# Sandboxing in the Nentir Vale (was: Emergent Features in KotS)



## LostSoul (Jun 27, 2008)

We had our second session last night, and it was good fun.  There were a few things that I thought were neat in last night's game, and I'll mention them here.

We started off right after the last session, where the PCs defeated the first encounter.  The Wizard tried to use Nature to determine if the kobolds had some kind of organization, but failed.  He figured they were just a band of wandering monsters, and there would not be any more around.  

I kept this in mind for later, because I don't want rolls that don't matter.

In the second encounter (the kobold ambush) I decided that DC 25 Perception checks were too high - 10 + Stealth was what I went with.  Now, because of the Wizard's earlier failed roll, I gave him a -2 on his Perception - he wasn't expecting any more kobolds and wasn't looking out for them the way he normally would have been.  Most of the kobolds got surprise anyways.  Since the Wyrmpriest was too far away from the PCs to spit acid at them (his energy orb power), I had him "stunt":

"I will finish what my fallen brothers started!  Irontooth will kill you all - starting with you!"  He rolled Intimidate vs. Will + 5 against the Warlock (who went down a couple of times last game), hoping to deal some psychic damage.  He missed - the Warlock got over his near-death experience from the last game.

Although at first the fight was going against the PCs, the turning point was when the elf shifted into difficult terrain.   I allowed the Rogue to use Acrobatics instead of Athletics to climb one of the boulders - described as a Jackie Chan-move, springing off the kobolds flanking him.

The PCs then captured one of the dragonshields and Intimidated him for information on his lair (and they took his left toe for a 2gp reward from Padraig, something I added).  Then, when he was released, the Warlock blasted him.  Sweet revenge.

They went to fight the gnome, and the Cleric used Diplomacy on one of the rabble to try to convince him to flee.  He failed.  The minion would have taken some damage if he succeeded, and that would have "killed him" - or made him run, in this case.

The PCs dominated nicely, and I felt sorry for the poor guard drakes, playing up their relation to each other, having them cry out when the other was hurt.

Douven Staul told them about the death cult (no need to hide the adventure from the PCs), then ran off to Fallcrest to warn the guys there about Orcus.

The PCs took an interest in the glyphs on the map and the treasure they found, so they started making rolls to determine what was up with that.  I decided to roll with it.  I said it was a warding seal, designed to trap something in - and the dragon had been sacrificed to power it.  The mirror they found was an ancient relic of Nerath, and the Wizard had heard legends that such mirrors were used to trap demonic creatures.  It was empty now, and drained of magic, but I told them it could be powered again somehow.  (I have no idea how at the moment.  We'll see if the players use it in a neat way later on.)

They rested up in Winterhaven before going to fight Irontooth.  In Winterhaven the Wizard had some words with Padraig when the Lord scoffed at the idea of death cultists.  He took a Quest - something like, "Replace Padraig with a competent Lord."  Very cool.

The fight at the waterfall with the guard minions went well for the PCs, but Irontooth was warned and he came out of the waterfall to issue a challenge to the PCs.  That's where we ended for the night.

Good fun.  It looks like 4e is good for resolving player actions that aren't spelled out, allowing for player creativity to influence the game in unexpected ways.  I'm interested in seeing what kind of stuff they are going to pull against Irontooth next time.


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## rkwoodard (Jun 27, 2008)

*thanks*

thank you,
  I am running 4e using KOTS tomorrow for the first time.  

RK


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## SweeneyTodd (Jun 27, 2008)

Looking good! Remember the table on pg. 42 of the DMG, it gives some nice guidelines for improvisational moves if you're ever looking for "default" values for making this stuff up. (Since that page is literally The Answer to Everything, I think they put it on that page # on purpose.)


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## LostSoul (Jun 27, 2008)

Heh, 42, didn't think about that!

That table sure does come in handy.  Having it there means that there's a lot of neat stuff you can do.  That's why I wanted to open the first combat with an action the rules don't cover - just to show the players that I'm cool with it.


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## LostSoul (Jul 11, 2008)

We played again tonight, but not many interesting rules things came up.

The battle with Irontooth was crazy as the entire 2nd encounter jumped them before they had a short rest.  But Irontooth missed, missed, and missed again and was killed.  They eventually won without any casualties!

They found the note about the spy in Winterhaven and went to confront Padraig.  Now previously one of the PCs got in Padraig's face over his reluctance to do anything about the cult ("Cultists?  Preposterous!").  

I decided that he was "in on it" - he wasn't the spy, but he had been contacted by Kalarel and told to stay out of Lord Orcus' business or else.  And he was paid off, which he used to buy some grain for his poor farmers (who had been plagued by Kalarel's kobolds).

So that's the backstory.  When they confronted Padraig with the note, he burned it and told them to get lost.  The Warlock started a fight, which they won in short order.

I had Rond Telfem show up with his men, freaked out.  But he was willing to listen.  The PCs tried to convince him to listen to them, and we started rolling some dice.  About two rolls into the scene, I thought: This is a skill challenge.  So without saying anything, I rolled with it.  The goal: stay on the good side of the law.

The PCs won (I was ad-libbing DCs).  The PCs calmed Rond down at first, getting him to listen; they Healed Padraig - keeping him alive but unconcious so he couldn't speak against them; they used the Make Whole ritual to reproduce the note and showed it to Rond; and then they searched the manor for evidence.  

At this point, Padraig woke, and confronted with the evidence, he spilled his guts.

Now the players wanted to buy some magic items.  There aren't any for sale in the town.  I told the players to pick some items from the PHB, and not worry about the fact there wasn't a store in town.  I had a plan.

The fighter chose a battleaxe, the warlock a rod, and the rogue a dagger.

It says in the module that, when the PCs leave Winterhaven to go to the Keep, the town sees them off.  At this point, I had the NPCs show up and give them gifts.  Padraig gave them his family battleaxe, which his father used to pacify the area, making Winterhaven safe.  Valthrun gave them a black rod from fallen Nerath which held untold powers.  And Rond slapped a dagger into the palm of the rogue: "It saved my life, maybe it'll do the same for you."


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## Mathew_Freeman (Jul 11, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> We played again tonight, but not many interesting rules things came up...
> 
> [cut for length]]
> 
> It says in the module that, when the PCs leave Winterhaven to go to the Keep, the town sees them off.  At this point, I had the NPCs show up and give them gifts.  Padraig gave them his family battleaxe, which his father used to pacify the area, making Winterhaven safe.  Valthrun gave them a black rod from fallen Nerath which held untold powers.  And Rond slapped a dagger into the palm of the rogue: "It saved my life, maybe it'll do the same for you."




That is a fantastic sounding session, kudos to you. I might try and steal a few bits of that - see how my players take it.


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## wedgeski (Jul 11, 2008)

A veritable lesson in "Yes" DM'ing. I salute you sir!


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## hong (Jul 11, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> They found the note about the spy in Winterhaven and went to confront Padraig.  Now previously one of the PCs got in Padraig's face over his reluctance to do anything about the cult ("Cultists?  Preposterous!").




See, I would have said "Cultists? Inconceivable!" This is why LostSoul is a better DM than me.


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## LostSoul (Jul 25, 2008)

We played again tonight, and I am finding that I really need to improve my tactics.  My bad guys are getting creamed by the PCs.  More practice is what I need, I guess, because I don't want to take the time to think out a great strategy if it slows the game down.

So, time for interesting features:

After slamming the door shut on the hobgoblin torturer - the door of the IRON MAIDEN - the PCs took over the room and decided to use its features to extract some information from one of the surviving goblins.  (They just didn't trust Splug.  I wonder why?)

He pointed out that Balgron the Fat, the goblin subchief, had his lair just through the door down the other way.  The door that he was trying so hard to get to, but couldn't because he was being roasted from behind by flames from hell.

The PCs snuck up on the lair - stealth had worked well in the first encounter, why not the second? - and with help from a ghost sound (+2) and some sound effects I liked (another +2), the Rogue slipped past the guards.  He heard the heavy snoring from Balgron the Fat and decided to kill him.

He didn't expect to see a goblin guard watching over Balgron while the subchief slept.  The Rogue had a surprise round - he wanted to kill the guard before he could make a sound.

After some table talk - basically working out the parameters of what he could do - we decided on this: with some nice RP - the Rogue moving up to the goblin, sweeping his legs and then putting his knee on the goblin's throat - he could knock the goblin prone and silence him until the end of the Rogue's next turn.

A successful Dex vs. Reflex - it had worked!

Good thing, too.  The goblin won init.  

He tried to break the Rogue's hold on him, which he did (if he had failed, the silenced condition would have "sustain minor"), and he tried to shout out a warning.  Nothing came out but a squeak.  Remember - "end of the Rogue's next turn."  

Stupid goblin.

The Rogue then slipped behind the curtain and performed his Daily power on the helpless subchief - Final Strike, I think - and the Coup de Grace damage was greater than the bloodied damage.

The rest of the battle was a mop-up.

After that, they killed the rest of the goblins on the level, capturing a few.  Have to remember - the goblins will be willing to work for the PCs and will try to make some kind of deal for their lives.

edit: I should also note that I gave the Rogue an individual Quest on the spot: if he kills Balgron, he gets the XP.  I wanted to tempt him to be daring!


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## LostSoul (Aug 8, 2008)

Played again tonight.  Not much interesting stuff to report on - it turns out, when you're stuck in a corridor fighting hobgoblins, your at-wills are your best bet!

Play started with the PCs holeing up in the torture chamber with their captive goblins.  The goblins beg for mercy and plead for their lives, offering their service.  Hey, they're goblins; they fight for the strongest.  It's what they do.

While they were extended resting, I used the hobgoblin slavers - the Bloodreavers - from the web enhancement as an encounter.  The hobgoblins had come down to sell some slaves for the ritual.  The PCs heard them mucking about.

I had Splug show them a secret door I added connecting the torture chamber to the middle of rooms 12, 13, and 14.  They chose not to take it.  Instead, they decided to bluff their way through things, claiming they were the ones in control, the ones who were going to buy the slaves.  The check was successful.

I had the hobgoblins come in, mess around, and a few other checks were made.  I didn't do a skill challenge - I was pretty content with the first check, and figured that the PCs could get rid of the hobgobs if they wanted to, or get the jump on them if they wanted to fight.

They wanted to fight.  The hobgobs were mashed.

So the Rogue decides to check out the secret door.  He does some scouting.  He finds a single guard in the barracks.  He decides to try to assassinate him.

He failed.

This drew all sorts of action.  The PCs got the goblins to fight for them, guiding them as minions using minor actions (think bag of tricks!).  It was crazy as two encounters fell on them at once.

They were pulling it off - a close thing, but they were doing it!

Then the Fighter was pushed out of place.  The hobgoblins slipped past him.  They triggered the silent alarm.  The warchief was alerted.

Another encounter fell on them.

At this point, all they were doing was trying to escape.  They almost pulled that off, but the Fighter drew an OA while picking up the body of the Warlock - an OA which hit his AC by 1, and dropped him to 0 hp.

Now the Fighter and the Warlock are going to live out the rest of their short lives being tortured and prepared for sacrifice to Orcus, Demon Prince of Undead.

Or will they?  We'll find out next session.


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## pukunui (Aug 8, 2008)

Awesome stuff! I wish I was this good at improvising! Actually, I wish that my players were this creative! None of them really think outside the box. I wish they'd try things like what your rogue did to Balgron's guard. The whole knocking him down and silencing him thing was great!

Mind if I plunder some of your ideas? I think I might just have to give my players some concrete examples of things they can do in order to get the idea in their heads that they can try zany things. I gave them a little talk about trying stuff out last session and the best they came up with was to scale the cliff and try to attack the kobolds outside the lair from the top of the waterfall (which backfired badly). Since we're all still learning, I'm going to tell them about the various things they can do that are written into the encounters in H1 (like knocking over tables, pulling down curtains, and the like). I'm hoping by the time we finish and start H2, they won't need any more prompting.


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## Imp (Aug 8, 2008)

This sounds like a lot of fun!


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## Mathew_Freeman (Aug 8, 2008)

Mental note - look at pg 42, mention it to the players, offer them a hidden +1 if they attempt anything from it in the next session.


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## Heselbine (Aug 8, 2008)

Tallarn said:


> Mental note - look at pg 42, mention it to the players, offer them a hidden +1 if they attempt anything from it in the next session.




Do bear in mind that the p42 table has been errata'd and is now completely different!!!


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## pukunui (Aug 8, 2008)

Heselbine said:


> Do bear in mind that the p42 table has been errata'd and is now completely different!!!



I wouldn't say it's _completely_ different. Only the DCs-by-level bit has changed. The damage-by-level is the same. _And_ errata isn't mandatory. You can ignore it if you want to ...


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## LostSoul (Aug 8, 2008)

pukunui said:


> Awesome stuff! I wish I was this good at improvising! Actually, I wish that my players were this creative! None of them really think outside the box. I wish they'd try things like what your rogue did to Balgron's guard. The whole knocking him down and silencing him thing was great!




