minion flew toward them. This nasty is basically two eyes floating in space like a twisted bolo, the eyes connected by tissue and sinew. Related to Beholders, they have two gaze attacks, one being a Fear Effect that Bullvie's was currently suffering from.
The combat was surprisingly short with everyone taking out ranged weapons and doing far too well on Saving Throws to make this beast much of a threat. After Catan pinned the beast to a wall, piercing both eyes with a well placed arrow, the party navigated the second ledge, again finding a piton with a rope tied to it. This time around it led northward and downward, the end being out of range of the parties torches. Bullvies was already half way across, trying to get away from the Eye beast as quickly as possible. At this point the party had determined the drop was approximately 100 feet and everyone took their climb checks with held breath. Not a single failure. The party gathered on a new outcropping of stone, again sticking up from the darkness like a pillar in the darkness. Again at the end of it was a piton with a rope, but this time the rope had been cut. Across the gap the party could see a final ledge with a ladder leading out of this trap like cave. The ledge was 10 feet away but 20 feet down. After discussing strategy for some time, Beldam decided to test his Martial Training and Leaped Across landing perfectly into a duck and roll, standing with only some dust on his clothing to show for it. After tying up a rope between the remaining gap and all of the rest of the party had made the climb across, Catan finally had the thought to use her own rope to tie herself off before crossing. Seems the parties common sense skill has maintained from the first adventure until now.
After navigating this treacherous cavern the party continued on and finally found the Magical Labyrinth they were warned about by an earlier WereRat Captive. Here the party twisted turned, and fought there way through room after room and corridor after corridor. Magic in the area appeared to be on the fritz sometimes summoning horrible Fiendish Beasts (the party faced Fiendish Wolverines, Fiendish Boars, Fiendish Giant Spiders and Fiendish Weasels) and other times summoning Celestial beings like the Dog headed Hound Archon. In each case the party either fought valiantly or negotiated safe passage.
Each room also had some form of twist, including a rift to the nether realms spitting gouts of flame or a chessboard like room where characters had to move like the piece they were assigned or be paralyzed. The Chess room I found notable as everyone actually got in character and made an on the spot call as to whether or not their character knew the game and would know how to move. I think the Most amusing was Bullvies believing her heard a message from the gods telling him he will be King.
All in all it was quite a bit of fun I thought. This section of the module is open ended, and meant to be a transition area that provides some much needed xp (especially for players who have missed sessions), there is only one set encounter in the book, the rest I improvised, finally getting use out of my Dungeon Tile sets. By the end I even let the players decide what two of the rooms looked like (interestingly both pictured outdoors areas, I wonder if the characters are starting to feel claustrophobic).
We ended the night after about 7 encounters in the Labyrinth, with still no end to the Maze in sight. In all it was a good night, the Archons added some much needed roleplay to the module that had been lacking up to this point. That combined with everyone reactions to the various traps and the treacherous cavern at the start of the nights session gave us what I think was the session with the most in character gaming and roleplay since we have started this campaign.
Next session (in two weeks) will pick up with the party going down another winding corridor, which will end in a room, with multiple exits, where something will be summoned. Will it be another Celestial Being willing to help, or another Fiendish Beast slavering for flesh. Will one of the doors lead them out of the Maze and back on the track of the Evil Mage Xeron, or will the party wander till the end of times through magicked halls?
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talon
Level 2 PC
Posts: 48
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Post by talon on Sept 29, 2008 20:08:21 GMT -5
i will try to get there next iam out of town for the next 12 weeks if not see all of you next year
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Oct 2, 2008 16:05:52 GMT -5
I have this unusual, insatiable desire for cheese...
Buliwyf
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Oct 14, 2008 12:34:47 GMT -5
Full plate armor is HEAVY!
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Oct 14, 2008 13:02:58 GMT -5
LOL
That comment was made due to the fact that our last session had quite a bit of jumping, climbing and swimming which made that -5 Armour Check Penalty on Bullvies' Plate really hurt.
