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Post by gorechyld2000 on Apr 16, 2009 11:46:27 GMT -5
Ill keep my eyes open for anything here in the states thats 3.5 related. If worse comes to worse we can always wing it with some off the cuff stuff. I think they also have adventure ideas onlien at WotC website.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Apr 16, 2009 14:20:20 GMT -5
I'm particularly looking for Expedition to the Demonweb Pits It's level 9-12 and is set up like a stand alone mini campagin. www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/95568720I was about to ask you to look for it, but I just found a damn cheap copy on eBay. Guess we are set until level 12 (assuming it actually shows up)
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Apr 17, 2009 11:22:01 GMT -5
You know I actually saw this module in toronto I think. I believe it was a hard bound book. I didnt pick it up cause I thought I could find it cheaper here in town or online... guess in hindsight I should have grabbed it. It was one of the few 3.5 books they had left there and it was like 20% off. Grrr... oh well.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Apr 17, 2009 13:51:53 GMT -5
Yeah it's a hardcover, 244 or so pages. Should be enough to keep us busy for a while.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Apr 27, 2009 8:31:09 GMT -5
Okay this weekend we had the longest fight ever. 35 Rounds this bad boy went. That was the end of the night though so lets start at the beginning.
The party rested up hiding among the slaves for a couple of days and then made their way back into Castle Serastis. Seems their presence was noted as things had been cleaned up since they had last been there (mainly the bodies of the foes they felled last session). As well they walked into an ambush.
The party found themselves under a hail of arrows from an above balcony. Fortunately for them the Yuan-Ti fullbloods weren't very strong or their bows weren't very well made. A couple nicks and scratches were felt as the party ran up the nearest stairwell then chased down their attackers by flanking them around the balcony. One of them nearly escaped heading up to the upper floors of the keep, but it wasn't nearly quick enough for the speed of a 7th level monk or a raging Barbarian.
After finishing off the ambushers the party returned back to the main hall and started exploring exits from that room. Here they had their toughest battle to date. They walked in on some Yuan-Ti Halfbloods eating dinner. That must have pissed the Yuan-Ti off, because they made a mess of the party. Halfbloods have an ability to sweat acid. This acid adds to the damage they do with melee attacks. This combined with their Scimitars that critted on a 17+ and two attack the first at +10 to hit made these guys tough! The fight was long and hard. Even though the party surprised them and got into position up onto the dinner table (getting +1 to hit for higher ground) things did not go well. By the end of the fight two party members were down at negative hit points. Olaroso went down in two hits and Beldam only fared slightly better lasting a few more rounds and eating through a cure potion still to go down before the end of the fight. Only Gelna escaped the battle unscathed. At the end of this fight the party exhausted plenty of charges from a wand of Cure Moderate Wounds and moved on.
They explored a couple more rooms and then found a large audience hall guarded by two small lizardmen. The lizardmen had heard the party coming and set themselves up just behind a pit trap. Fortunately for the party and unfortunate for the Lizardmen Gelna's Trap Sense alerted her to the danger and she managed to set it off without falling in. The party had faced these Poison Dusk lizardfolk before and had as easy a fight this time around as last.
From here the party moved into a long shrine where they met a Lizard Man Druid. Choosing not to parley even though the Lizardman was unarmed and didn't threaten the party charged into the room as the Druid began casting defensive spells. After ducking a powerful blow from Gelna the Druid unleashed a call lightning spell before being surrounded and intimidated into submission (first time was have actually used intimidate in combat, interesting rules). The party intimidated a small amount of information from the druid before Beldam snapped his neck. It seems the Vanguard of Sertrous is working on some ritual and that is what they wanted the Forgotten Kings bones for.
Next the party headed down to the dungeons for the longest combat ever. The encounter started with the party trying to free an elven prisoner from a cell (not easy to do with no one with an open locks higher then 2 in the party). Soon after a couple failed attempts Siv came face to face with a Yuan-Ti Halfblood Ghost. It managed to touch her soul causing her to loose intelligence, then retreated into the cell and floated inside the elf. After a few more attacks from the ghost through walls, the floor and other characters Siv eventually managed to hit it with Chill Touch causing it to retreat. While it was gone most of the party continued working on opening cells (fairly ineffectively) while Olaroso scouted ahead.