One thing I did, when the players were discussing the Rogue's assassination attempt, was to give him a minor Quest on the spot.  Then, when he went in to take care of business, I asked him "What do you want to do?  Forget the rules for a second - what would you like to have happen?"


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## pukunui (Aug 8, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> One thing I did, when the players were discussing the Rogue's assassination attempt, was to give him a minor Quest on the spot.  Then, when he went in to take care of business, I asked him "What do you want to do?  Forget the rules for a second - what would you like to have happen?"



That's a good way to do it. I like that. Thanks, LostSoul.


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## LostSoul (Aug 22, 2008)

Played tonight.

Not too much to report except the cool skill challenge we had.

Situation:  Half the PCs were headed back to Winterhaven.  Half the PCs were in the Keep, at the mercy of Kalarel.

Winterhaven: 
In peril!  The dead are rising from the graveyard!

The Keep: 
Kalarel: Submit to the will of Orcus, or die!

I ran The Dead Walk encounter for three PCs.  (Two players only; the Cleric's player left because he got a job that was on at nights.)  So it was the Rogue, the Cleric, and the Wizard against Ninaren and the rest of them.

They had a single NPC minion - 1st level human - on their side, that they controlled using Minor Actions.  Yeah, he went down right away.  

The PCs were not doing much better.  They knew they had to shut down that magic circle, but they had to stay alive long enough to do it.  And I was rolling hot.

Meanwhile, we were cutting to the other PCs in the Keep and their skill challenge - once per round, giving each player a chance to do something.  Kalarel was trying to break them, to curse them to do the will of Orcus.  I started off by using torture, but the PCs were resisting.  The Warlock feigned an interest in Orcus to keep the hot pokers away from his flesh, so Kalarel dragged them all to the upper temple.  (Room 18)

On the way there, the Fighter broke his bonds.

Cut back to the fight.  

Things going bad.  PCs dropping.  The Cleric turns undead, the Rogue is able to shut down 1/3 of the Magic Circle thanks to the guidance of the Wizard.  ("Your lifeblood will cancel out the magic!" the Wizard's player said.  The Rogue just barely made his roll.)  But the Wizard went down, and so did the Rogue.  Not good.  They had taken out maybe 2 skeletons and one zombie dog at this point.

Cut to the Keep.  

We're in the blood-soaked altar room.  Time for a sacrifice!  I started dragging the PCs onto the altar to see what would happen - what they would do to get out of that situation.

The Warlord, a new PC - replacing the Cleric - said that he had created a small sympathetic doll that would take the curse instead of him.  Arcana roll (Hard) = success!  He undergoes a ritual - soaked in the blood of a sacrificed pig - but suffers no ill effect.

The Warlock is next.  He says he already believes in the power of Orcus, and he didn't need the blood ritual.  "Good, then," Kalarel responds, "you can have the fire!"  Bones burning with a sickly green flame scorched his flesh.

Yes, this was a failure.

Then we turn to the Fighter.  Who, remember, had broken his bonds.  He's thrown on the altar.  "You are the most stubborn," Kalarel says.  "You will taste the knife of Orcus!"  He draws a knife, preparing to plunge it into the Fighter's chest.

The Warlord responds with a Scorching Burst right on the altar.  "The holy flames of Orcus!" he says.  "He is already blessed!"  

Yeah.  Kalarel is not buying it either.  "Betrayal!" he shouts.  The Warlord runs.

Now the Fighter makes his move.  He flips out and goes all bad ass.  He crushes the throat of the vampire spawn next to him.  He punches the underpriest in the face and breaks his nose.  He kicks Kalarel in the gut and winds him.

We're at 7 successes and 2 failures.  What's the Warlock going to do?

Let's cut to the graveyard.

Things aren't looking good.  The Wizard is back up and wipes out a bunch of skeletons thanks to a Colour Spray, but even using his Action Point he can't make it to the Magic Circle in time to attempt to break its power.  And with ~10 hp left, that's not good.

Ninaren goes and fires at the Cleric.  Twang!  A 3 comes up on the die.  Yeah, I'd use my Elven Accuracy too.  Swhiff!  Another 3.  Crap.  I probably would have nailed him if I hit with that sweet, sweet 1d10+5 damage.

The Cleric survives.  Survives long enough to make it to the Magic Circle and make a check to dispel it.  But one check isn't going to do it.  Thank the Raven Queen he's got an Action Point.  He makes the roll, and all the undead drop dead.

Back to the Keep.  

It's down to the Warlock's roll; success or failure, it's going to be resolved here.  Will they be swarmed by the Kalarel and his bitches, or will they break out?

The Warlock makes his move.  He calls a flaming claw from Hell to grab the underpriest and throw him down the well.  The underpriest tries to dodge, then to wiggle his way free, but he's stuck.  He gets tossed down the well.  All they can hear is a loud splash.

The PCs decide to beat feet and get out of there before Kalarel can rally his troops.

Back to Ninaren vs. the PCs.  

It's one non-elite NPC vs. 3 PCs, but they are badly hurt.  Almost all healing's gone, this is the 3rd encounter of the day and the last one was a bitch - no dailies remain.  But the men in Winterhaven can see what's going on, and when the PCs call for support - and make the Diplomacy checks to get it - the odds shift in their favour.

Ninaren is surrounded, attacked from range, flanked, blasted from afar, and he can't roll above a 3.  The Rogue puts him away for good, and Ninaren collapses into an open grave.


Okay, that was longer than I thought it would be.

After that, the PCs in the Keep pushed their way through to daylight; the PCs in town recruited a few allies (i.e. 16 year-old minions); and eventually they met up again.  (The Wizard had an awesome idea, to send the PCs in the Keep the secret passcode found on Ninaren; too bad it didn't matter, since the guards were dead, and hey, it's a fake passcode anyways.)

"So what do you want to do now?"
"How about we go back down into the Keep?"

They pushed forward, destroyed the clay scout who was lurking in the first room before it could alert Kalarel, and made it to the gauntlet/skeleton generator room.  They wiped out the room and destroyed the sarcophagi.

I had the whole room dedicated to Orcus and the scribblings to Bahamut were there because Keegan was trying to banish these things.  But he was cursed; he couldn't speak the words.  So the PCs had to do it.

Anyways.  The skeletons gone, they smashed the altars, weakening Kalarel's bond with Orcus.  (i.e. They get the benefit of the dragon statues.)  They looked at the door, glowing with warding symbols of Orcus, wondering what it meant:

"If good wards are meant to keep evil things away..."
"...then evil wards are meant to keep good things away!"

That's where we left off.


Some things I suspected, but I think I learned:  When running a skill challenge, as a DM you really have to push the PCs.  Don't just leave them in a place where they can do nothing.  "Okay, you make it to an empty room.  You're okay.  What do you do?"  NO!  "Okay, you make it to an empty room.  But you hear the sound of stone rumbling... EARTHQUAKE!  What do you do?"

You don't get a roll as DM.  You have to pack your punch without the roll.  Push them to a situation where they have to make a roll - and make sure they deal with the consequences of that roll, of the change in the situation -whether they succeed or fail.

edit: The Skill Challenge was Level 4: DCs 7/12/17; most checks were DC 12, a few DC 17.  We used some Powers/Attack Rolls as Skill Checks.  Still used the same DCs, though Kalarel would have been Hard, while the Underpriest was Moderate and a Minion would have been Easy.


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## Nebulous (Aug 22, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> Played tonight.
> 
> Not too much to report except the cool skill challenge we had.




Great summary LostSoul, i really really like how that played out. I have some problems with Skill Challenges myself, i think i'm doing them wrong. i.e., there's not enough inherent tension packed in.  But the above examples worked beautifully.


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## Korvax (Aug 22, 2008)

That is a bag of awesome! I love this thread, if only for the great inspiration it gives me as a DM. Thanks for sharing LostSoul!


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## Nebulous (Aug 22, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> edit: The Skill Challenge was Level 4: DCs 7/12/17; most checks were DC 12, a few DC 17.  We used some Powers/Attack Rolls as Skill Checks.  Still used the same DCs, though Kalarel would have been Hard, while the Underpriest was Moderate and a Minion would have been Easy.




Can you give an example of how and when you used the Powers and Attacks rolls?  What was happening with the characters?


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## LostSoul (Aug 22, 2008)

Nebulous said:


> Can you give an example of how and when you used the Powers and Attacks rolls?  What was happening with the characters?




Sure!  Here's a little sequence:

_Here is me setting up the scene, trying to push the PCs to make a roll or suffer the effects of not doing anything:_
Kalarel: Bring the warrior to the altar!  
Vampire Spawn: <obey, dragging the Wexley Fighter up the stairs and slamming him down on the altar, unaware that Wexley's hands are free>
Wexley the Fighter: <waits for his moment to strike>
Underpriest: <chortles>
Kalarel: <to Wex>  As you are the most stubborn, you will taste the kiss of Orcus' tooth!  <Kalarel draws a long knife and prepares to jab it into the Fighter's chest.>

_Here is the Warlord jumping into the action in response to my push:_
Malchior the Warlord: <slips around to the back and casts _Scorching Burst_ on the altar> "The flame of Orcus!  He's blessed!"
DM: Uh... okay.  Give me a Hard Stealth check - we'll see if they noticed you casting the spell.
Malchior: <rolls, misses it by 1>
DM: Flames burst around the altar.
Malchior: <rolls to hit to see if he kills the Vampire Spawn minions; kills one>
Kalarel: Betrayal!  Bring him to me!  We'll tear his heart out!
Malchior: <runs>

_Here is the Fighter using a Power to make a roll in the Skill Challenge:_
Wexley: <flails out at everyone using Sweeping Blow>  <rolls Str vs. Moderate DC, +2 because the DM thought it fitting; succeeds>
Vampire Spawn: <dies>
Kalarel: Ooof! <kicked in the gut>
Underpriest: Arrgh! <punched in the nose, bleeding>

_Here is the Warlock finishing things up with Diabolic Grasp:_
Jace the Warlock: <conjures a hand of hellfire that grabs the Underpriest>
Underpriest: Nooo! <struggles>
Jace: <rolls Con vs. Moderate DC - Kalarel would have been Hard; succeeds>
Underpriest: <dragged to the well and thrown down> Kalarel, save meeeeee... <splash> <thud>


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## cr0m (Aug 27, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> The Warlord, a new PC - replacing the Cleric - said that he had created a small sympathetic doll that would take the curse instead of him.  Arcana roll (Hard) = success!  He undergoes a ritual - soaked in the blood of a sacrificed pig - but suffers no ill effect.




I've only played a couple 4e sessions, but it sounds like you're using a skill challenge for the characters trying to get away from Kalarel... is that right? Very cool!

In the bit I quoted, did the Warlord just ad lib making an item that could take the curse or is this one of his powers? If it's the former--awesome!


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## That One Guy (Aug 28, 2008)

That's how to roll! Awesome stuff, just awesome.


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## LostSoul (Sep 7, 2008)

We played again last Thursday.  Things were pretty simple, but I did add to the module by using the "random encounter skill challenge" that I came up with last time.

First, they went into the skill challenge with Sir Keegan.  This went well, I thought, but failures in the skill challenge didn't translate well.  He just kept raising his sword, calling the PCs servants of Orcus, etc.  Not much change in the situation for each roll.  They won on the last roll, and he gave them his sword.  It all worked out, but I felt it lacked some tension.

We talked about skill challenges after the game over some drinks, and I think we had some good ideas.  More on that later.

After Sir Keegan they headed down to the second level.  Cleaned up the remaining zombies at the top of the stairs in no time flat.

I had the Warchief and the remaining hobgoblins guarding the entrance, and this turned into one really close fight.  The Warlock moved out in front to start off the combat, and, using Hellish Rebuke, blocked himself from damage.  I wanted to do something cool to him using page 42 instead of an attack, but couldn't think of anything at the time.  Oh well; the fight was cool, the Warlock and Wizard nearly went down and the Warlord went down a few times.

One of the hobgoblin grunts ran away to alert the ghoul from room 17, so I told the players that they didn't have a chance to get a short rest between fights.  They hid out in a nearby room and the Wizard used Ghost Sound to trick the oncoming ghouls into searching the upper levels.  One successful Arcana check vs. the Ghoul's Will defense and the PCs were in the clear.

They went to the trap room, and it was cool, but I think it would have been even more awesome if I had the ghoul show up and attack them while they were in the middle of it.  I didn't want to overwhelm them, though, and I thought the ghoul and his zombie horde would be tough.

When they did encounter the ghoul and his zombies - the PCs in room 17, ghouls blocking their exit, the Cathedral down the stairs - it was pretty cool.  The ghoul told them they were trapped, just like he was trapped when Sir Keegan went on his rampage.  He would wait until they killed and ate each other, becoming a monster like him.

The Warlod revealed Sir Keegan's sword and the ghoul flew into a rage, attacking immediately (after a successful Diplomacy check).  The PCs totally creamed them, and at this point I kicked myself for not having the ghoul attack in the trap room!  It would have made both encounters awesome.

After the fight, I had a vampire spawn from the Cathedral room open the door and hiss at them - no time for a short rest.  And that's where we ended.