Still lost in the enchanted Labrynth the party came to a natural cavern about half filled with water. The halls of the Barrows dropped 20 feed down to the ground/water, with pillars of stone sticking up in irregular intervals. Instead of risking a few jumps across the party instead decided to head to a small shore area. Here they had another lesson on how hard it is to climb and jump in armour. Once down on the rocky shore BullVies felt the need to step on a set of runes on the floor and everything went to hell... somewhat literally. The water in the room suddenly rose 20feet sweeping everyone toward the center of the cavern. There the watter suddenly dropped the characters to the maws of waiting Giant Stygian Leeches, each the size of a man's leg. The two Giant Leeches were only half the threat though, as Gelna and Catan were assaulted by swarms of smaller Stygian Leeches, just the sight of which set Catan to vomiting. Bullvies went down quick in his plate mail, the water doing more damage then the leeches, Gelna and Catan were struggling with the Leeches, with one of the Giant ones firmly attached to Gelna's back. This only left Beldam to save Bullvies. In a nice feat of swimming and strength he managed to drag the Fighter unconscious to the shore. The next round Gelna escaped from the Leeches and managed to drag Catan with her, but she still had one attached to her back. It took another two rounds to removed the infernal thing. By the end of the fight both Catan and Gelna had lost a lot of Con points, and Catan had managed to catch Devil's Fever from the beasts.
After camping for the night in order to get some health back the party moved on. Here they ran into a couple traps, the first a pretty standard pit trap and the second a Cause Light Wounds trap disguised as an illusiary mouth. Both traps were pretty much just stumbled into. Once past the traps the party entered a room filled with pillars with a 10 foot wide fissue in the center of the room. As the party entered a Fiendish Giant Scorpion appeared. Here Bullvies found out that it's not just swimming that is hard in Plate. He botched a jump roll and fell down 20 feet into the fissure where he got wedged between the hard sharp rock walls loosing well over half his HP. The rest of the party assaulted the Scorpion which quickly managed to snatch up Beldam in one of it's claws and was holding it's own against Gelna. Perhaps it was the sound of his Fighter friend calling for help down in the fissure or some other inner stregth but Beldam managed a feat of strength and acrobatics which not only freed him from the Scorpions claws but also put him into a flanking position. The rest of the fight went quickly with Catan moving up for the Sneak Attack Finish. After this BullVies was forcebly and painfully removed from his wedged position by Gelna. Badly bashed and beaten the party moved on and finally found the end of the Labyrinth.
In the first room out of the maze the party found a stray Half Elf who was part of the band raiding the Mausoleum. From her they were able to get some intel on who exactly they were facing and what they might be after (well at least they found out they weren't after looting tombs). Following the Half Elves lead the party battled past some nasty Automatons (and got to learn how useful the Melee assist attack was), and came across a room with statues, straw on the ground and a rushing waterfall.
After making a noisy entry into this room the party was ambushed by three Varags. They had already learned how nasty these descendants of Hobgoblins were but this time around they got to find out how tough a Varag Scout was. The first half of the battle had the two Varags jumping in and out of hand to hand over a small fissure in the ground, using spring attack and tumble to get in and out before the party could really strike back. At the same time the scout was peppering the party with arrows from a magic short-bow. After taking some damage the Varags backed up and waited for the party to make the next move. Which most of them did, into the straw and onto the caltrops that were hidden below. By the end of the round they advanced over half the party was knocked to half speed. This gave a huge advantage to the Varags who continued to move in and strike only to move away while their leader continued to harass the party with arrows.
Eventually the party managed to back the varags against the waterfall edge and finished them off. It was another 6 rounds before they could finish off the scout and it took Gelna bull rushing the beasty down some slippery stairs combined with a stunning fist from Beldam to finish him off.