Olaroso came across the Yuan-Ti garbage pit. He barely had enough time to gag as he was scooped up by the Tentacle of a Large Spellwarped Otiugh (sp?). Thankfully the rest of the party heard him call out before he got pulled down into the pit. The party rushed over to this garbage area, managed to all avoid getting ill from the stench and engaged the beast. Siv first attempted to damage the beast with a couple of spells. This backfired badly as the Spellwarped nature of the beast meant it absorbed the spells and got stronger and gained some hit points. Beldam jumped down into the pit with the beast but his blows were pretty ineffective. Neither of this mattered much as an enlarged enraged Gelna charged the beast and critted with her high crit axe. The beast took a whopping 38 or so points of damage and almost went down in one blow. It didn't take much more to finish it off.
About the time the Otiugh fight ended the Ghost had come back. Again it went right for Siv, and managed to drain her INT to a level that she could no longer cast spells. Thankfully she still had ghost touch stored into her sword (Siv is a Shadowblade), and again the Ghost ran. Most of the party then concentrated on opening cells, this went much better with an Enlarged Enraged Half-Orc Barbarian Available. The two elves, Siv and Olaroso took this time to head upstairs and take a bath. Seriously! Pansy Elves.
After freeing about 4 prisoners the Ghost was back. This time is started off ignoring the party and 'feasting' on one of the prisoners, a Dwarven Lord. The party tried and tried to get into the cell containing the Dwarf but didn't manage to make a dent in the door before the ghost had drained enough strength and intelligence from the Dwarf to be fully healed. The ghost attacked again, this time from within an Orc Fighter the party had freed.
Gelna then scored with a massive hit. Unfortunately the hit didn't hit the ghost but the Orc that the ghost was using for cover. The Orcs head spun across the room and landed in the garbage pit. That was one prisoner down. The fight against the ghost continued as did freeing prisoners. The fight went on for over an hour real time and at least 35 in game combat rounds. It was the first time we actually saw spells like Shield run out in a combat. At the end of it Siv was so dumb she couldn't cast spells anymore, Gelna was weekended in strength and Buliwyf was drained of Constitution and everyone had a good selection of bumps, cuts, bruises and scars.
The party wisely decided to head back out and hide among the slaves and rest.
We ended there.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Apr 27, 2009 15:12:25 GMT -5
All I can say is TERRIBLE... ugh. K was it just me or did people just decide that they were just gonna ignore the ghost and search and open doors while this thing was attacking us and hoped it went away? I mean please. I was a little surprised that if an obvious answer dosent present itself right away then just ignore it and it will go away. Lame... Oh... and next time the party is fighting baddies and I haev blood on my armor I am gonna sit the battle out and polish it up. Aside from all that we have to find some way to deal with these ridiculous enemies that are (a) incorporeal (b) immune to magic or (c) talk to us first without attacking. Those seem to be the 3 major obstacles that hae hindered us thusfar. BTW... now I know HOW to calculate my damage to doors and walls and other stuff like that I will be much more effective in cutting through them
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Post by Gilvan Blight on May 11, 2009 10:12:27 GMT -5
A long session last time.
We started off with an extended rest in the farming camp while everyone recovered list hit points and drained stats. This was interrupted by an attack by a party of Yuan-Ti fullbloods looking for the prisoners that the party had freed last session. The only real challenge for the party was getting to the fight before the Snake Men slaughtered too many villagers. Thankfully both Monks and Barbarians get boosts to their movement as they level and between Gelna and Beldam the attackers were tied up before the end of the second round. Only one villager was lost.
After dusting themselves off the party headed back into Castle Serastis and came face to face with an old friend: The Ghost. This time things went much better for the party. The fight only lasted 3 rounds vs. 35. The main difference being that the party actually rolled well. That combined with the fact the ghost didn't have prisoners to feed off of made this some easy xp. The party cleared out the floor after finishing off the ghost and left the area with a nice pile of non-magical goods as well as some magical treasure including another Legacy Item.
Next the party decided to explore the central tower they had found earlier. Here they found out that even a Human Sized Dragon packs a punch. The fight started with the Bronze dragon attempting to trick them into thinking it was being hunted. Beldam saw through this so instead of plunging down for a full on melee attack the dragon lashed out with Lightning breath, and swooped up out of reach. Most of the party readied ranged weapons and Beldam started up the spiral stairs and found a Mage finishing off a Blurr Spell. Beldam engaged the Mage while the rest of the party tried to take down the Dragon. Thing did not go well at first. Siv's arrows were caught by the Dragon, Gelna's delayed attacks missed, Olaroso's spells were doing minimum damage and Buliywf was back at the camp due to some damage from miss-use of a magic mouth scroll.