The talk about the skill challenges was interesting.  We were trying to decide how best to handle them.  Here are some thoughts we had:


Skill challenges should be used when the group wants to go into detail on something and wants to have the end point be totally unknown - as opposed to regular skill checks, when there's more of a binary pass-or-fail, simple and quick mechanic.
We won't set up a goal for the skill challenge - we won't know what success or failure means until we get there.
The DM will push hard against the PCs, "forcing" an action/roll of some kind.
The DM or the players can end the skill challenge at any point if they are satisfied with what's going on in the fictional situation.  If the PCs are okay with whatever situation the DM is pushing on them, we can end the challenge (because there is no longer a conflict).
Each roll will be very important and will resolve the stated action, which will change the situation.
The overall success and failure means that we know when to stop rolling, sticking with those results.  This was the tricky thing.  We decided that I, the DM, would have the authority to really be a bastard, doing things like taking away all their healing surges, throwing them in prison without their equipment, that sort of thing.  Success would mean no more rolling for whatever just happened.  It's hard to explain but you know it when you see it.


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## pukunui (Sep 7, 2008)

Man ... I am so jealous! I wish _my_ players would roleplay like that!

Lostsoul - would you be willing to expand on your experience with the trap room? You said it was fun but I'm actually a bit worried about it.

Like I'm not entirely sure how the arcane wall with the whirlpool trap is supposed to work. For starters, I don't really know where the wall is supposed to be ...

This guy highlights the issues quite well: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1037342

I'd love to know how you interpreted it and how it all worked out for your group.


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## LostSoul (Sep 7, 2008)

The trap room was cool because the players had to figure out what they did using player skill.  The maneuvered around the room to disable what they could, avoided the traps, and used powers to get themselves out of bad spots (shifting mostly - thanks Warlord!).

I had the arcane cage show up between the first passage and another one behind the farthest two cherubs.  I let them attack through the cage, though it might have been better to have them make an Arcana check to bypass them.

I wouldn't worry too much about the cage.  Just make sure that the PCs can use their powers or skills to work against it and it'll work out fine, I think.

If I was running it again, I'd have another group of monsters show up.  From behind the PCs, if at all possible.  There's a lot of interesting terrain options that you can use - stuff that could make the zombie grab a good option (an immobilized PC in the range of the titan's sword would be killer).  Other monsters that can force movement would work well here too.


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## pukunui (Sep 8, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> I had the arcane cage show up between the first passage and another one behind the farthest two cherubs.  I let them attack through the cage, though it might have been better to have them make an Arcana check to bypass them.



The main problem I have with it is simply where to put it. It _sounds_ like it's supposed to pass through the cherubs, so that they're partly inside the cage and partly outside of it ... although your idea of allowing an Arcana check to bypass the cage is a good potential solution.



> I wouldn't worry too much about the cage.  Just make sure that the PCs can use their powers or skills to work against it and it'll work out fine, I think.



My players are such that they like to know exactly where things are. They don't like vagueness, so I know I'll need to tell them exactly where this cage is.



> If I was running it again, I'd have another group of monsters show up.  From behind the PCs, if at all possible.  There's a lot of interesting terrain options that you can use - stuff that could make the zombie grab a good option (an immobilized PC in the range of the titan's sword would be killer).  Other monsters that can force movement would work well here too.



Having monsters involved would be better ... after all, 4e traps are designed to be used in conjunction with monsters. This room is a bit odd since it's _just_ traps ... and early model traps at that. None of them have any ability to act out of initiative order, so without any monsters in the room, it should be relatively easy for clever players to bypass the traps all together (except the cage) by delaying/readying/etc.


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## LostSoul (Sep 19, 2008)

Final Session!

This time we began with combat and it occupied our time for most of the night.  The PCs went into the Cathedral of Shadow.  Rogue and Warlock sneak around the south flank, but are spotted by the Dark Creeper.  Combat begins.

Smash smash boom boom.  The Wizard nearly died (failed 2 death saves).  Lesson (hopefully) learned: let the Fighter open the door!  In the end they won, gaining another Action Point, though the Wizard was out of healing and the Rogue and Warlock were running low as well.

But the minions from Winterhaven who came here when the Rogue asked are still alive.

Down below they hear Kalarel yelling - "That blood was all I needed!  The beast will tear through the portal and all will embrace Orcus!"

So they head down.  The Rogue sneaks along the chains (getting a -2 because it's hard to hide on slick chains) and scouts out the room.  Then they head in.  They swung on the chains using Athletics or Acrobatics as Jump checks, picking the square they landed in.

The Warlock has his Armour of Agathas... up so the Wight immobilizes him.  The Rogue comes in next and the Skeletons and Kalarel team up on him, knocking him down.  The Wizard heads to the circle and tries to break the ritual - but he fails, drawing a bolt of energy from the statue of Orcus.  (I wasn't using the skill challenge from the Wizards site, just going with it.)

Kalarel starts moving to the portal and the magic circle, holding on to his Action Point because things are going really well for him right now.  The Fighter's kept pinned by the Wight, though the Fighter totally messed up the Skeleton the Wight brought down, the Skeleton who was going to pin the PCs down so Kalarel could get to the circle.

Kalarel and the remaining skeleton smash the crap out of the Warlord, bringing him down - but only after he got his Lead the Attack off for a +4 to their attacks!  Crap.  The Rogue gets knocked out too.  But they both get up and finally the Fighter breaks the Immobilization and pins Kalarel down.

The Wight tries to force the Warlock and Rogue into the Icy zone the Wizard set up, but totally fails.  That was the breaking point; Kalarel was pinned away from the portal (which didn't do much) and gets creamed.  But he was close enough to get sucked into the portal, which was nice.

Mop up time.  No prob.

Then we had a Skill Challenge to close the portal for good.  It was all the sacrifices and the blood that was powering the rift.  The PCs said prayers to the Raven Queen, performed funeral rites, and broke Orcus' hold on the dead, ushering them to the Raven Queen.  This firmed up the rift, turning it from a thin veil into an obsidian wall.

Back to Winterhaven.  There's much rejoicing, and some roleplay.  The Wizard gets up on stage and starts talking about the evil that's infecting the land.  

Rond is watching nearby, taking it all in, and the Rogue approaches him.  "We can give you a promotion if you help us out," he says.  Rond isn't the type of guy to go for bribes, but he says: "I just want peace, order, and good government for Winterhaven."  He gives the Rogue a sash marking him as a deputy.

Then the Wizard really gets into it.  "We must root out the cause, what allowed the evil to infect the land."  Padraig gets up to speak, and the Wizard points him out.  "He was the one who allowed Orcus to get his hands on Winterhaven!"

Padraig is shocked.  The crowd agrees.  "Burn him!  Get Padraig!"  Pitchforks and torches appear.  The Warlord tries to calm down the crowd with an appeal to law, order, and justice as the mob brings Padraig up on stage.  Rond comes to the Warlord's aid.

The old slave rescued from the Keep comes on stage with a knife.  "I was sold into slavery because of him!  I'm going to kill him for it!"  The Wizard grabs his arm, holding him back, and the old man drops his knife and weeps.  Aww.

So they throw Padraig in jail.  A council is formed - Rond, the Warlord Malchior, Salvana Wrafton, Eilian the Old, and Valthrun the Prescient.  They agree to a trial by a jury of peers and start figuring out who's going to run this place.  The Wizard plans to take care of the treasury.  The Rogue is made a deputy for good, and the Rogue's minion buddies.  (Who have gained a level.)  The Fighter is the "Brute Squad".

The Warlock, meanwhile, is talking to a priest about his Infernal Pact, how he came to make it, and how he's going to track down the devil who made it with him.

That was that.  Next time: I'm going to lead off with Douven Staul and the mercenary company the PCs are working for coming into Winterhaven to deal with Kalarel - a little late.  They're going to be led by a Knight, and his first words will be: 

"What the hell is Lord Padraig doing in prison?"


So next time we'll deal with that.  We also talked about where we want the game to go.  We're going to have some more character-driven stuff, stuff that will be resolved with lots and lots of combat.  We are going to play through Thunderspire Labryinth, though I'll modify it based on the goals of the PCs.


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## El Mahdi (Sep 19, 2008)

I'll echo what *pukunui* posted previously, you have an awesome group.  This is some "Golden" roleplaying.  Good times man.  Appreciate what you have here, this is some really good stuff.


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## LostSoul (Sep 19, 2008)

(Huh, rep is turned on.  Cool.)

Thanks!  It's been good times!  Hopefully that will continue into THUNDERSPIRE LABYRINTH!  It looks like a cool module and I'm looking forward to it.


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## pukunui (Sep 20, 2008)

Nice! I can't wait to read about your group's experiences with H2.

My group found the hooks I planted for H2 last session (I've modified things so that Kalarel is actually a cultist of Vecna working with Paldemar -- they're trying to trick Orcus into giving them access to his sanctuary on the other side of the rift in order to claim it for Vecna instead. Anyway, the Bloodreavers found out about this somehow and sent emissaries to try to blackmail Kalarel but he figured Paldemar would be able to discredit any blackmail attempts back at the Hall so he had the emissaries killed.). The only problem is that a number of my players are aware of the names of the modules, and when one of them saw that Thunderspire was mentioned, he blurted out "That's the name of the next module!" Sigh ...


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## LostSoul (Oct 3, 2008)

We got on to Thunderspire Labyrinth last night.

The guy who was most invested in taking over Winterhaven was away last night, so we decided (as a group) to put off the "a knight rides into town and asks what the hell Padraig is doing in jail" encounter.  

I did stat up an encounter, though, making up a new monster.  It's easy to do - took no time at all.  I just asked myself what kinds of things this guy could do, and what level of adversity he would pose.  Here are his stats if you're interested:

[sblock=Knight of Nerath]Knight of Nerath Level 8 Elite Soldier
Large humanoid, human XP 700
Initiative +9 Senses Perception +7
HP 184; Bloodied 92
AC 25; Fortitude 23, Reflex 20, Will 22
Saving Throws +1
Speed 5
Action Points 1
m Spear (standard; at-will) ✦ Weapon
+15 vs. AC; 2d6+5 damage, and the target is marked until the end of the knight's next turn.
M Hoof Smash (standard; at-will )
Requires warhorse; +13 vs. Ref; 1d8+5 damage, and the target is pushed one square and falls prone.  The knight may shift into the space.
Brutal Charge (standard; at-will; on charge only)
Requires warhorse; the knight charges and makes a spear and hoof smash attack.
Shield Block (immediate interrupt, when hit by a melee attack; encounter)
The knight forces a re-roll, taking the second value, and gains a +2 to AC and Reflex until the end of his next turn.
Grim Determination (immediate reaction, when first bloodied; encounter)
The knight gains a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls.
Mounted
Requires warhorse; the knight gains a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls, a +2 bonus to Athletics and Endurance, and his speed is increased to 8.
Alignment Unaligned Languages Common
Skills Athletics +14, Endurance +14, Intimidate +12
Str +9 Dex +7 Wis +7
Con +9 Int +7 Cha +7
Equipment plate mail, spear, shield, warhorse[/sblock]

So I went around the table, asking each player what his PC was doing.  We ran a short scene for each PC:


The Wizard (Armok) was surveying the graveyard for a future location for his tower.  Now that all the corpses have risen and been blasted, it's not much of a graveyard.  

He got the aid of Thain Coalstriker, who said, "I'm not an engineer, but if I were, this is what I would do..." and rattled off some engineering jargon.  He also wanted to build _down,_ not up, and couldn't understand why someone would build up - it's defenseless!
The Fighter (Wexley) was busy getting drunk and tending to his wounds, practicing with his sword.
The Rogue (Bren the Bold) was out in the fields training his Entourage how to fight better.  He's in a Skill Challenge to turn these guys from Minions into "real" monsters.

The halflings were doing fine, shooting with their slings, but the human wasn't doing so well.  The Rogue, a halfling himself, tried to show him how to fight, but he only knows halfling stances, and not human ones.  The human couldn't get it, and gave up in disgust, heading off to drink with the Fighter.
The Warlock (Jace) went to the temple to talk with Sister Linora.  He wanted to find out some information about the devil with whom he made his pact.  Sister Linora said that she could find out about him, but she'd need the heart of a devil or the pinfeathers of an angel.  (Instead of the 400 gp for Consult Mystic Sages.)

She also told him that he should just accept it and not go off and get himself into more trouble.  "I see pain and death along this path."  "Yeah, that's anyone who gets in my way."

All the PCs eventually crossed paths in the graveyard.  And they spotted some hobgoblins lurking around.  What I'm going to do is introduce most plot points through combat scenes.  It's D&D after all.

The hobgoblins were Bloodreaver slavers from Thunderspire who were looking for their brothers.  There was a short, brutal fight (and two of the Entourage went down, but were brought up into fighting form with some Heal checks after the fight) and the PCs won.  They tried to get the commander to talk, but he told them to... erm, "get lost", and Wexley the Fighter snapped his neck.