As soon as the Varag was finished off a Fossergrim (a type of Fey) stepped out of the Waterfall and demanded to know what the party was doing at his falls. After some 'interesting and innuendo filled' conversation (and an evening and next morning and next day and next evening, with Catan) the Fossergrim healed up the party and gave them some hints on what they had yet to face.
So what exactly is a Tomb Spider, and what was that about having a Heucuva time?
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Nov 4, 2008 16:18:04 GMT -5
I WANT TO PLAY!!!!!!
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Nov 4, 2008 18:39:50 GMT -5
Well tell you what, since you asked so nice. I just found out I have to spend another week down here in Kentucky, but just for you I will come home for the weekend to run D&D. Then make the 6 hour drive back here so I can get back to work on saving our southern plant.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Nov 11, 2008 9:35:37 GMT -5
Bah! The US auto market is breathing its last breaths anyways... Although I figure with your necromantic prowess you should be able to coax it back from the brink of death to a more powerful "undeath" with no problem.
Now.. I would imagine such a casting would require great quantities of blood and sacrifices to accomplish. Those could be had by shipping over the already seemingly endless supply of immigrant mexican workers always clamouring across the border. Next you will have to scribe the appropriate runes on the factory floors and walls which could be done with "said" workers since not only are they ignorant of the english language but I would imagine the language of magicks as well.
Oh the delicious irony of it all!
Then... once the prescribed symbols are painted, the sacrifices made and the words of power spoken all should be accomplished within the week and you wil be home for the G2G on the 14th!
There... simple. I am surprised that the Big 3 havent turned to the dark arts earlier to bolster their sagging profits. Although trafficking with abominable agents does pose some dangers but I see no other options at this time for them.
I hope your ritual goes well and the powers of darkness are pleased with your sacrifices. I shall hold commune with mine own agents to learn of your progess and keep watch. As always, I remain yours in devilment and depravity...
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Nov 11, 2008 10:19:48 GMT -5
Not sure if you know this buy Chrysler LLC is owned by Cerberus. The Dark Arts change over started about two years ago. Totally forgot to update this after our game on Saturday. Lets see how well my memory serves. When we last left our brave adventurers they were resting under the care of a Fossergrim (well most of them were resting, Catan was a little busy 'paying' for that care). Once rested up the 'grim helped the party pass a narrow waterfall ledge and left them on the opposite side. Here they ran into the Elf Sorcerer they had met in the magic Labyrinth. (aka all party members showed up this time around). The Fossergrim gave them a heads up that a deadly Tomb Spider awaited them in the next room so the party spent some time preparing. Potions of Mage Armour were drunk, Olaroso (the Elf Sor/Rog) came up with a brilliant plan of using Detect Poison to find out where the spider is. The problem was that the room ahead, covered in webs contained no more then 3 sources of poison, a wide weak area right in front of the party, a stronger concentration behind a large statue and an even stronger concentration above and off to the left. At this point the party wasn't sure what to do and spent so long deliberating that a swarm of fist sized, shining red spiders spilled out of the webbing on the floor and swarmed them. Bulvies was smart enough to slam the door shut before more creatures could come out but the all but one member of the party was being covered in fist sized arachnids. The first round of this combat went very poorly for the party as 4 members out of 5 were nauseated by their situation in addition to taking damage from the spiders bites. This left only Catan with enough wits to act. She attempted to use some fire oil on the spiders and this did little to the swarm and left 2 of her companions less some body hair. After the first round things went much better. Most of the party managed to move out of the swarm leaving the two fighters (Gelna and Bullvies) in the spiders midst so they wouldn't swarm over to other less hardy members of the party. The fight was long and hard and by the end of it half the party had been poisoned and only one member was still at full hit points. All that and the party knew there were two more sources of poison still to go. So after a quick breather the party opened the door, and came instantly face to face with a Tomb Mummy. This is an undead wrapped in webs instead of bandages which barely contain hundreds of small red spider young. This fight started poorly with Gelna getting a good hit on the mummy but then finding out just how sticky