The fight between Beldam and the Mage was fairly quick with the mage trying a few enchantment spells and failing and Beldam just pummeling him to death. The fight with the Dragon was going much worse for the party. After a couple of pretty unsuccessful rounds of flyby attacks the Dragon chose to use it's Repulsion ability's. It first caused Gelna to flee with a spell and then used it's Repulsion breath. This caused both Gelna and Siv to be out of the fight for the next few rounds. Around the same time Beldam ran up the stairs to the top of the tower only to disturb a Yeth Hound and a flock of Sail Snakes. The party had just started a second encounter while in the middle of the first. Things got interesting.
I won't get into exact details as it was a long fight but in highlight: Beldam and Olaroso were the only ones left fighting the Dragon, both had been blinded and the dragon landed between them and started full out attacking. Between the flury of 5 Dragon Attacks and their blind stumbling and swinging they managed to hold off the Dragon long enough for their other party members to get back. The Snakes and Hounds retreated once the party was out of their 'nesting area'. The party did manage to fight off the Dragon but were all bashed and battered for it. After expending all of the parties healing (Based on her Combat Prowess in the adventure so far Gelna was Blessed by Kord and now had spellcasting abilities - aka she took a level in Favoured Soul, and Beldam could now do the Monk equivalent of Lay on Hands), they tapped into their Wand of Cure Moderate and expended a good amount of charges.
They then surprised me by heading back upstairs to attack the Snakes and Hound. Most of this fight was people picking them off with distance weapons as Gelna engaged in hand to hand. The fight was a bit long due to the number of baddies but not too hard for the party. A few minor nicks and cuts later they moved on.
From here the party moved their way back to a magical portal room they had found earlier and took the leap through one of the portals. They were instantly ambushed by a Flesh Golem made up of Yuan-Ti and Snake bits. This Scale Golem bashed at the party as they got their bearings and attempted to surround it. The fight wasn't long but the golem managed to bash everyone up pretty good.
From here the party explored and found a veritable Horde of Magic items, after taking some damage from a Trapped Door. By the time they finished this tower they had at least 2 sets of bracers, a defensive ring, two sets of armor, 2 circlets, a helm, a mask, some pearls and a feather. To get all these though the party faced one of D&D most frightening monsters, while split up.
After clearing out the top room in this new tower Beldam descended a round hole in the floor down one level. Here he was spotted by a Mind Flayer and his Yuan-Ti Halfblood guard. Beldam attempted to drop to the ground and get ready for a fight only to fall through the illusionary floor to the level below. Here he landed face to hissing face with a Fiendish Yuan-Ti abomination that thankfully seemed to want to talk.
Gelna and Olaroso witnessing Beldams fall swung down into the Illithid's lab and prepared to fight. Siv unaware of what happened to Beldam attempted to use her ring of feather fall to drift down to the middle of the room, only to drift through the floor and arrive down with Beldam and the Abomination. Here the game swapped back and forth beaten half of the party learning exactly what the Yuan-Ti were doing and the other half fighting for their lives vs. a Mind Flayer and his now Raging Bodyguard.
The first round of the fight saw Olaroso taken out with a psionic attack. He spent the next 6 rounds stunned. Thankfully for Gelna she's a big girl used to a good fight as she had to face off against the Mind Flayer and his Guard on her own. The flayer managed to get one of it's four tentacles attached to Gelna's Skull in the first round which meant every round was very tense as it just had to succeed on one more graple check to yank Gelna's Brain right out of her Skull. Fortunatley for her either the dice or Kord was with her as it never happened. She eventually managed to fell the Mind Flayer just as Olaroso woke up from his Daze. The two of them finished off the Barbarian quickly.
Down below Siv and Beldam learned the true horror of the Yuan-Ti's plot and now knew they had to rush to find 4 Artifacts before the Ritual of the Risen God was completed.
After finishing off exploring and looting the rest of this tower the party headed back to the farming camp, to collect Bulliwyf as they were going to need all the help the could get to prevent the Abyssal God Sertrous from returning to the world.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on May 13, 2009 15:59:17 GMT -5
Good thing the mind flayer attacked gelna... IT was just having a hard time finding her little brain And the whole magic mouth thing... I plead the 5th. I would have just been rendered unconcious anyways in all the battles so I would have been about as much help as I usually am. Cant we find a dungeon where all you have to do is smash through door and walls and stuff?