Luckily he had a note on him.  So off to Thunderspire.  As an added hook, one of the Entourage said his pa was taken by slavers and he wants to go and rescue him.

Into Thunderspire.  I described the main passage using imagery from the movie version of Lord of the Rings - the Moria scene.  The PCs decided not to head down the main passage, and they wandered around the minotaur-made passages.

And soon they got lost (15 on the Dungeoneering check).  Armok knew a thing or two about minotaur construction, but the route he took them along was caved in.  So they decided to wait until a "guide" came by.

That guide came in the form of some (randomly-generated) Crusaders of Torog - a bunch of stinky troglodytes and an angel of valour.  I described the angel of valour as a lump of flesh, covered in green bile, open sores, and maggots, eyes and mouths popping open and bursting at random.

The Warlock Jace gave them a nice line about being a worshipper of Torog himself, and they needed his help because he was sick.  They believed his lies but were confused - why didn't he give off the aura of Torog (the trog stench), why did he need help if he was gifted by Torog (the illness), etc.

He bluffed again (no roll needed, same original successful roll), saying that he wanted help to spread the gift and infect others.

And then the wizard cast his daily on them and the fight took off.

And what a fight!  It was great.  The fighter moved out in front, got beaten down, came back, got beaten again.  But through some nice tactics and effects, the PCs prevailed.

I did have one trog try to trip the Warlock who was shifting - casting, the bastard! even though it wasn't on his statblock, but he failed.  Other than that, it was pretty much by-the-numbers.  Good fight, though.

They tried to intimidate the last two trogs, but only got one (the other they killed right away).  The captured trog's small brain couldn't understand why they were attacked - weren't they all worshippers of Torog?  (The original bluff roll, still in effect.)  The PCs gave him a line about this whole thing being a test.  The trog was happy he was found worthy and asked when the maggots on the genitals - the standard rite of Torog - would begin.

"Um, later."

They took the map tattooed on the arm of the curse chanter - well, they took the skin - and went back into the dungeon with a guide.

That's where we ended.  I talked with one player about random encounters, resource management, and how hard it is to take down a PC with access to all his healing surges.  I like the fact that this module has random encounters which makes resting more difficult.

The players asked about clearing out sections so they could rest safely... I'm not sure how I will handle that.  Any ideas?


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## pukunui (Oct 3, 2008)

Great stuff.

I can't wait till we get to Thunderspire Labyrinth. I think it'll be much more fun. I'm actually getting bored of KotS now.


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## vagabundo (Oct 3, 2008)

RE: Resting in thunderspire.

I think some of the mapped areas could be used as rest areas once they are cleared and possibly fortified.  The Duergar fortress springs to mind.

The adventure does mention that the tunnels connecting areas are filled with small side areas and corridors. They could be mapped out and possibly defended. Not that I'd like to sleep in a cold, lightless tunnel.


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## pukunui (Oct 3, 2008)

vagabundo said:


> Not that I'd like to sleep in a cold, lightless tunnel.



But you're not a battle-hardened adventurer! Those guys are used to that kind of thing!


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## LostSoul (Oct 14, 2008)

From last Thursday's game:

After having defeated the Crusaders of Torog, the PCs began to interrogate their captive.  He told them how he came to the Seven-Pillared Hall - a long, circuitous route that went through "the devil-dwarves' Horned Hold.  We had to trade slaves with them in order to get through."

Oh, slaves?  Everyone perks up.  Take us to them!

"It's a long trip, but the scent-trail should be strong enough."

Scent-trail?  They figure out what this is when their troglodyte guide starts smelling his way deeper into the mountain.

After descending a long staircase, he tells them that some of his friends are waiting in a nearby chamber.  The PCs enter and see a pair of troglodyte maulers.  The Warlock fails a Bluff check, and we roll init.

The guide doesn't know what to do at first, but he's commanded to charge - and he gets swatted down by the maulers.

The Rogue slips around for a good shot but is suddenly attacked by tentacles emerging from the gloom of the vaulted chamber!  A grell descends on him.

In the fight, the Rogue and Wizard are pounded, the Warlock nearly dies, but the grell can't seem to hit with his poison beak and the PCs prevail.  The grell escapes, however, flying deeper into the labyrinth.

I described the walls as weak, masonry chipping, and each missed ranged attack knocking pieces off, but no one used the terrain feature - rockslide!  I should have used it myself, or made it explicit.  Oh well, next time.

The PCs, beaten and bruised, head back to the main hall.  They head towards the Seven-Pillared Hall and whatever passes itself off as civilization in this evil place.

On the way there, they hear some hobgoblins taunting a halfing.  The Rogue slowly sneaks up, opens the door, and nearly kills one of the warriors with a quick dagger throw.  In response, the hobgoblins slam the door shut and bar it.  This gives the hobgoblins time to form a defensive line, as well as time to stab the halfing.

The PCs burst in - Rogue first, who gets a bunch of Readied actions.  Pulled behind the lines from the hobgoblin warcaster's force lure, he gets smashed badly.  But the Fighter leads the charge to the front, and the Warlord buys the Rogue enough time to slip onto the large casks, away from the hobgoblin's flails.

After that, the PCs cleaned up.  Restil the halfling survived the stabbing, and introduced himself to the group.  He knows Finn and Neb, two of the Rogue's halfling Entourage, from a night of drinking in Fallcrest.  Restil tells them he runs an inn down here, and with that news, the PCs don't need a guide who stinks worse than an open grave used as an outhouse.  The trog guide dies.

In the Seven-Pillared Hall, Brugg the Ogre asks for a tax for all the suits of armour the PCs looted off the hobgoblins.  The Wizard bluffs his way in, passing himself off as one of the Mages of Saruun.  No tax today!

The PCs rest.  Malchior The Warlord is approached by an old friend, a Mage of Saruun named Orontar.  He tells Malchior that Malchior's uncle Paldemar, a Mage of Saruun, has gone missing.  Last seen in the cisterns, nearby the temple of Torog.  

The map tattooed on the flesh of the curse chanter is pulled out, and a quick deal is worked out for it (a treasure package, the PCs are low on funds).  Orontar tells them they will assault the trogs who have been plaguing the Hall, and the PCs ask to join.  They're given a few days to rest.

The Rogue and Warlock head out to sell some goods and end up trading with the duergar "devil-dwarves".  The duergar offer 8 gp for the 4 suits of scale, and the Rogue declines and leaves.

The duergar ask the Warlock to hang around, as they can sense the Infernal Pact.  They offer him a job, if he can prove himself worthy - a pitfight with Brugg.  He agrees.

The next evening, the Fighter challenges Brugg to a pitfight.  Brugg wants to fight without armour and weapons, but the Fighter calls him a pansy afraid to get cut, and Brugg accepts the fight to the death.

Odds are given for the match: 2-1 for Brugg.  That changes to 3-2 once the Wizard and the Warlord put down 300 or so gp on the Fighter.  The winner of the match gets the trophy: the head of the last champion!

We draw the map up quickly, adding a pit or two, chains that hang down over it, a chained deathjump spider in one corner of the pit, and a caged animal in another.  Each combatant enters and the fight's on.

Brugg charges, smashing the Fighter, who pushes Brugg into the big pit; Brugg grabs onto the chains and swings around, knocking the fighter back a square, into the corner.

The duergar, watching the fight, zap the Fighter with a psychic ray.  The Warlock asks, "What the hell?"  "Your friend is good.  Let's see _how_ good.  If he can survive, even with the odds against him, we'll know you can put together a good team and we'll accept you."

The crowd cheers as Brugg gets a few good hits in, but the Fighter responds in kind.  Things aren't looking good for Brugg, so a goblin shoots at the Fighter with a poison dart.  The Warlord and the Rogue make sure he doesn't do that again.

Brugg moves into the corner, and the Fighter is closest to the deathjump spider.  The owner of the bar releases it (yes, the fix is in!) and the spider jumps on the Fighter's back.  But the Wizard knows a thing or two about spiders (i.e. successful nature check); he knows that they feed on vermin, rats especially.  So he covers Brugg in an illusory rat swarm, and the spider switches targets.

The fight doesn't last long after that.  The Fighter does not kill Brugg, so he does not get Brugg's head, but he does get the last trophy.  He hitches it to his belt and looks scarier than ever (+2 bonus to Intimidate checks).

That was that.  The pitfight was cool because we got everyone involved, but we didn't use as much terrain as I would have liked.  I should have given Brugg some kind of Push-ing attacks.  Oh well.


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## pukunui (Oct 14, 2008)

Awesome stuff as usual, LostSoul.

Quick question: Did you do anything special/different in terms of the PCs gaining entrance to Thunderspire or did you pretty much just let them find the entrance and head in?

The reason I'm asking is because I need to make it more of a secret entrance. The minotaur fighter in my party has got it in his backstory that his father spent his life trying to find the lost city of Saruun Khel but he never did, so I need to make it hard to get in ...

Some of my ideas:
a) A Mines of Moria style "hidden entrance" (skill challenge?)
b) Have the PCs get escorted in "blindfolded" (easy way out )
c) Move the opening Bloodreaver encounter outdoors and have Restil escort the PCs inside, revealing the "secret entrance" without the PCs having to figure it out themselves but making it apparent that this was why the minotaur's father was never able to find it himself ...


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## LostSoul (Oct 15, 2008)

pukunui said:


> Awesome stuff as usual, LostSoul.
> 
> Quick question: Did you do anything special/different in terms of the PCs gaining entrance to Thunderspire or did you pretty much just let them find the entrance and head in?
> 
> ...




They just went right in; they made some good knowledge checks about Thunderspire and the Mages of Saruun (which got fed back into the backstory of one of the PCs - Malchior the Warlord, multiclassed Wizard, who has friends and an uncle in the organization).

I am thinking about putting the Invulnerable Coat of Arnd in there, maybe on Paldamar, as an heirloom of Malchior's noble family.  I'll re-fluff it, or Arnd.

So, to answer the question: how difficult should it be to get in?  I think it depends on how much time you want to spend on it.

If it's a big deal to you and your group then I'd make it a full adventure, maybe a session or two.  The adventure needs to end with the PCs finding the entrance to Thunderspire, so make that easy to discover.  However, I'd make the adventure resolve some other kind of issue, or bring in a complication.

What I'm thinking is that the adventure takes place in your minotaur PC's father's tomb.  Maybe it's been defiled by Vecna, keeper of secrets.  Maybe the PC's father switched to worship of Vecna in his final days in order to discover the entrance, but the twisted lies of Vecna meant that he died once he discovered the secret.  Now he's a ghost, angry and bitter.

The adventure resolves that - will the PCs be able to end Vecna's curse on him, or will he still be obsessed with finding Thunderspire?  Either way he will tell the PCs where it is.

I'm thinking a cool intelligent magic item, maybe artifact-level, that holds his soul will guide the PCs into Thunderspire.  +2 to Dungeoneering checks sounds like a good bonus.


If it's not that big a deal, a skill challenge would be a good way to approach it.  I'd probably just copy the Moria scene; the PCs will eventually break through, but will they be able to get in before that lurker in the water attacks them?  Will it break the entrance so that no one can get in or out that way?

Whatever you do, don't make it easy to get in.  Even if the PCs just get really lucky it's better than if they do something simple to get access.  If you make it too easy, the PC's father is going to look like an idiot, and that means that the PC's own image will be tarnished.


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## vagabundo (Oct 15, 2008)

One of my favourite threads. Keep the updates going.


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## pukunui (Oct 15, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> They just went right in; they made some good knowledge checks about Thunderspire and the Mages of Saruun (which got fed back into the backstory of one of the PCs - Malchior the Warlord, multiclassed Wizard, who has friends and an uncle in the organization).
> 
> I am thinking about putting the Invulnerable Coat of Arnd in there, maybe on Paldamar, as an heirloom of Malchior's noble family.  I'll re-fluff it, or Arnd.



Nice.



> So, to answer the question: how difficult should it be to get in?  I think it depends on how much time you want to spend on it.



I don't want to spend _that_ much time on it, but I also don't want it to be "OK, you go to Thunderspire, follow the road up the mountain, find the entrance, and go in."



> What I'm thinking is that the adventure takes place in your minotaur PC's father's tomb.  Maybe it's been defiled by Vecna, keeper of secrets.  Maybe the PC's father switched to worship of Vecna in his final days in order to discover the entrance, but the twisted lies of Vecna meant that he died once he discovered the secret.  Now he's a ghost, angry and bitter.



I don't actually know if the PC's father is dead or not. He might just be an old man. I'll have to go back and check. But that is certainly a good idea.



> The adventure resolves that - will the PCs be able to end Vecna's curse on him, or will he still be obsessed with finding Thunderspire?  Either way he will tell the PCs where it is.



The thing is, everyone in Nentir Valley knows where Thunderspire is. It's a well-known landmark. But the existence of the ancient minotaur city of Saruun Khel inside the mountain is but a rumor (and those that know the truth don't give their knowledge away freely). I imagine that the PC's father must have at least known - or had a very good idea - that the ruins were under Thunderspire, but he never figured out how to get in. Thus I can't make it too easy for the PCs or else, as you say, it'll make the father look like a total idiot (which he may well have been ... ).