it's webbed body was as her Battle Axe was wrenched from her hands after she struck. The battle raged for quite some time and when the killing blow should have been struck, the mummy burst into a full swarm of baby tomb spiders. Thankfully the party had faced such a threat before and they were prepared for it this time, so no one was nauseated this time around. This made the fight much quicker then the last. While battling the second Broodswarm a couple of the party members noticed a spider as large as a horse darting back and forth in the room ahead. Here was the tomb spider proper and the party correctly guessed that he was setting up web traps for when they defeated it's young. After finishing off the swam the party spend some time buffing up. Gelna stepped into the room and drank a potion of Giant Growth. Bullvies rubbed his sword with a potion of Enchant Weapon and Olaroso pumped up the front line fighters with Mage Armour. Gelna raised her axe and pushed into the room, only to be stuck in a sheet of webbing... webbing that was much too weak for her now Large size. She went through sheet after sheet of webbing clearing the path for the rest of the party. Seeing this 'beast' so easily defeat it's trap the Tomb Spider retreated to an overhead balcony and prepared for the parties assault. Gelna's large size allowed her to pull herself up to the balcony with a simple climb check. Beldam the monk, showed off his martial prowess, leaping up the large statue in the center of the room and up to the balcony. The two of them engaged the Spider. The slower party members moved about the bottom floor trying to find a way up, which they found in the form of stairs at the other end of the room. The fight with the spider went fairly well but was long. It had a lot of hit points and hit bit for even more. In the end the entire party was up on the balcony and had cornered the beast. By the end of the fight most of the party was a little worse for wear. Bullvies did a great job being the Tank, standing firm in the face of all challengers, and he barely stood with 4 HP remaining at this point. Here is where Bullvies should have died. After the fight he told me he downed a Cure Moderate Wounds potion. At this point the party had already determined that Tomb Spider Poison caused a person to be wounded by positive energy and healing, but this was forgotten in the aftermath of the battle. So as to not off a character for such a silly reason I allowed everyone to make an Intelligence check. Thankfully Gelna was smart enough to yell out Stop before the potion hit his lips. Just for our informations sake, Bullvies rolled his damage, had he not stopped the potion would have knocked him to -14 HP. After the near miss with the potion the party used up much of their healing reserves and camped for the night (which really made me miss the 4th edition healing rules). The next morning, the party moved on. In the next room they were treated to a magic illusion what I won't repeat here in case anyone ever plays this module. All in all they got to play like they were on the Holodeck as one of the most powerful illusions any had seen played out in front of them. They continued on and the illusion started again this time much more foreboding. From here they entered a chamber and came face to face with two Horrors. The first was a Heucava - an undead Paladin cursed to live forever for betraying his honour. The second was a Bloated Plague Corpse. This fight went quicker then the last but not without everyone taking some damage. The biggest blow to the party came in the form of an exploding plague Corpse. Like the Flood in Halo this thing took a deep breath then expanded and exploded, splashing everything in a 30ft radius with gore and necrotic energy. The Heucuva proved less of a challenge. Though it was near impossible to wound, it didn't seem to have much skill with it's ceremonial sword either. The fight was long, with only a couple characters being able to wound the beast, but the party didn't suffer much for the fight. At this point we called it a night. Overall we had a hugely off topic night that was filled with a lot of fun and laughs but we weren't very focused on the game. I think this is what happens when we have to cancel a week and none of us see each other for a month. Overall a fun night, but we do have to finish this adventure sometime soon. At the rate we are going the Climax should be next session.... we shall see.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Nov 11, 2008 11:21:25 GMT -5
I figured that since the battle was over we reverted back to the normal way that time passes in the game as opposed to time passing via "rounds" that last 3 mintues each I believe. I figured it took time to loot the lair and to gather all the stuff and at that point sufficient time had passed that it would be safe to quaff the elixer. And maybe I forgot JSUT a tieenie tiny bit what would happen
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Nov 27, 2008 17:51:29 GMT -5
Armageddon... the Final Battle...