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Post by Gilvan Blight on May 25, 2009 17:31:59 GMT -5
We still haven't finished the campaign. We came close but didn't quite have enough time to finish everything last game session. So it will be at least one more week before the final battle and the TPK that finishes the campaign. Last week the party picked up the now recovered Bulliyf and returned to Castle Serastis. It seemed that most of the Vanguard is either out trying to recover the four remaining items for their spell or involved in the ritual itself as the halls of the castle were oddly empty. Facing no opposition the party finished exploring one tower and moved onto the final tower in the complex (not counting the one tower that is out of phase on another plane of existence). In the tower of the Way the party faced a series of battles all close together with very little time to rest in between. First they faced off against a Dread Necromancer who fought in a small room from on top of a hanging statue. The fight was ended quickly though as Siv finally started to show how she could shine (he had failed to learn any new spells as she leveled for the last 3 levels, the new spells she took made her a much more formidable caster). The Necromancer only managed to really cast a few defensive spells before he was taken down by ray after ray. His summoned undead weren't very effective either but a swarm of summoned spiders did cause some minor damage and managed to poison Gelna. Immediately after this fight Siv was ambushed out in the hall (the rest of the party was in the small room, Siv was casting from the door). Siv came face to face with a trio of hooting Baboon Wraiths. Three of them managed to land blows during the initial ambush and Siv found herself with three negative levels. This scared the crap out of the rest of the party who came to her aid. The fear was unfounded though as the apes weren't able to score any more blows before being cut down by the parties ferocious assault. At this point the party cowardly retreated from the castle back to the villagers outside. After a long rest to get Siv's levels back (she thankfully made all three saves and didn't actually loose any levels), they headed back in and faced the last foe in the Tower of the Way. They walked in on a sacrifice about to be completed. Interrupting the ritual the party now faced a Female Human who worked with the Vanguard. The woman smartly fought within the cover of the manacled prisoners as she fought the party. The one prisoner who was about to be sacrificed grabbed her weapon and moved to assist the party. Thankfully the party rolled well and no prisoners were hit in their attacks. This human fighter didn't last long against their combined attacks, especially having been disarmed by Beldam in the first round of the combat. In the end the party had her dazed and pinned and were getting ready to question her when the saved prisoner finished the job for them. Attempting the parlay with this released woman seemed useless as she just rudely got dressed and walked off dismissing the people who just saved her life. Having now explored all of the physical rooms of Castle Serastis the party moved on to the portal room and began work on stopping the Vanguard from obtaining their last 4 items for The Ritual of the Risen Abyss. Their first stop was a Fey grotto where they hoped to stop the Yuan-Ti from getting the blood of a Fey. Unfortunately the party was too late, perhaps spending a bit too much time sitting and relaxing and resting in the village then they should have. Dead Fey littered the Grotto and despite being recently blessed by Kord, even Gelna didn't have enough touch of the divine to understand the Fey's last dying wish. The party left disapointed after a thorough exploration of the area by Bulliyf who enjoyed some much needed time out of his Plate Armour. From here the party went through the next portal and BAMF! found themselves waste deep in a swap. Ahead of them they saw a Green Hag and a Naga exchanging spells. The party approached as the two mobs hurled spells at each other. The hag noticed the party first and launched a lightning bolt as the Naga moved in closer to the Hag. The battle continued with the party slowly approaching the two combatants and firing off distance spells and arrows. The foes fought both each other and the party dividing their spells between them. The climax of the fight occurred when Gelna and Beldam fought in hand to hand with both the Naga and Hag in the confines of a ruin. The Naga was eating through fireball spells that were hitting everyone gathered. The Hag though seemed to have it out for Gelna. After just barely escaping instant death from a Phantasmal Killer spell (only saved due to Gelna now having the Luck Domain from her level in Blessed Soul, and getting 1 re-roll a day), Gelna was hit by a Critted Touch of Idiocy which had her non-physical stats dropped to 1. This made Gelna "as smart as a Camel, as Wise as an Animated Object and as Charismatic as a Shrieker Mushroom". This got lots of laughs. We probably could have done another portal if it wasn't for that one amusing moment. The party eventually did finish off both foes, just as the Hag was about to Dimension Door out of the area. At this point we broke for the night, leaving 2 items left to recover/destroy and the ritual still to be stopped.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jun 2, 2009 15:41:20 GMT -5
I will put an end to this terrible ritual this weekend or die trying!!
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jun 10, 2009 11:41:48 GMT -5
Still not finished the campaign. The difficulty of the final few encounters were quite a bit higher then previous fights which also meant they were quite a bit longer and required a lot of downtime between them to keep the party in fighting strength.
The fun for the night had the party trying to get or destroy the last two ingredients for the Ritual of the Risen Lord. First was the Forgotten Kings Rod and the second was an object touched by the Demon Lord Sertrous.