> I'm thinking a cool intelligent magic item, maybe artifact-level, that holds his soul will guide the PCs into Thunderspire.  +2 to Dungeoneering checks sounds like a good bonus.



It's funny you should mention this because when we were playing 3.5, the guy playing the minotaur wanted an intelligent weapon but I told him no because the rules for intelligent weapons were too complicated and high-level, etc etc. But I've got the _Dragon_ article talking about intelligent items for 4e, and it seems pretty simple and easy, and so now I really want to give him an intelligent weapon. Having it be the soul of his father would be way cool in terms of story ... I had actually been thinking of giving him a "sword on speed" (a joke from a different thread pertaining to the typo in the article that reads "speed" instead of "speech").



> If it's not that big a deal, a skill challenge would be a good way to approach it.  I'd probably just copy the Moria scene; the PCs will eventually break through, but will they be able to get in before that lurker in the water attacks them?  Will it break the entrance so that no one can get in or out that way?



Good point. I may just do that. The guys _did_ say that they enjoyed the skill challenge that was incorporated into the combat in the graveyard last time, so if I make it so they have to try to open the door while fighting the thing in the lake, they might enjoy it. But I also want to make it so that they have to find the right spot on the side of the mountain as well.

I don't know if you're aware of the "Three Clue Rule" but I'm thinking I might start trying to adopt that approach to adventures. WotC doesn't seem to care if their adventures are railroady or have serious bottlenecks, but if I can give the PCs multiple ways to achieve their goals, I think it'll really enrich the adventures and make it less likely for them to get stuck. At this point, my plans for Thunderspire are still fairly vague but one thing I'm thinking of is the three ways for them to find Thunderspire would be:
1) They get the info out of the House Azaer tiefling in Fallcrest (since there's a House Azaer shop in the Seven Pillared Hall, then the tieflings must know how to get in and out).
2) They get the info from finding and researching ancient texts -- perhaps after going on a short adventure to find the info in a minotaur tomb or something first.
3) They simply go to the mountain and wait for someone to come along who can show them the entrance.



> Whatever you do, don't make it easy to get in.  Even if the PCs just get really lucky it's better than if they do something simple to get access.  If you make it too easy, the PC's father is going to look like an idiot, and that means that the PC's own image will be tarnished.



Exactly.


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## LostSoul (Oct 15, 2008)

pukunui said:


> I don't actually know if the PC's father is dead or not. He might just be an old man. I'll have to go back and check. But that is certainly a good idea.




It might work out better if he's still alive - then they can save him from death.


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## pukunui (Oct 15, 2008)

Ooh. Actually ... that's a fantastic idea! _That_ could be the adventure hook. The PCs come back to Fallcrest from their adventures in Winterhaven only to find that Taro the minotaur's father has gone off again, leaving a note saying he's having once last look for the minotaur city ... and then maybe a week or two later, Taro gets a vision of his father needing help and that sets everyone off on adventure again.

I'd like to try to have a bit of a hook for each PC, if I can, but that one will work well for the minotaur (although the player has said that that's where he wants to go next anyway).

Now the trick will be to make sure his PC survives KotS!


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## LostSoul (Nov 7, 2008)

Two updates, this time.

Two weeks ago the PCs embarked on a quest from the Mages of Saruun to destroy the Temple of Torog somewhere in the Cisterns.  (Luckily the PCs had a map, even if it was tatooed on the stinking flesh of a troglodyte.)  Orontar asked the PCs to infiltrate into the temple, open up a Linked Portal, and then the Mages would clean up.

We started with an encounter featuring swarms of worms, beetles, and a carrion crawler guarding a well that led into the cisterns.  Swarms of worms and beetles were flooding into the chamber from hollow carved columns.  The PCs figured out that this crazy bug fest was being caused from a sacred circle of Torog, which they wiped out.

The PCs cleaned up, then headed down into the Cisterns.

I ran a skill challenge as the PCs followed the map deep into the cisterns.  They avoided some encounters, fought off a giant water snake (like the thing that grabbed Luke in the Death Star's garbage compactor), and finally reached the gates to the troglodyte warren.

Creative use of cantrips caused most of the guards to flee, and the PCs fought their way in.

After not much time the PCs found themselves trapped in a room with hundreds of angry troglodytes coming after them.  The Wizard was busy using the Linked Portal - though not in the temple, like the Mages asked.

I was using minions - way too high level minions, too, big mistake!  There was a standoff between the PCs in their little chamber and the trogs on the other side, caused by the Warlock's Armour of Agathas.  Finally, the Wizard opened the Linked Portal, and Orontar and his men jumped through.

"What the hell is this?  Where's the temple?"  Orontar says.

"On the other side of that horde of troglodytes."

"Screw this.  We wanted the portal open in the temple.  You guys messed up."  He jumps back and the portal closes.  Only a few human guards made it through.  (So far it had been too easy for the PCs, so I upped the difficulty.)

The PCs escaped through the hot air heating system in the troglodyte warren (old minotaur baths) and we ran another skill challenge.  I allowed them to take an extended rest, which was probably not a good idea.  The PCs were hunted but they made it into the temple.

The final encounter saw the PCs clean up pretty handily, with a loss of healing surges but only the warlord went down once.  When they destroyed the altar, the temple began to crumble, and they escaped through a back tunnel.


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## LostSoul (Nov 7, 2008)

This Week:  The Long Walk Home

(Oh yeah, some stuff I forgot to mention: the PCs saved a bunch of human slaves / sacrifical / torture victims.  Some of them mentioned that Paldemar, Malchior the Warlord's uncle, was seen in the warrens, trading rituals.)

The PCs are lost in the Labyrinth, their map useless now - pointing to a path that's blocked with tons of rubble.  A score of slaves travel with them, and they aren't too quiet.  And the PCs are tired and worn down.

They explore for a while and come to a T-intersection, with a set of winding stairs leading up.  Armok the Wizard lights some sacred incense of the Raven Queen, and a black, spectral Hand of Fate appears: 

"What's the best way back to the Seven-Pillared Hall?"  The hand points up the stairs.
"Which way is pursuit coming from?"  The hand makes a fist.
"Who will be the first to betray us?"  The hand points to Don, one of Bren the Bold's (halfling Rogue) Entourage.  The PCs call Don an idiot and ask him why he would betray them.  "I wouldn't!  Why do you guys treat me like crap?"  Looks like a self-fufilling prophecy.

The PCs head up the stairs, passing by levels of mazes.  Then they come to one landing with a demonic goat's head in a circle carved into the ground and a sheer-black wall.  Armok recognizes the goat's head as the symbol of the demon lord Baphomet, the Horned King, and the black wall as a portal to the Shadowfell.

The PCs decide to pass by and head back up, marking this area for later.  Maybe they'll come back when they don't have nearly two-dozen slaves in tow.

They find themselves in a wide corridor full of minotaur and demon statues, some toppled.  Malchior identifies it as the Hall of Glory.  They press on towards safety.

Suddenly, Bren the Bold is floating and screaming soundlessly!  Oh look, a gelatinous cube.  Malchior rushes up to smack it as Bren slips out, and Armok gets in there to blast it.

Then there's a scream of utter terror from behind the PCs.  Oily black wispy things are coming out of the ground, attacking the slaves.  One of them is already dead from its touch - oh crap, there goes another.

Jace orders the slaves to run and activates his Armour of Agathas, engaging the wraiths.

The cube reaches out with caustic psuedopods and pulls Bren and Armok back into its bulk.

Wex the Fighter rushes at the bulky cube, now opaque, and slams into it with his shield.  The cube shudders, enough for Bren to slip out, give it a kick, and then the nimble Rogue is off and running.  Armok is still inside, trying to get out, acid burning at him.  Malchior the Warlord keeps pounding on the cube, cutting swaths in it.

Meanwhile, black smoke starts to pour from the mouths of the dead slaves.  Two more wraiths appear.  They slip around and surround Bren, their touch sapping the strength from his arms.  The other three attack Jace, their blackness burned away from the cold flames that surround him, but already the wispy black is starting to reform.  Jace pulls back from the onslaught and launches hellish flames at the cube, burning small pits in it.

Then the cube engulfs Malchior and Wexley, and Armok is still on the inside, burning.

The fight is on.  Bren and Jace flee and are pursued by one of the wraiths, while the others deal with the rest of the PCs, even entering the cube to get to them.  Bren falls many times, and Jace keeps him on his feet with healing potions.

Armok nearly dies in the cube, while Wexley is weakened by the wraith's touch.

Finally the cube is pushed away and spends its time holding the wraiths within it.  Jace uses his Beguiling Tongue to order the (barely bloodied) wraith to "leave this place."  It does.  With some room to spare, he and Bren finally kill the cube, revealing three skeletons, one holding a stone tablet.

Jace grabs it and threatens to break it.  "No!  Give it back!  It leads to immortality!"

Standoff.  The PCs negotiate with the wraiths (as much as they can with the dead, insane shades), and are able to flee once they put the stone tablet back into the hands of the skeleton.  The wraiths, five strong now, swirl around the tablet.

The PCs lick their wounds, very tired now.  They head to the Shining Road, where they meet a bunch of humans collecting tolls for a wannabe dwarf king.  Malchior insults the "king", and he's killed in short order; the human mercenaries stop fighting almost immediately.

While they're talking to the humans, they hear some howling down the road.  The humans put out the lights and bar the doors.  "Damn hyenas," they say.  Apparently they only stop and try to collect tolls from some of the travellers.

The PCs figure this is not a safe spot to rest, so they press on.  They run into the pack of hyenas, who kill more of the slaves, and finally make it back to the Seven-Pillared Hall.

While they're resting, the Duergar speak to Jace about a job.  "You know those slaves you brought back?  Bring them to the hobgoblins in the Chamber of Eyes.  Once you do that, we'll take you to the Horned Hold."

Orontar gives the PCs a hard time about the Linked Portal scroll and the "botched" job in the Cisterns.  (I'm setting them up as villains.)  When Paldemar's name is brought up, who walks in but... yep, Paldemar.  He says he's been in the Tower of Thunder, trading with the witch who lives there.

Malchior, his nephew, is suspicious, and insults Paldemar.  Paldemar storms out.  Orontar is pissed off about this, but when the PCs tell him that they destroyed the Temple of Torog, he relents.  He even agrees to waive the fee for the scroll of Linked Portal!

And that was that.


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## firesnakearies (Nov 19, 2008)

Wow.

This game is totally awesome!

Great thread, man.  You sound like a fantastic DM.

You should record an actual play podcast of this....


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## LostSoul (Nov 21, 2008)

Played last night.

We finally got back on track.  The PCs decided to get on with the hunt for the slaves, and had a big conference about it in their room at the friendly  underdark inn.  The duergar wanted them to take the slaves to the Chamber of Eyes, to sell to the hobgoblins there; the PCs did not want to deal with trucking slaves through the Labyrinth again, so the decision was made to take out the duergar.

And that's when Armok the Wizard noticed Don, one of Bren the Bold's Entourage, acting funny.  There was just something off about him.  Wexley the Fighter roughed him up a bit, but Don wouldn't talk.  He left the room.

_Oh, oh I just realized, he would have needed a _30_ passive Insight score.  Whoops._

Bren the Bold snuck out after him.  Don drank a beer, went to the bathroom, and slipped out the back.  He was headed right for the duergar's trading post.

Bren snuck up behind him to knock him out.  He swung at the man, but Don turned at the last second and, moving with inhuman speed, dodged out of the way!  Now Bren was certain there was something up; Don just wasn't that quick.

Whatever happened to him, he still wasn't quick enough to mess with Bren.  Bren knocked him out with another swing.

The duergar heard the commotion so Bren jammed the door and dragged Don's unconcious body into a side chamber; the residence of a dwarf, passed out on a cot.  Bren slit Don's throat and Don's features melted away, revealing a doppleganger.

That was the last straw.  The PCs went to the duergar's trading post.

"What do you want?" the duergar asked.

"We have some business to discuss," Jace the Warlock said, and blasted him with a bolt of fire.

The duergar, in close quarters proved to be tricky opponents!  Their resistance to fire helped greatly, and their snakey, infernal beards sapped the strength of the PCs.

Luckily Bren jammed the doors so that reinforcements would take a while to show up.

When the duergar leader came in, she breathed out a vile cloud of gas that blinded everyone.  This might not have been a good move, as she became the target of everything the PCs had.  She had the chance to throw a bunch of burning coals from her hellforge, exploding in the room, but soon she was dead.

The last duergar tried to flee, but was frozen by Armok's wizardry.

The PCs found a map to the Chamber of Eyes in the trading post.  After making some purchases in town, they struck out into the dungeon again.

When they saw the symbols of Torog on the Chamber of Eyes they didn't like it too much, but when they heard goblins on the other side of the main door they relaxed a bit.  They wouldn't have to deal with the smell of troglodytes.

Bren slipped up a balcony and they bypassed the main door, where they engaged the goblin guards and their bugbear leader.  Bren slipped into the room silently, given a burst of speed thanks to Malchior the Warlord's coaching, and tried to kill the bugbear - but missed.