Well we finished off The Barrow of the Forgotten King last weekend and things went out with a Bang. Most notably our Thief.
The party continued on after facing the Heucuva and the Plague Corpse. The investigated the room opposite where they faced these horrors and came face to face with themselves. Well at least a Giant mirror. Bullvies was the first to brave a glance and he relived his greatest Glory. Catan followed, getting a flashback to that 'encounter' with the Fossergrim from a couple weeks back (her greatest Glory). Beldamn obviously didn't see the same thing as he spent the rest of the night depressed and mopping. He didn't talk about what he saw though. Olaroso lived his greatest moment once again and was bolstered by it, but Gelna saw a crushing defeat that left her muttering "Gelna Small..." most of the night.
After the magic mirror (and some tomb looting) the party continued on where they were presented with another 'holodeck' display. From here they moved onwards into what appeared to be a huge throne room. Here they confronted The Forgotten King. Or did they? I'll leave that open for anyone who may still play through this.
After conversing with the King for some time they party found themselves in mortal combat once again. This time vs an evil aperation/undead and his mounted skeleton minions. This was the parties toughest fight yet. The fight started with half the party distracted and the mounted skeletons charged, almost taking down Beldam in one round. At the same time the Aberation assaulted Catan. The fighting was fierce in the early rounds. Bullvies stepped off to one flank and single handedly held back one of the Mounted Skelies. Meanwhile the rest of the party worked on getting flanks on the Aberation while the other mounted skellie kept coming in, backing off and charging in again. The tide started to turn for the worse when Gelna struck Beldam down, near dead based on a 'suggestion' from the Aberation. Catan was almost brought down as well. Luckily Olaroso and Gelna were able to get the Aberations attention and Catan was able to revive Beldam using his own potions (after downing one herself). The end of the battle was a long time coming with blows being struck by both sides. Olaroso and Catan assisted by providing flanks and sneak attacks but even those were only half effective on the aberation. After nearly 12 rounds of combat the creature finally went down. Much to the parties disapointment the two skeletal horsemen didn't disapate with his death. The battle continued on. The party finished these off in what can't be call a quick fight. By the end of it nearly everyone was at less then 25% of thier HP.
Thankfully the party found some Healing potions nearby but not nearly enough to get the up to full strength. After a bit of exploring the party found what they had been lookign for all along. The looters from the tomb. They finally faced the evil Xeron they had heard about from his multiple henchem prevously defeated.
This fight wasn't a long one but it was bloody. As the party moved up into position, it wasn't Xeron who was the biggest threat, it was his Hobgoblin bodyguard who felled Catan in one blow (30hp of damage on a crit on a Masterowork Waraxe). Filled with rage at the death of their Thief the party decimated the Evil Sorcerer and then his hobgoblin bodyguard in short order.
At this point the party received their reward and got a message from The Forgotten King egging them onward into a mysterious hole into the ground.
Next the Party heads into The Underdark, where they will be forced to explore The Sinister Spire, if they can even get there.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Dec 16, 2008 9:19:31 GMT -5
hell ya we can get there! where it is a good idea or not we will find out later!
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Dec 17, 2008 19:22:34 GMT -5
We've got to figure out when we can get this game up and going again.
I'm good for Jan 3rd or 10th. Either should work for me just as well. Any clue which days are best for everyone else?
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jan 4, 2009 14:52:05 GMT -5
Okay finally got the first game of the new year in last night.
Except for one player, who's name I won't mention not having their character ready despite having a month off to finish it, things went rather well even though we started 3 hours late.
The action started from right where we left off with the party heading down the hole at the bottom of the Forgotten Kings Tomb now on a quest to recover his bones.
The party spent some time discussing which way to go down a mineshaft heading both up and down. They decided on up and spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out where in the heck this shaft came up once they got to the end and found themselves in some wilderness none of them recognized. After spending some time tracking and then resting the party decided their target must have been brought deeper underground.