First the party went after the Rod. They took a portal and found themselves in a mountainous valley with two paths to choose from. One was a ravine the other a cave complex. They chose the caves first. Here they met a bewitched Yuan-Ti Igan. This thing was the biggest Yuan-Ti creation they had faced yet and definately the strongest. The start of the combat had Gelna hit and grabbed by one fork of the Igan's tail while the rest of the party moved in to try to surround the beast. It sidestepped back dragging Gelna with it and moved to a position between the cave walls where it couldn't be flanked. Here it beat down on Beldam and Bulliwyf. Beldam, after getting hit by a masterwork scimitar quickly disarmed the creature. This didn't slow it down though, along with a gore attack and it's tail attack it continued to pound on Bulliwfy with it's fists even though it prompted attacks of oportunity. Though it's fists didn't due much damage it's Fiery Nature still caused plenty of damage. The fight went on for rounds, with Gelna getting as low as 6 hit points before the party finally defeated this beast. They were beaten and battered for it though and used up fully 1/3 of their remaining healing ability.
After defeating the first Igan they came across an odd Dragon man creature. After a bit of roleplay including a rather amusing moment where Bulliwyf donated a cloak to hide the Dragonkin's nakedness they party befriended Talon - a Dragonborn Ranger played by Darren who re-joined the group this weekend. Not finding any scepter the party moved over to the ravine.
In the ravine the party found spent some time exploring. An good laugh was had when Bulliwyf came across some odd crystal growths and decided to try to chip a piece away causing a large explosion. The party tried to use this to their advantage when they found another Yuan Ti Igan. The problem was that the Crystals exploded with Fire damage and this just Buffed up the Yuan-Ti. Overall though this fight went better for the party as the Yuan Ti was having difficulty hitting the party with it's constrict abilities. In the middle of the fight Olaroso noted an odd ball like thing float by at the top of the ravine. The fight went a good amount of time and the party took a bit of damage but still managed to finish the fight much better off then the last encounter.
Soon after the Yuan-Ti went down the party quickly found out what the ball was, a Gauth Beholderkin. This lesser Beholder was watching the party and learned it's weaknesses before attacking. It moved in from the top of the Ravine and attacked with it's 6 eyestalks. Gelna had to thank Kord for a second time as her Luck Domain re-roll may saved her from domination by the Gauth (which is exactly what had happened to the Igan's). Bulliwyf got knocked out of the fight early becoming exhausted. Civ took at good hit from an eye of cause moderate wounds and Olaroso had all his buffs and protections dispelled by some Dispel Magic rays. The fight continued with the party using whatever ranged attacks they had as the Beholder descended slowly using it's eyes each round. The fight was actually a bit anticlimactic as the beholder went down after only descending 40 feet into the Ravine.
After this fight the party debated returning to town but eventually decided to search for the Aberration's lair. In it they found an odd statue that was made out of parts of the Rod. Olaroso was able to get the rod parts out of the statue and Civ used her Profession Metalwork to re-form the Staff.
After getting the Scepter the party headed into the last portal and BAMF'd out into a realm of chaos. They found themselves in what could have been the heart of a volcano. Surrounded by Lava and deadly black smoke the party advanced. They quickly found that space did not work properly here. As they moved they found they were further apart then they thought they were or they were actually closer to lava then they had hopped. (at the end of each round players had to roll, on a 1-6 they slid that number of squares in a random direction, on a 7-9 nothing happened and on a 0 something attacked them or they sprung a trap). After trying to get their bearings the party finally found something else alive. They came across a mutated Yuan-Ti abomination holding the object they sought. At about the same time Gelna had shifted into another are of the map and came face to multiple tentacle with a twisted slime. The slime was a living spell, a combination of Evard's Black Tenticals and Ghoul Touch. They party attacked both of these beasts. The fight was complex, with the shifting it was hard for anyone to stay in contact with an enemy and curling black smoke made ranged attacks hard as well. Olaroso made a smart move after casting Detect Magic and realizing that if the place was made up of all magic that some of it must be illusion. Making a save he was able to notice that the smoke was illusory and then was able to use ranged attacks more easily. Around the same time Gelna's battle with the slime was going poorly, she had already been devoured once and now as again in the creatures grasp and being dragged back towards the rest of the party. Over the next couple rounds the Living Spell managed to engulf half of the party, and had Bulliwfy, Gelan and Civ all trapped and being digested. Outside of the slime the rest of the party managed to finish off the Yuan Ti (with Civ's Melf's Acid Arrow delivering the killing blow) and moved to attack the Slime. The slime didn't last much after this but did manage to get Gelna down to single digit HP for the second time in the session.
Both of these extended encounters took up pretty much all of our play time and then some. Two characters were extremely close to leveling up though and asked that I run one more encounter. At this point Talon got a bit lost in Castle Serastis as the party faced off against another wave of Baboon Wights on their way up The Tower of the Word to the final portal to the Tower of Worlds where the Ritual was being Completed. Unfortunately the XP still wasn't quite enough and Gelna I think it was was only 20xp away from level 9. At this point it was almost 2:00AM and we had to stop.