The bugbear got up and smashed Bren hard, knocking him down, and one of the goblins came up behind him and hit him with a battleaxe.  Bren was not looking too good.  One of the goblins dumped a brazier of hot coals on him, but luckily Bren was able to dodge out of the way.

The rest of the PCs came in.  Armok grabbed a sheet from one of the beds with his mage hand, lit it on fire in the hot coals, and wrapped it around the bugbear, burning him badly.  

_3d6+int mod fire damage, ongoing 5 fire (save ends)._

When the stench of badly burning bugbear assaulted their senses, the PCs realized fire resistance was not in play and that was pretty much it for the goblins.

Leaving the room, they could hear some scratching at a large set of double doors.  The smoke and smell of charred bugbear must have alerted something on the other side.

But there was another door, so the PCs went through it, finding two duergar.  These guys were smashed down pretty quickly, though they were able to alert the rest of the complex.

A hobgoblin warcaster pulled Malchior the Warlord into the freezing cold that Armok had set up.  Bren ran past them both and went to engage the hobgoblin chief Krand, who was just about to open a door.  Bren feinted, Krand stabbed at him, overreaching, and Bren slipped by him, cutting him as he passed.  Now Bren was at the door and Krand behind him.

Krand shouted: "Open the door!" and a hogoblin archer showed up, swinging at Bren.  Malchior came to see if he could help, but when he tried to run around Krand to set up some flanking, Krand stabbed him and blocked his path.

Bren was shot with a few arrows from more archers and wasn't looking too good.

Meanwhile, the duergar and warcaster were cleaned up by Jace and Wexley.  Armok was having a field day with his Crushing Hand, squeezing the hell out of the dire wolf that had just burst down the main door.

Malchior put the hurt on Krand with his Daily, dropping him.

After that, it was cleanup; the hobgoblins dropped pretty easily.

At which point, the DM looked in the module and said, "Hey, who are these guys?", realizing that he had forgotten an encounter area stuffed with hobgoblins, human bandits, and goblins.  Crap, he would have had them come in to join the fight had he realized.

But he did have one of the goblins poke his head through the door, say, "Oh crap, what the hell is this!" and duck back again.

That's where we left off.  The next encounter will begin right away, without a short rest in between.

Cool moments: that would be when Armok used the Mage Hand to burn the bugbear.  Using a Limited Damage Expression made that awesome.  I like that kind of thing.

The fight with the duergar was pretty cool, too.

Next time: I plan to have some of the bandits throw kegs of beer at the PCs, like molotov cocktails.

 Burning Goblin Ale (standard; at-will if standing next to the fireplace and barrels)
Area Burst 2 within 5; +7 vs. Reflex; 2d10+3 fire damage plus ongoing 5 fire (save ends).


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## firesnakearies (Nov 22, 2008)

This is really cool.


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## LostSoul (Dec 5, 2008)

Played tonight.

Featured the final encounter in the Chamber of Eyes, which the PCs cleaned up on (even with the hobgoblin ale flasks), and then a hunt through the labyrinth for the one goblin who escaped.

Which led into a "random encounter" of my own design - a lair connected to the Feywild, a lair of elves and goblins in service to a green dragon - and it was really cool.

Things that helped were interesting terrain features (an old, rickety balcony and a 20' pit with a chained cave bear, murder holes with boiling oil, multiple entrances to the same area) and a list of random events (most of which were not that great, but the "Random Encounter arrives in the same entrance" really spiced things up).  The fight was cool, very tense, and the PCs went from cocky to "Oh my god we are all going to die."

Luckily the PCs used the terrain features to their own advantage.

As we play, I am learning more and more about what makes a good encounter.  Player choice and creativity as well as a healthy dose of unforseen events changing the situation are the key, I think.


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## vagabundo (Dec 10, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> As we play, I am learning more and more about what makes a good encounter.  Player choice and creativity as well as a healthy dose of unforseen events changing the situation are the key, I think.




Lol, this is true. I was surprised at how much fun my players had with a Hobgoblin soldier that the fighter - after the third try - managed to shield bash down the well. My fighter loves his Bashing Shield.

Interesting terrain is the seasoning for the 4e monster powers buffet.


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## LostSoul (Dec 10, 2008)

Here is the real update:

We started off with the final encounter in the Chamber of Eyes.  The goblin sharpshooters snuck around back through the trap door, while the hobgoblins set up a defensive line - tipping over some tables to get good cover - in front of the human bandits.

What were the bandits doing?

When Wexley the Fighter opened the door, he found out.  One of them threw a cask of hobgoblin ale at him and it exploded in his face.  Luckily his shield deflected the brunt of the assault.

Then the battle was on.  The bandits were the target of Scorching Bursts and other area powers (negating cover).  They were able to get off another cask before Bren the Bold, our heroic Rogue, threw a torch at the cask and had it explode behind their ranks!

The hobgoblins could not hit anything, I was rolling suck for the casks, and even with CA the sharpshooters couldn't hit the Wizard.  It didn't go well for me.  I think it was over in 3 rounds.

The last man standing tried to flee and was critically hit as he passed through the line-of-sight of Bren the Bold.  Very cool.

The goblins knew what was going on when the hobgoblin shouted, "Alert Murkelmor!  Tell him they are coming!"  Goblins being goblins, they were already off.

The first goblin opened the door leading out of the Chamber of Eyes and was slain by the Warlock.  The second goblin saw his chance and ran past the first (thanks for opening the door, see you in hell) and kept sprinting away.

Jace the Warlock ran out to stop him, but because he was running at top speed his Eldritch Blast missed.  He burned an AP and set up the Hunger of Hadar in front of the goblin - who screamed and ran through it, surviving.

The sneaky little goblin then made a Hide roll vs. the Warlock's Perception and easily beat it.

The PCs then picked up the goblin's trail and started tracking him through the dungeon.  We were going to run a skill challenge - 3 successes needed to find the goblin, each failure meant a random encounter.

The first was a Perception check vs. Stealth.  I rolled a 31 for the goblin and the PCs got a 17 or so.  

Random encounter time!

In my spare time, I wrote up a little dungeon lair - two level 4 encounters and one level 5 to replace the ones the PCs had already been through (hyenas, dwarf king, gelatinous cube & wraiths).  The PC's approach was determined by the d10 random encounter roll.

2 - they entered from the north-west.

They spotted a bridge heading north-south, 30' above the east-west corridor they were on.  A rope hung from the bridge.  Ahead they could see dim light.

They couldn't tell which way the goblin had run, so they split up - Malchior the Warlord and Jace the Warlock climbed the rope and went south down the passage while the other PCs headed east to check out the light.

The air was strangely thick, humid and sticky.  Armok Zed the Wizard tried to figure out what was up, but failed.  (It was a sign that there was a portal to the Feywild nearby.)

Down the south passage, they heard the roar of a waterfall and a corridor branching east.  They took the east corridor into an empty room full of vines.  Well, the room was empty _now_; just moments ago a goblin had been watching them approach.  He ran off to tell his Underboss.

The other PCs found a door and went in.  They found a corridor running south.  Near the end of the corridor they found a door, and just before it they noticed a strange pattern of light and shadow on the floor around it.  (DC 15 Perception check.)

When they approached the light, they got some boiling oil dumped on them.  Wexley the Fighter got his shield up in time, Bren the Bold leapt out of the way, but Armok Zed the Wizard was scalded to the tune of 21 hit points.

They burst down the doors and entered a dark room - but their lights flared brightly for some odd reason (a random event on my little chart) and Armok Zed was slightly dazed by the light (-2 to attacks until the end of his next turn).

The room was square.  There was a large covered pit in the middle.  Pillars coated with grasping vines held up a rickety balcony.  Up on the balcony were three doors, on the south, west, and east walls.  Two staircases went up to the balcony.  (Hmm, on second thought, I wouldn't have put the stairs in if I were to design this encounter again.  I'd just have ruins or something.)

Malchior and Jace came through the south door just about then.

Armok Zed won initiative and ran up the stairs and pulled a lever.  Which opened the pit.  From which they heard a loud, angry roar.

Elves started coming out of the doors, one with a bow, fancy cloak, and shiny bracers.  Let's call him Fancy Pants.  He had two elf scout allies and a goblin minion with him.

Armok Zed got wasted here, but Malchior struck back with a burst of fire that blew apart the balcony and dumped the elves on the ground.  

Then the bear was out and swatted at the Wexley the Fighter, who just pushed the bear back into the pit.

The fight went well for the PCs, and soon only the bear was left standing.  It had a chain on it, so Malchior sounded the retreat.

This is when the goblins showed up.  Wexley got hit with a Hex that would damage him if he moved, so he had to stay in melee with the bear.  The Underboss moved to engage Armok Zed (who had been Inspired to get up by Malchior) and dropped him.

The goblin sharpshooters did some damage and managed to avoid the counterattack by the PCs.

Things were tense; Armok Zed was on the ground making Death Saves while the Underboss focused on Malchior (who was down to 7 hp with no Surges).  The Hexer kept zapping them with nasty spells.

And about this time I rolled on my random event table, getting "Random Encounter joins the fight - same entrance as the PCs."

I had the PCs roll the d10 of Doom and luckily they got a 1 - a level 4 encounter.  The easiest one.  So 4 rotwing zombies and a deathlock wight heard the noise, desired flesh, and started coming up the hallway.

The bear was dead by now, so Wexley jammed the door shut and held it tight.  Bren the Bold was up on the level above, and there was still a cauldron of unused boiling oil just sitting there, waiting for him.

He dumped it on the undead and did some serious damage.  (Should have added Sneak Attack damage, too.  Whoops.)

The zombies eventually burst down the door and mobbed Wexley.  One of them charged at the Hexer, which took the goblin's attention away from Malchior.

And then Armok Zed rolled a natural 20 on his Death Save - first time that's happened to me in 4e! - and got back up.

Soon the zombies had all died (again) and the goblins were facing the full brunt of the PC's attacks.  Only one sharpshooter was alive, the Hexer was nearly Bloodied, and the Underboss was Bloodied.  They retreated - "Warn the master!  Warn Greenfang!"

Who is a Dragon.

The PCs searched the rooms until they spotted the dragon symbol carved in the wall, and then they ran back for the Seven-Pillared Hall.

They all gained levels here, going up to 6th.  Next time they will face the duergar in the Horned Hold - who are aware of the PCs, and will be ready for them.

Next time: Because the PCs are a higher level than expected, and because the Horned Hold is aware of them, I am going to try and mess with them.

What I want to do is get the PCs into room 13 (The Great Hall, where Rundarr is), and then have the duergar sneak around back behind them.  Then, when the PCs cross the bridge, I will open up on them from behind the doors, from across the other bridge, and I'll have orcs and duergar come up from behind them.

That's the plan, at least.  I am pretty sure it won't go as planned.

The PCs might also choose to come up from the back entrance, although it will mean more random encounters, and they might not be able to find it.

Now if it does go as planned and the PCs are screwed, I think I will change the 300' to certain doom depth of the crevasse.  I'll put some water down there - a stream - and change the damage.  5d10 sounds right.  I'll also add some random item loss.

How does that sound?

edit: Maybe a skill challenge is what I want here, because I really don't want to kill them if they jump off - it's that cool.  So first I'll sap some healing surges, damage taken if they have none left, then have them make checks to stay alive in the current.  Failed rolls mean losing Healing Surges and items.

I'd also like some random events to happen, or maybe encounter triggers.  Stuff like this:

Roll 1d6 each round.  On a 1, a swarm of thousands of bats flies through the chasm.  They offer heavy concealment to everyone on the bridge squares, and attack (+9 vs. AC, 1d6+5 damage).
On a 2...
On a 3...
etc.

And other stuff, like if Rundarr is Bloodied X happens, etc.


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## firesnakearies (Dec 10, 2008)

Man, you are the coolest DM ever.  I wish I could run games that are as dynamic and awesome as this.  You make the game sound amazing!


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## LostSoul (Dec 19, 2008)

Just got through playing.  First of all, two players were missing - the Warlord's and the Rogue's.

It started off with the PCs arriving back in the Seven-Pillared Hall, low on Healing Surges and Daily powers.

Rendil the halfing was gathering water for his inn and spotted the PCs.  He warned them that the Mages of Saruun were looking for them because they killed the duergar in the trading post.  The mages don't mind if you murder someone, as long as you get their permission first.

Controlling bastards.

The PCs made a stealth check to slip into the trading post (I had the PC with the lowest modifier make the check, modified by everyone else's help).  Wexley the Figher made the check and rolled a 20, and with help it was good enough.  They were able to get their extended rest.

Two reasons why I did this: One, because the Mages (evil wizards) would pull some crap like this; and Two, because this really hightens the tension of every encounter - if you don't know if you can get away with an extended rest when you want to, those Healing Surges become as valuable as gold.