After a long trek downward the party came to what is known as an Earth Node. A concentrated area of magical energy. Here they found their prey. Unfortunately they were already dead and well looted. The halfling had been slain by arrows and nibbled on by some form of small creature. The goblins death was much more frightening as she had been turned to stone and then smashed. The Kings bones were no where to be found and the only clue was a note in the goblins hand written in a script none of the characters had seen before.
Here the party also came to their first real obstacle. A 150 foot drop down a tear drop shaped natural Chimney. This shouldn't be much of a challenge for a level 5 party with lots of rope or with a wizard, but unfortunately the party had neither. So after much debate it was determined that all rope the party had would be used, and that everyone would have to suffer at least a 20 foot drop at the end. This left the party quite a bit battered before any real fighting started.
At the bottom of the Earth node the party faced the next real challenge. Before this they had the fortune of finding an escaped Elven female slave. She had been brought to the node by a group of Drow slavers and had escaped by digging her way into one of the Roach Tunnels. After saving Civ the Elf, Civ informed the party that she could use this node to teleport them to another node somewhere else in the Underdark. The party figured this would be the only way their prey could have went. To do the teleportation though Civ had to stand in contact with the ground of the Node for 8 hours. A this point the challenge began. This came in the form of 1000s of cockroaches, some gigantic and over 2 feet long. This was a tough fight for the party, leaving Olaroso the Elven Thief/Sorcerer near death and everyone else hurting from multiple bite wounds.
After clearing out the infestation the party completed the teleport spell and found themselves in the middle of an area of the Underdark called the Great Grotto. Here could be found an underground sea (The Sullen Sea) and a near ruined town of Pedestal. They met a friendly Durogar merchant and learned about this foreign land never before imagined by our surface dwelling party.
After finding out some information about the are and the city the party headed off toward Pedestal across a large stone bridge that crossed the Sullen Sea. Here they were ambushed by an Aboleth and his disgusting minions. The fight with the minions went quickly but during the fight Gelna the Barbarian started acting oddly, dropping all of her gear and diving in the water swimming out toward the Aboleth. The party frantically argued over what could be done to save her as she swam deeper out and then dived down into the sullen sea. An arrow was fired at the last minute to attempt to awake her but it missed due to her already breaking the surface. Bullvies began cutting his straps on his armour in an effort to remove any hindrance to him swimming. At this point Olarso revealed a previously unknown companion, as his Rat familiar dived into the water after Gelna. Thankfully the rat was a better swimmer then the half orc and managed to reach and bite Gelna before she reached the Aboleth 60 feet under the murky water. Loosing it's control on Gelna the Aboleth gave up it's attempt at easy slaves.
Quite a walk later the party approached the south gate of Pedestal where they were confronted by odd Frog Creatures, totally foreign to them. The Koa-Toa immediately jumped to the attack while demanding gold in Under-common. It seems the parties new elf friend understood this bizarre language and was able to translate as the party negotiated passage into the city, but not before slaying one of the guards. Seems these guards worked for one of the major factions of the city and the party didn't want to start their exploration with one of four factions as an enemy already.
From here they headed to an inn that was described to them by the Durogar merchant they found when exiting the earth node and there were introduced to the mysterious Es Sarch, the information broker. After a long discussion and much sharing of knowledge the party agreed to assist Es Sarch with some not so simple tasks in return for information on where to find the bones of the Forgotten King, or at least the person that last had them. Es Sarch also provided them with more background on Pedestal and gave them a rough overview of the area.
From here we ended the night with the party visiting the wondrous Underdark Market of Pedestal where they were finally able to sell of the myriad of items they had found on their Journey thus far and were able to better equip themselves with both mundane and magic items from the various merchants.