I've given up saying that we are near the end of this adventure. So in two weeks, the party will face their hardest challenge yet as they make their way through the Tower of Worlds and face the final Yuan-Ti guards protecting the Ritual of the Risen Lord.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jun 17, 2009 11:51:21 GMT -5
Im totally gonna talk down that greater demon lord with my mad diplomacy skillz! Charisma 10, no problem. If that dosent work... Just call me Grandmaster Stabby McStabberson.
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Post by PandoraGreen on Jun 20, 2009 7:37:59 GMT -5
You completely forgot to NEGOTIATE with the demon lord. No wonder we all died. <sigh>
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jun 22, 2009 10:15:37 GMT -5
RIBBIT RIBBIT!
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jun 22, 2009 10:22:23 GMT -5
It was a pretty inglorious party wipe. I dont mind if I go down fighting but that was ridiculous! Ah well im finally free of that cursed sword I suppose. I still had fun playing the campaign. I think I will actually miss Gelna more than my own character. she kicked some serious butt. I think that final battle was totally meant to wipe you out unless you turned tail and fled. Which is kinda a crappy way to end an adventure IMHO. Also having us totally beat down prior to going in to the battle by haveing to fight a huge battle before hand sucked to. in hind sight I suppose we couldnt have rested cause we have been on a time constraint with ever other session but since there was no possible way to stop the ritual we might as well have rested 4 we went in, not that it would have helped much mind you... I think even with a party that was totally min/maxed we would have faired no better. It was a totally lop sided battle that we had no hope of winning. Oh well... not all stories have a happy ending. Looking forward to rolling up my lvl 1 character! *groan*
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jun 22, 2009 12:37:43 GMT -5
As you can tell by the above posts, it did not go well for our brave party. But maybe the story is not over yet...
The beginning of the end. The party enters the extra-dimensional Tower of the Worlds and comes face to ugly face with a Mob of lesser demons. This fight used the Mob rules from DMG II and ran pretty well. The party faced over 100 of the creatures and got well beaten up for it. Due to fighting a mob many abilities and spells just weren't that effective. The party did manage to win and then use up about half of their remaining healing.
Next came the fight against a Medusa and two Nagathas. This went better then the last for everyone by Bulliwyf, who got turned to stone. the Nagathas were next to useless and Civ made good use of Bulliwyf's statue for cover against the Medusa hitting with a Seeking ray and then backing out of the room down the stairs and pummeling here with ray spells while Gelna and Beldam used more martial means to defeat her.
After using up most of their remaining healing the party headed upstairs to the final room. Unfortunately the stairs were enchanted. First with a trap that hurt everyone in the party and then with an extra-dimensional effect that split the party up. Everyone rolled to see when they arrived at the top of the stairs. It ended up that Olaroso got to the top first. Instead of waiting for everyone else he snuck into the room. Once in he managed to upset some of the bones used in the ritual but little else. Gelna and Beldam arrived 20 rounds later. Again they surprised me by not waiting for everyone else and charged in. This meant that Bullwyf, Civ and Talon wouldn't be around for another 30 rounds.
The fight was a long and hard one. I did shorten the time for the final characters to arrive down to 10 rounds. Not because the party was loosing but because it was boring for half the group to sit and watch. The fight was not at all one sided and went back and forth many times during the fight. Eventually Gelna was defeated having been bitten then squeezed to death by an Acid coated Yuan-Ti half Fiend Abomination. This only spurned the rest of the party on and they managed to fight through various spells (entangle being the nastiest) and finally defeat the Yuan-Ti lord.
Here is where the module should have ended.
Unfortunately it did not. 1d4 rounds later (2) the central alter explodes and the Risen King (minus a head due to Olaroso) stands up and challenges the party. This fight was quick dirty and one sided. As Gore states, they had no chance. The fight started with a Quickened Evards Black Tenticals that had a +29 Grapple. That alone crippled everyone but Bulliwyf. Even though the party had succeeded in every single side quest and had the maximum number of Action points, they still couldn't even touch the Risen Demon Lord. 99% of the Action Points were spent on Bullwyf making 12 or so full attacks in a row, only to have each miss. Then the Lord turned him into a Toad and slowly finished off the rest of the party. All but Civ died. Civ instead was charmed and became the risen lords servant (though we did forget the elven +2 on charm saves, don't think it would have mattered at 21 caster levels).
So ended this Campaign... maybe (see below).