If they had failed the check, the Mages would have found them and then we would have run the skill challenge I prepared:

[sblock=Skill Challenge: The Trial]
Skill Challenge - level 12!
Conflict: The Mages of Saruun are putting the PCs on trial for the murder of the duergar under their watch.  The penalty: death.  
Setup: When the PCs come back into town, Rendil the halfling approaches the PCs.  "The Mages know what you did to the devil dwarves.  You'd better get out of here."
Complexity:  2 because we are missing players.
Rolls: 

Accosted by the Brugg and Orontar.  "Come with us."
If held in jail (presumed guilty), getting out.  Whole other chain!  There are no doors out - find the teleportation circle!
At the trial.  
Details of the trial.  The prosecutor does not need to be in the truth circle.  He presents his evidence first, then the defender can rebut.  The prosecutor and his witnesses don't need to enter the circle of truth.
Ordinator Acanis: "What will the penalty be?"
Orontar: "We are asking for banishment."
Ordinator Acanis: "Your connection to the guilty is blinding you.  The penalty shall be death by arcane measures."
"Orontar, present your evidence."  
Orontar: "Here is the result of my divination:
"Were you murdered without just cause?"  "Yes."
"Who murdered you?" "Jace and his men."

Orontar: "They callously used our ritual scroll in our strike on the temple of Torog, causing the deaths of three good men."
Orontar: "Brugg, tell us: did Wexley defeat you fairly in combat?"
Brugg: "Dey cheats!"
Orontar: "Is this true, Rothar?"
Rothar: "Yep - they cheated.  They used all sorts of magics to aid them, when they knew they couldn't beat Brugg."
Orontar: "Brugg, tell me: did they lie to you about the entrance fee?"
Brugg: "Dey did!  Dat one, the little pale one!" (the wizard)
Ordinator Acanis: "What do you have to say for yourselves?"
Orontar: "You cannot call that witness to the stand.  You need to get clearance first.  Disrespect for our laws!"
[/sblock]

At first they discussed going after the Mages, but I told them I had nothing at all planned for it.  This is acceptable in our game, so they went to the Horned Hold instead.

They have a map of Thunderspire, so I showed them the two routes they could take: the quick and easy one to the main entrance, or the long and hard to find path to the back entrance.  They knew the duergar were expecting them (failing to catch the goblin who got away last time), so they decided to risk random encounters.

Three checks, then, instead of one.  The last one resulted in the Kuthrik Lair.

We pulled out a poster map for the minis game, I think, and the PCs saw one Kuthrik adult.  They engaged and quickly killed the one they saw.

After that, though, things got tough.  The Hive Lord blasted them with its Acid Blast - not that the damage was that great, but the Weakened effect really hindered their ability to deal damage.

In the end, the PCs had to pull out many of their Daily powers to win.  Malchior the Warlord went down near the end of the fight.

(I kept pretty good notes of what each PC did each round, including damage done, and I'll post that later on.)

Because they weren't sure what was going to happen if they went back to the Seven-Pillared Hall to rest, they decided to push on.  They made it to the south gate where they saw no way in.

Bren the Bold, our halfling rogue, knocked on the door to get someone to come out and then hid.  The Ogre, on the alert (as is the whole complex), opened a slot to see who was there.  When he didn't see anyone, he opened the door, a cask of water in his hands.  He sprayed the water around.

It didn't reveal an invisible duergar playing a prank on him like he expeected.  Instead, he got a halfling stabbing him in the nads.

The ogre fell quickly (his 111 HP was only good for one round!) and the PCs were in.  But one of the orcs went to alert Murkelmor that the PCs were here, and then it was on.

Things were going okay for the PCs (that is, only the Wizard had been dropped and none of the duergar were bloodied) until the Theurge got in there and blinded everyone.  Then the PCs decided they had to get out of there.

They made a fighting retreat, but the Theurge was able to drop the Warlord just as the PCs had pulled back.

That's where we ended off.  Next time I plan to run a Skill Challenge with the PCs running, trying to get to a safe place for an extended rest, Murkelmor trying to corner the PCs so he can sell them to mind flayers and laugh while the illithid feast on the PC's brains.


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## LostSoul (Dec 21, 2008)

Here are some of the "action logs" I made for the last game.  I tried to keep accurate notes, and I did pretty well keeping track of powers used and damage done, but not to which target, status effects, etc.  Maybe next time.

[sblock=Kuthrik Nest]*Kuthrik Nest*

*PCs:*
Bren the Bold (Halfling Artful Dodger Rogue 6) (player not present, run by another player)
Jace (Half-Elf Infernal Pact Warlock 6)
Wexley (Human Sword & Board Fighter 6)
Malchior (Human Tactical Warlord/Arcane Initiate 6) (player not present, run by another player)
Armok Zed (Human Wizard/Cleric multiclass 6)

*Opposition:*
5 Kuthrik Adults
1 Kuthrik Hive Lord

*Setup:* The PCs are heading through the dungeon.  A random encounter is rolled.  We throw down a map that includes a river, a bridge, and a small building.

The players place their PCs on the bridge, about 10 squares away from the building.  The Kuthrik are in the building.  One adult steps out the broken wall of the building and pokes its head out.  It screeches in hunger.

*Roll for initiative.*

*Round 1:*

*Bren the Bold:* Sly Flourish at range on the adult.  Hit, 24 damage.
*Jace:* Eldritch Blast at range on the adult.  Hit, 14 damage.
*Wexley:* Move up to the adult.  Crushing Blow? (Martial Power).  Hit, 14 damage.  At this point he spots the rest of the Kuthriks.  Takes 2 damage.
*Malchior:* Move up.  Scorching Burst.  Two adults take 8 points of damage, one is critted for 18.
*Adults:* I didn't take notes for the bad guys.  Wexley was attacked.  He and Malchior were shot with poison spikes.  Wexley has resist poison 5.  An adult burrowed through the building to flank Wexley.  Another adult burrowed through the building and nailed Jace with a poison dart, slowing him.  I think one shifted by Wexley and got hit.
*Hive Lord:* Move.  Move.  Action Point: Acid Burst.  Nailed all the PCs save Wexley.
*Armok:* Icy Rays?  One adult hit for 8, the Hive Lord for 13.

*Round 2:*

*Bren the Bold (weakened, ongoing acid 5):* Sly Flourish the Hive Lord.  6 damage.  Move away.  Failed save?
*Jace (weakened, slowed, ongoing acid 5, ongoing poison 5):* Hellish Rebuke the adult who burrowed through the building.  6 damage.  Failed both saves?
*Wexley:* Activate Rain of Blows?  Sweeping Blow.  Hit two adults and the hive lord for 8 damage.  Takes 2 damage.
*Malchior (weakened, ongoing acid 5):* Fire Shroud.  Hit two adults for 6 damage, ongoing fire 5.  Failed save?
*Adults:* Take damage from Wexley's Rain of Blows.  Move in and attack Wexley, all have flanking, all deal double damage.  One hits for mid-teens damage.  The other is immobilized and shoots poison spikes at Jace?.
*Hive Lord:* Acid Burst.  Hits Jace, Malchior, Wexley.
*Armok:* Cloud of Daggers on the Hive Lord.  14 damage.

*Round 3:*

*Bren the Bold (weakened, ongoing acid 5):* Sly Flourish, 6 damage.  Makes save?
*Jace (weakened, slowed, ongoing acid 5, ongoing poison 5):* Hellish Rebuke for 6 damage.  (I have "3x4" written down, I'm not sure if hit more creatures or not.)  Saves versus one weakened, fails another, uses Dark Luck to make save.
*Wexley (weakened, ongoing acid 5):* Comeback Strike.  Miss; AP: hit Hive Lord.  12 damage?
*Malchior:* Warlord's Favour; Miss.
*Adults:* Take damage from Wexley's Rain of Blows.  3 Attack Wexley; one hits for decent damage.  (One was dead by now.)  The other charges Malchior, hits hard.
*Hive Lord:* Takes damage from Wexley's Rain of Blows.  Shifts back to get Wexley and Malchior, gets hit by Wexley for ~6 damage.  Acid Burst hits Malchior.
*Armok:* Bigby's Icy Fist on Hive Lord; hits & AP sustain for a total of 29 damage.

*Round 4:*

*Bren the Bold:* Miss.
*Jace (slowed, poisoned):* Fire Bolt, Miss.  Action Point: Hunger of Hadar on Hive Lord.
*Wexley (weakened, ongoing acid 5):* Crushing Blow on an adult.  Hit, 6 damage.
*Malchior (weakened, acid?):* Viper's Strike, hits, didn't write down the damage.  Assume 4-8.
*Adults:* Take damage from Wexley's Rain of Blows.  Delay.
*Hive Lord:* Tries to break free of icy fist; fails.  Acid Burst hits Jace, Wexley, Malchior.
*Adults:* 3 attack Wexley, 1 hit.  One attacks Malchior, hits.  All hits are around 15 damage.
*Armok:* Cloud of Daggers (or Cause Fear?) on Hive Lord; misses.  Sustains Icy Fist for 10 damage.

*Round 5:*

*Bren the Bold:* Sly Flourish Hive Lord for 16 damage.
*Jace (weakened? poisoned?):* Diabolic Grasp; Miss.
*Wexley:* Crushing Blow on Hive Lord; 9 damage.
*Malchior (weakened?):* Viper's Strike; hit, didn't record damage.
*Hive Lord:* Nearly dies from the Hunger of Hadar.  Breaks free of Icy Fist.  Acid Burst Wexley and Malchior.
*Adults:* 3 attack Wexley, at least one hits for 21 damage.  He drops.  1 attacks Malchior, he drops.
*Armok:* Rushes into the mix, Thunderwave.  Hits one for 9?

*Round 6:*

*Bren the Bold:* Sly Flourish one of the adults, 16 damage.
*Jace:* Eldritch Blast one of the adults, 18 damage.
*Wexley:* Makes Death Save.
*Malchior:* Makes Death Save.
*Adults:* Shoot poison darts?
*Hive Lord:* <dies>
*Armok:* hnd?  Whatever that power is.  Oh, HAND.  Bigby's Icy Fist.  19 damage.

*Round 7:*

*Bren the Bold:* fnb?  16 damage whatever that is.  I think that killed one.
*Jace:* Eldritch Blast, kills one.

Fight over.  90 minutes real-time.  (I spent forever on the Hive Lord's first turn, then had to look up burrowing... oh well.)

Notes:  I didn't keep track of everything that happened (like when someone was weakened by the acid or poisoned); I'm sure I left out a bunch of stuff.  I didn't keep track of who attacked whom so I might have screwed that up.  I recall screwing up the burrowing for the first two adults, making them just move 3 instead of 1 through solid stone.

The fight basically boiled down to a vicious melee with the kuthrik adults mobbing Wexley and the Hive Lord blasting Wexley and Malchior while the others tried to hurt the Hive Lord from range.  The one adult who was not engaged with Wex was able to harass the other PCs well enough.[/sblock]

[sblock=South Gate of the Horned Hold]*South Gate of the Horned Hold*
*PCs:*
Bren the Bold (Halfling Artful Dodger Rogue 6) (player not present, run by another player)
Jace (Half-Elf Infernal Pact Warlock 6)
Wexley (Human Sword & Board Fighter 6)
Malchior (Human Tactical Warlord/Arcane Initiate 6) (player not present, run by another player)
Armok Zed (Human Wizard/Cleric multiclass 6)

*Opposition:*
1 Ogre Savage
4 Orc Raiders

*Setup:* The PCs have reached the south gate of the Horned Hold where they hope to free the slaves from Winterhaven.  The duergar, led by Murkelmor, Paladin of Asmodeus, know that they are coming but they expect the PCs to enter through the main gate.  They are on the alert but have no specific plan to respond to an incursion on the southern gate.

The PCs spy the door.  No handle; it's locked by a bar.  They hide around the corner and Bren the Bold knocks on the door, then slips away and hides.  The Ogre on the other side opens a peephole and looks around.  Bren easily makes a Stealth check; the Ogre sees nothing.

Bren's intent is to trick the Ogre into opening the door, so he makes a Bluff check (prompted by the DM).  He aces it.  The Ogre opens the door and splashes water all around - it thinks that invisible duergar are playing pranks on it.  It spots Wexley's shield and prepares for combat; that's when Bren attacks.  (Bren made a Stealth check, Wexley failed his.)

*Roll for initiative.*

*Surprise Round:*

Bren the Bold: Sly Flourish vs. Ogre.  21 damage.

*Round 1:*

Bren the Bold: Move up to Ogre.  Bait and Switch, 20 damage.  Now he's in a room full of orcs!  Attempt to shift under bed to hide; fail Acrobatics check to slip under the bed, falls prone.
Wexley: Move up to Ogre (who is now outside the room).  Steel Serpent Strike.  30 damage.
Jace: Move up to Ogre.  Curse Ogre.  Eldritch Blast Ogre.  17 damage.
Malchior: Move up.  Scorching Burst on two orcs.  Hit Orc 1 for 11 damage.
Ogre: I believe he crits against Wexley.  He can't shift, so he stays where he is.  111 HP doesn't go as far as it used to.
Orc 1: One moves up to Bren and misses with a Greataxe attack.
Orc 2: Moves up to Bren and misses.
Orc 3: Grabs a log from the fireplace.  Throws it at Bren, hits for 1d6+3 damage.  Anyone entering or ending their turn in that square takes 5 damage.  Moves.
Orc 4: Opens door.  Moves.  Opens door to Murkelmor's chamber.  Bren can now see a big, mean duergar with a massive maul and a duergar theurge.
Armok: Icy Rays? against the Ogre and Orc 3.  Hits both for 14.