Now rather well rested and better equipped then before the party plans to head either to a mysterious island coated in mushrooms that release flesh eating spores, or to take out the head Mistress of a Drow noble house... I wonder which they will try first.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jan 7, 2009 14:56:51 GMT -5
I must say that things have deffinately taken a turn for the worse in the underdark for us. I would imagine that all the nasties we are going to encounter will have multiple spell and magic terribleness that will be hard to deal with, judging by how bad we almost did with the abeoleth We better prepare better. I would hope the market has some good stufff to help us with that, I'll find out next time. It was a looooooooong month between sessions... i hope we can stay on track and I for one am trying to get there. I am somewhat dismayed by the lack of magical bits that we have uncovered thusfar... Since I really havent played too many straight from the maker dungeoun crawls I guess I was imagining magic rings and swords falling from the sky in great abundance. Ah well. I guess the good thing about it is that the bad guys would have them too. So till next time... Im keeping my sword sharp and my wits sharper!
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jan 18, 2009 9:30:22 GMT -5
This weekend our brave adventurers managed to complete one of the two tasks assigned to them by the enigmatic Es Sarch.
The goal was to get transport to an odd island made up completely of Mushrooms and pick 10 of the rarest types of mushrooms from the center of the isle. The catch: the spores of the mushrooms eat flesh. So they needed to get in and out fast.
First things first the party needed a boat. So they headed through the ruined and dangerous city of Pedestal heading to the old dock area. They ran into the first bit of trouble on the way there. While walking between the walls separating the noble district and the rest of the ruined city, the party was suddenly surrounded by Darkness and Bullvies was slammed hard and knocked to the ground by an unseen force. The next round Gelna fell prey to a magical suggestion and dropped her weapons and continued on her journey to the dock. Missing their heavy hitter and still not even sure what was happening, the group spent the first few seconds of combat trying to figure out what had assaulted them, using spells like Detect Thoughts and Detect Magic. Both of these identified the general direction of the attack and told the party they faced one foe, but it was Olaroso who managed to skirt the darkness and spot a Drider 30 feet up on the side of a building. While being searched for the Drider hit the party with two more force assaults from a Ring of the Ram, before descending down low enough to jump down onto Bullvies. Unfortunately for the Drider Bullvies didn't go down very easily and it was quickly surrounded by the party. The fight still wasn't quick though as the darkness provided cover and many would be successful attacks were hampered by the haze. By the end of it the well rested party wasn't feeling nearly as good as they started the day off, with Bullvies and Olaroso each sporting wounds.
The party managed to catch up with Gelna just before reaching the docks. Exploring the docks the party came across a lone Female Durogar Dwarf. Here Bullvies decided to show off his Diplomacy skills by pissing off this supposed Representative of the Assassin's Guild. The Woman signaled friends and promptly disappeared. Gelna wasted no time, charging a small building they party suspected the Dwarf's friends were. The Half Orc Barbarian burst through the door, and found herself in an empty room. The only thing left in the room were 4 steaming cups of tea. The party aptly expected an ambush and were only slightly surprised as invisible Durrogar appeared and attacked as the party approached the building. Two of them also appeared flanking Gelna and they both back-stabbed at her. The Durrogar definitely bit off more then they could chew though. Two went down in the next round. The remaining ones managed to enlarge themselves just in time to be cut down by the party.