My thoughts on that last fight: WTF WotC!?! Okay I realize I probably should have modified the module. That's what a good DM would do right? Well up until now there have been multiple places in this series of adventures that I figured that the party had not chance of getting past and they have surprised me every time. I have gone into fights expecting to either kill the party off or have to half an enemies hp and I have never had to do so. I had played the module straight up till this point and despite a ton of adversity (mostly due to having no healer) the party has made it past every challenge. So I decided to run things straight up right to the end.
The last fight was a Level 21 spell-caster (Blackguard) vs. a level 7-9 party. For some reason it showed as CL 16, perhaps due to the Action point system they used to 'give the party a chance'. Even at CL16, that's double the average party level. That's just nuts. There was no way this party could take that on. Now I do disagrees with Gorechyld on this though, I do think a party could do it. A perfectly min max, 16 prestige class, maximized party that was so common at the end of 3.5 could have beaten this. This is what I think the module was written for. For the uber geek powergamer who has read every article and knows the perfect "chain fighter build" and "AOE caster with huge DPR". It was not written for a group of friends who sometimes have a hard time even keeping the game serious and who are playing 3.5 for the first time (most of them).
So what next?
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jun 22, 2009 12:39:50 GMT -5
I just sent the following to all of my players:
"It seem like it's been forever since you left the mortal coil behind and moved from the astral sea into your gods plane of existence. The pleasures/pains (depending on your alignment and faith) you have experienced in this time have been immeasurable. You have finally accepted your eternity when just then you feel a yank. Just barely visible is a golden cord stringing from your essence and something is tugging on it. Yank Yank.
You follow the cord. It pulls you back, back through the planes, back through the astral sea, back through the ethereal and BAMF! back into your body on the Prime Material Plane.
You find yourself in an underground cave. You are surrounded by familiar and unfamiliar faces. One of the familiar ones leans forward and notes 'that's another one we were able to pull back, thank Pelor' It's the village healer from outside Castle Serastis. Around her are other villagers, and with them the people you rescued from the castle some time ago. These aren't the same beaten and battered people you saved though, these are hardened freedom fighters. The Dwarf you saw nearly drained to death steps forward. "We ask for your help again brave adventurers. You saved us once, and I think only your courage can save us again".
You learn that it has been a month since the Aspect of Sertrous was summoned into the world. In that time the Flanneses (the land you are in) has entered into a time of War. The Risen King's armies have already taken most of the southern provinces and are currently amassing their power to head north and head for the nations capital of Greyhawk. The Dwarf insists that you need to head to Greyhawk yourselves and warn them of the newly formed Yuan-Ti empire in the south.
When you ask how you were saved you are told a tale that any listener would assume was a story to earn a few drinks with no grain of truth in it, yet this is how things came to pass.
Civ was charmed by the Risen King and Crowned his Queen after only 3 days. What fowl things happened during that time is not a tale that should be told anywhere but Ravenloft. After being crowned the King got careless and at one point forgot the counting of the hours and let 24 pass before casting his charm again. At this Point Civ managed to fight off the charm. She put on an act for the king for 2 more days and managed to escape. when she reached the villagers and told the tale to the assembled slaves and former captives the villagers were motivated to do anything to help and to stop the rise of the new Empire. The people retreated underground forming the first resistance group. One among them also volunteered to go back into the castle and try to recover the group, this was the Halfling thief that had helped the party to free the prisoners in the first place. Civ also went with him as she remembered what she has done with the bones after cleaning the tower where the party fell.
So as to not take all night, they explain that the halfling was able to escape with all the bones, including a set of frogs legs, but that Civ perished while defending him at the final gate. She was crushed by a portcullis that also took down 2 of Sertrous' Lieutenants. The halfling made it back to the villagers camp with all the bones and a tuft of Civ's hair that he grabbed earlier in case she didn't make it.
These bits of you is what the healer used to restore you to life. She then used restoration to remove any lingering effects (like being turned into a Toad).
So are you willing to head north up to Greyhawk and warn them of the coming danger? Are you willing to take whatever risks are necessary in Greyhawk to grain in strength and power? Are you willing to do what it takes to get revenge on the demon god who robbed you of your life?"
So will they take up the challenge?