Searching the now empty docks the party managed to find a seaworthy boat and headed out to the mushroom isle. Reaching the shore, the party first deposited the four Dwarf bodies. This along with the fact Olaroso left markings of Gruumsh (the Orc god) on the dock was done to divert any investigation of the deaths by the Assassin's guild away from the party. The Dwarves began to be eaten by the Mushroom spores almost immediately. It seems that creatures that dwell in this area are more susceptible to the spores (which was why the party was hired to do this in the first place). The party wasn't immune though, and everyone began to take a small amount of damage as the spores did their work. In order to speed things up Siv had a great idea and cast Expedious Retreat on every party member. This meant that even through thick Fungal undergrowth the party reached the middle of the isle in under 2 minutes. At the center of the isle the party learned there was more to fear then just spores on this odd island. As approaching a circle of mushrooms that matched the description of what they were looking for the party was ambushed by something, or somethings large and dangerous. Bullvies was bitten by a large invisible attacker and found himself near unconscious. Gelna was also bit by a large attacker who again was not visible to the party. Bullvies and Gelna tried to fight off their attackers but had difficulty scoring telling blows on the invisible assailants. Beldam had an idea to use a sun-rod and perhaps have these beasts cast shadows. A good plan but it didn't work as intended, though it did highlight a dead Drow in the underbrush. This Drow was investigated by Olaroso as Siv rushed to the center of the isle and began gathering mushrooms. Olaroso found a suit of magical amour on the Drow and began extricating it as the party was again assaulted by invisible foes. This time Beldam and Gelna were bit hard, and weren't very effective in returning the favors. This fight went on for many rounds, with a couple party members gathering mushrooms while the others attempted to fight off their foes. Eventually from splashing watter, getting blocked while trying to move around and actually scoring some hits on whatever these beasts were the party figured out they were facing 10foot diameter fungal beasts that were at least 20 feet tall. This knowledge didn't help them much though as the Invisible fungus continued to chomp down on the party. Gelna herself took a total of 54 points of damaged before the first mushroom beast was felled. Siv found herself nearly dead one round and was only saved by Bullvies forcing a potion of healing down her throat. The fight did not go well. Many potions were drunk and only quick thinking on Olaroso's part in using Ghost Sounds to distract the second Mushroom beast managed to save the party as they fled the island after finding the requisite number of mushrooms.
Beaten, battered and low on healing magic, the party returned to the Dripstone Inn where they stayed and rested for 3 full days before feeling up to heading back out to the ruined city of Pedestal. Between items found on the Drider, the Dwarves and the dead Drow on the Mushroom Isle of Death, the party decided to head back to the Market before starting on their second quest. This was a near fatal choice for 4 of our 5 party members.
On the trek to the Market the party faced, for the first time, The Plaugelost. These are the spirits of the original denizens of Pedestal, all that remains of what was a glorious Drow City. Something had turned the humanoids and the beasts of the areas into a green dust that coalesced into their former forms only when they spot the living. These phantoms have a total hatred for the living and exist only to spread the plague that killed them. The party faced a former Giant Lizard a former Grim lock and a Former Goblin. The ghosts charged the party immediately. Gelna was the only one to be effected by the Ethereal presence. The Lizard scored a telling blow and drained some of Gelna's life force. The party fought back and even though armed with magical weapons they had a very hard time wounding these ethereal foes. Worse still was the fact that these creatures emanated a deadly field which managed to spread their disease to 4 of the 5 party members. Only Bedlam's monastery training saved him from this magical disease. The infected party members felt severely weakened as green lights began appearing under their skin. The fight wasn't a long one, with the party eventually scoring enough hits into the ethereal plane to cause the ghosts to dissipate, but it came at a great price.
Fortunately this plague is well known and common in the area, and so was the cure. Once reaching the market various unscrupulous merchants were willing to offer the cure for this plague, at 100 gold a piece. This cure though wasn't guaranteed to work in one does and the price would be going up with the second dose. Luckily a series of good roles meant the cure took for every party member, but that still didn't remove the draining effects of the disease that already effected the party. Thankfully they were able to find a cleric in the market who was willing to cast restoration for the right price. So now feeling much better the party re-stocked on magical healing (and a few more items) after selling off their recently received loot.
Thankfully for the party at this point they made it back to the Inn without incident. And thus ended one of the worst couple of days the party had ever seen. All of them agreed that the Underdark was a very dangerous and scary place, and that things were probably only going to get worse. Unfortunately the only way to save the Forgotten Kings Bones were to complete Es Sarch's next task, the assassination of a Drow Matriarch who was also a favored of Loth. How hard could that be?
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