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Post by LOBO on Jun 22, 2009 18:52:43 GMT -5
i dunno, i think i have to agree with gorechylde on this one, i read the kings stats, and i gotta say, a party at that level doesnt stand a chance
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jun 23, 2009 8:23:44 GMT -5
Trying to find some reviews online and not having much luck. I don't think this one sold very well. The only one I see has this to say:
The "big bad evil guy" at the end of the adventure is none other than the Forgotten King himself (the guy whose bones were stolen in Barrow of the Forgotten King), and while he's a CR 16 encounter all by himself, there are quite a few ways the PCs can whittle him down to shape (specific items they can gather remove various of his powers and abilities, there are special weapons that do a great deal of damage to him specifically, there's a special "action point" mechanism in place that can be used to help defeat him, and if all else fails there's a sidebar on page 52 suggesting ways to make the Risen King a more suitable combatant (CR-wise) that won't necessarily end up as a TPK machine against the PCs.
A couple more:
Fortress of the Yuan-ti is the perfect climax to the other two adventures. No matter what edition D&D you play you can adapt this adventure to fit it. I highly recomend it!
At $19.95 it is a little pricey, but the 64 pages are well written, well balanced, and challenging. My group seemed to think it was money well spent.
I plan on writting up my own sometime soon, but it will definately include the caviat to skip or change the last encounter.
Edit: Pandora is convinced that if it was a Raged, Enlarged Bull's strength'd Gelna taking those 12 attacks the battle would have went the other way.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jun 23, 2009 14:48:36 GMT -5
Next time he's all yours Gelna!
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Post by lichemaster on Jun 23, 2009 18:35:54 GMT -5
Thanks for ruining (pun intended) for me
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jun 23, 2009 23:23:37 GMT -5
LOL the only way for this module to truly be ruined for you is to play it until the end. Nothing I can say or do can make up for the disaster of an ending this trillogy had.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jul 7, 2009 14:20:14 GMT -5
K allot of talk has been thrown about as to whether we are continuing with our "dead" characters or rolling up some new ones. Gilvan you mentioned that you are waiting for a book to come? If it does that means we are making new toons and if it dosent that means we are not? I plan to make one anyways for the Waterdeep setting, just in case. I hate being in Limbo, which is somewhere on the astral plane as far as I can tell.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jul 8, 2009 11:06:01 GMT -5
After talking to people at yesterday's 4th edition game, I think the winning vote is to continue with the existing group of characters, and start on a new adventure "Expedition to Castle Greyhawk".
What I will allow though is for anyone who wants to make up a new 8th level character to start in the next adventure. So my suggestion is to make a Sorcerer and have Buliwyf as your Familiar ;D
I did get the new module in and the first chapter of it scared the hell out of me (unbelievably complex dungeons). I will be keeping that aside for some future game.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jul 13, 2009 11:36:00 GMT -5
I am going to make a Cleric of the Elven/Half-Elven persuasion. Presently reading up on the differnt gods in Greyhawk and seeking the best fit. I think I will most likely do the elven God if I go that route. Not gonna be the tank (if I dont have to be) gonna focus in the healing/buffing aspect of the class more. Kinda figure I will be more of a support character in the party. Still gotta go through the complete divine book again to see if I like any of the prestiege classes.
Till then I will be rolling around in the leaves to get inspiration. =)
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jul 13, 2009 15:18:21 GMT -5
The new adventure starts this weekend. For 3.5 Greyhawk is the generic D&D world so the Gods are the ones listed in the Players Handbook. There's no Greyhawk source book or anything like that (at least not for 3.5 edition).
Not that it's elven but St. Cuthburt of Baccob would have particular ties to the campaign starting. They will feature in the game quite a bit.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jul 13, 2009 15:26:59 GMT -5
ok then.. so its not the campaign thats in waterdeep right?
I have a good idea what I want my toon to be like so all I need ot do is the rolling and they buying and that should about cover it. not allot of things to figure out.
Am hoping to get friday off so's I can come hang out with you then and get it all done b4 saturday.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jul 15, 2009 10:04:13 GMT -5
Well I havent found out if I can get friday off yet, but i am hopefull. It's been too long i cant wit to game again. I dont have the luxury of being able to RP more than once every 2 weeks most times! grrr... stupid reality.
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Post by Gilvan Blight on Jul 15, 2009 11:11:52 GMT -5
Yeah this isn't the Waterdeep campaign. That's a different mod that I may run some day (Expedition to Undermountain). This is Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk. You can still find lots of info on Greyhawk online, it was the first D&D setting the one designed by Gygax himself.
Re: Friday, if you can get the day off that would be cool. We are going out for dinner at the Teutonia club that night though, but you are welcome to join us for Schnitzel.
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Post by gorechyld2000 on Jul 15, 2009 14:11:56 GMT -5
!!!! Schnitzel !!!! I do have Friday off and will be in town. Almost all sausage or sausage-like products make me ill, but when did that ever stop me? Not sure about dinner but I do want to hang during the day and get my character done. I will call ya when I hit Canadian soil.
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