*Round 2:*

Bren the Bold: Delays.
Wexley: Crushing Blow vs. the Ogre.  Hits for 15 damage.  Ogre is killed.  Moves into room.
Bren the Bold: Stands with a minor action.  Positioning Strike against Orc 1.  Hits for 11 damage.  Moves back, taking an OA from Orc 1.  OA misses.
Jace: Moves into room.  Eldritch Blast ??.  Hits for 20 damage.
Malchior: Charges Orc 2.  Hits for 11 damage.
Orc 1: Attacks ?
Orc 2: Attacks Malchior.
Orc 3: Throws axe.
Orc 4: Charges Wexley?
Armok: Moves into room? Ray of Frost? against orc 3.  Hits for 10 damage.
Murkelmor: Moves out of his room to another door.  Opens door.
Theurge: Moves, blasts Malchior with Firebolt.
Shock Troopers: Move towards PCs, maybe Charge.

*Round 3:*

Bren the Bold: Sly Flourish.  Miss.
Wexley: Crushing Blow against Orc 1.  Hits for 15.
Jace: Eldritch Blast Orc 1.  Hits for 16 damage.  Kills him.
Malchior: Viper's Strike, misses.
Orc 2: Attacks Malchior.
Orc 3: Throws axe at Armok?
Orc 4: Attacks Wexley, probably misses.
Armok: Casts Icy cloud, nails the two shock troopers for 15 damage.  Misses Murkelmor, I think.
Murkelmor: Enters Icy cloud, takes 7 damage.  Gloats?  Misses vs. Wexley?
Theurge: Blasts using Brimstone hail, hits Malchior, Wexley, an orc, Bren?
Shock Trooper 1: Engage Wexley, miss.
Shock Trooper 2: Smash Armok.  This might have dropped him.

*Round 4:*

Bren the Bold: Sly Flourish vs. Orc 4?  (It's getting almost impossible to figure out who hit whom.)  21 damage.
Wexley: Tide of Iron.  9 damage.
Jace: Diabolic Grasp.  Misses.
Malchior: Viper's Strike.  9 Damage vs. Orc 2.
Orc 2: Attacks Malchior.
Orc 3: Throws axe.
Orc 4: Attacks Wexley?
Armok: Fails Death Save.
Murkelmor.  Totally misses again.
Theurge: Moves up to use Wave of Despair.
Shock Troopers: Attack, maybe one hits.

*Round 5:*

Bren the Bold: Sly Flourish, 13 damage.
Wexley: Sweeping Blow, hits 2 for 7 damage.
Jace: Uses Armour of Agythys, uses AP, misses.
Malchior: ??  Misses??  Heals Armok.
Orcs: attack
Armok: "cf"?  I don't know what that is.
Murkelmor: Missed?
Theurge: Wave of Despair.
Shock Troopers: Fight on!

*Round 6:*

Bren the Bold: Blinding Barrage, 21 damage, kills an orc I think, AP: sly flourish.
Wexley: Crushing Blow?, 14 damage.
Jace: Eldritch Blast, 15 damage.
Malchior: Stand the Fallen vs. a Shock Trooper, hits for 40 damage.
Orcs: ??
Armok: Misses and Dimension Doors away.
Murkelmor: Crits Wexley.  Heals Shock Trooper.
Theurge: ??
Shock Trooper (one is dead by now): Attacks Wexley.  Crit?

*Round 7:*

Bren the Bold: Sly Flourish, 13 damage.
Wexley: <retreats>
Jace: <retreats>
Malchior: <retreats>
Orcs: ??
Armok: <retreats more> Uses Mage Hand to slam door shut.
Murkelmor: Opens door.
Theurge: Brimstone Hail, drops Malchior.

End.

Notes:  I really can't remember who attacked whom here.  I think one orc was left standing at the end.  One shock trooper died just as it became large.  Another nearly died.  Murkelmor had taken a total of 27 damage.  They used their beards a few times, I just forget when.  Maybe if I get out the minis I'll come back and edit it.
[/sblock]


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## LostSoul (Dec 22, 2008)

We have a month or so of downtime between the next game and I've rediscovered the fun of creating dungeons.

I've decided that I'm going to do a write-up for the Mages of Saruun.

I have to figure out:


What kind of resources they have
Who's working for them
How many Ordinators they have (and their stats)
What level Orontar is
How the NPCs in town feel about their rule
How other creatures in the Labyrinth might respond to an attack on the Mages
How Paldemar (Malchior the Warlord's uncle) will respond
and finally, what their tower dungeon looks like.

I have a vague idea of how all this will play out.  I'll give them a Level 8 or so Major Quest.  I figure 4 Ordinators - each with different abilities - will be cool.  Orontar should be about level 8, probably an elite.  They will have a bunch of soldiers of different races - mainly human, but some dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, and some more interesting creatures.

The people in town don't like the Mages but they have proven their ability to keep them safe so they don't want to rock the boat.  Some will actively support the Mages and others will (Rendil, the freed slaves) will support the PCs.

Paldemar is going to actively support the overthrow of the Mages.  The PCs heard from a slave that saw him give a ritual to the Troglodytes.  He'll explain that he gave them the ritual to bring down the Seven-Pillared Hall because the Mages had a mad plan to do something evil - which will be whatever he's actually trying to do - and he was trying to stop them.  He will figure out that it'll be easier to take over Thunderspire if the PCs upset the status quo.

He'll probably help them by giving them something that will let them into the Mages' Tower.

I'll keep updating with whatever I come up with.


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## LostSoul (Jan 7, 2009)

Here are the random encounters I've created to replace the old ones.  Some may not lead to combat.

*1.  Webbed Death (950 xp)*
1 ettercap webspinner
3 ghouls
patch of doomspore

The PCs hear someone shouting for help.  If they investigate, in a darkened room they see someone trapped in a web.  There's something moving in the shadows beyond.  The person in the web is actually a ghoul, and when the PCs enter the room the ettercap will blast them from behind with a web.

Dungeoneering	DC 15: The fungus is doomspore.
Perception 	DC 17: There's something funny about that person...
Perception	DC 21: There are other creatures in the shadows, but they don't look like spiders.

_Treasure:_  Hidden in webs and bones in a small cave at the back of the room is a Light Manticore Shield +2 (Power (Daily): Standard Action.  Atk Dex +2 vs. AC, area burst 1 within 10; hit 1d8+str).  Searching through the webs and bones for treasure will trigger another doomspore attack unless the PCs succeed at a DC 17 Perception check.  This will cancel out the Short Rest and will trigger another random encounter.


*2.  The Trade*
1 eladrin fey knight		
5 gnome skulks (925 xp)
Treasure: ?? (something for Paldemar)
plus
3 enigmas of vecna
2 human berserkers
1 human mage (1275 xp)
Treasure: ?? (something about the Feywild - link to Trollhaunt Warrens?)

The PCs spot a faint, starry glow down a nearby passage and hear some angry voices.  They are arguing over payment (some secret that has to do with the Feywild/Winter Court).  When the PCs show up, chaos erupts.

*3.  Cavern of Flames* (1025 xp)
1 magma strider			
1 magma hurler
2 magma claws
The PCs notice that it's getting really hot.  They come into a cavern, the source of the heat.  Bren notices that some of the rock looks strange, like scorpions.  There's a milky pool in the middle of the room.

Tactics: The magma strider will charge into the midst of the PCs, taking OAs without care.  The magma hurler will keep throwing fire at as many PCs as possible, while the magma claws will keep PCs pinned down.

Environment: A pool of water has been superheated.  Any character moving into these squares takes 1d10 damage.  If a PC moves into one of these squares, the magma claws will spew lava on them, trying to pin them down.  If a magma beast or fire effect is in one of these squares, steam erupts, granting concealment in burst 1 and 5 fire damage if you enter or start your turn there; this steam lasts until the end of the next turn.

_Treasure:_ In the pool there is a magic item that has so far resisted the heat.  It is an orb of fickle fate.  Anyone trying to grab it will take 1d10 damage.  The orb is under the milky water, so only if a PC enters will he feel the orb, or if he makes a DC 19 Perception check.


*4.  Lizardfolk Patrol* (1300 xp)
1 greenscale marsh mystic	
2 blackscale bruisers		
1 greenscale darter		
2 greenscale hunters		

Now that their enemies - the troglodytes - have fallen, the Lizard King has sent patrols out to take as much land as possible (and to reward those who helped slay the trogs).  The Lurker is moving ahead (Perception DC 21) and will flank the PCs, coming from a different direction.  They will talk with the PCs in Draconic: "Who wishes to speak to servants of the Lizard King?"

Environment: the sewer map.

Tactics: The mystic will go first and lay down a swamp's grasp.  Then the others will move into the area.  The bruiser will push Wexley once he sees his control and allow the others to move around him to engage squishier targets.  The darter will target Jace or Armok.

Development: If the lizardfolk find out that the PCs are the ones who killed the trogs, they will offer them a gift - a Crown of Doors - and then offer to guide them back to their lair to meet the Lizard King.  Could be a valuable place to rest.	

*5.  Bloodreaver's Revenge* (1500 xp)
1 hobgoblin hand of bane
1 hobgoblin commander
1 hobgoblin warcaster
1 hobgoblin archer
2 hobgoblin soldiers

Revenge for those who killed the Bloodreavers!  The hobgoblins have been tracking the PCs for some time, and have finally caught up with them.  

Tactics: Single out a target to kill and take care of it.  First the front line will go, and then the Warcaster will slide the target around the hobgoblin soldiers, who will attack him and leave him behind their ranks.


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## LostSoul (Jan 7, 2009)

Here is a skill challenge where we'll pick up from last time:

*For Want of a Bolt-Hole*

Goal: To avoid the duergar.
Level: Level 10.
DCs: 10/16/21.
Complexity: 2.  6s/3f.
XP: 1000.

Setup: The duergar theurge has just dropped Malchior.  Reinforcements are coming to flush the PCs out.

Roll Ideas:

The duergar and their allies are coming after the PCs.  Malchior lies on the ground.
_Running Away:_ Group check.  Use the lowest Athletics.  Others can Help.  
_Failure:_ Blasted by the Theurge, harassed by the devils, the PCs lose a Healing Surge and suffer a -2 penalty to future checks (as some of them are Blinded/Dazed).
_Grabbing Malchior:_ Athletics check.  Only one other can Help.  
_Failure:_ The DC for all Athletics checks are increased by 2 / the PC carrying Malchior cannot lend Help.
Running through the Labyrinth with the devils hot on their heels.
_Stop and Fight:_ The devils fight for one round, and then the rest of the duergar show up.
_Failure:_ Showered by spikes, the PCs lose a Healing Surge.
Breathing Space.  The PCs have lost them for a minute, maybe less.
_Stop and Fight:_ PCs can make Stealth checks to Hide, gaining surprise if they beat DC 20.
_Failure:_ The duergar are hot on their heels again.
The Fork in the Road.  The PCs come to a junction, and they must decide which way to go.
_Are We Lost?_ The PCs must make a Dungeoneering check to make sure they know which way they are going.
_Options:_ The PCs can take the following paths:
1. West, to the Chasm of Naden Suun.
2. Down, to the Cisterns.
3. North, to The Chamber of Eyes.
4. East, to the Grimmerzhul and the duergar city.
5. Northeast, to the Green Dragon Lair & Feywild portal.
Failure: The PCs head to a dead end and have to backtrack, losing valuable time.
Outmaneuvered!  Duergar appear from a hidden door.
_Stop and Fight:_ 2 Duergar scouts appear in the midst of the PCs with a surprise round.  The bulk shows up from the other direction in the first round.
_Failure:_ Two PCs lose 2 Healing Surges each (select at random, 1d5 and 1d4).
Dead End!
_Stop and Fight:_ Cramped quarters.
_Failure:_ Same as stop and fight.
The Chasm of Naden Suun.  A rickety rope bridge is the only way across.  The Final Roll.
_Stop and Fight:_ 1 round to prepare before the bulk shows up.
_Failure:_ The rope bridge is cut while the PCs are still on.  They lose 2 Healing Surges and fall into the river, washed away to who knows where.  Skill Challenge ends.  Each PC must make an Athletics roll (DC 17); those who fail lose another Healing Surge and lose a loose item at random (including coin).  They end up in the cisterns.
The Cisterns. ??
_Stop and Fight:_ Use the sewer map.
_Failure:_ Same as above. 
The Chamber of Eyes.  The PCs retreat back to the Chamber of Eyes.  Can they hide out here?
_Stop and Fight:_ PCs can organize themselves how they want.
_Failure:_ The PCs are spotted running in; the duergar are right on their heels.  (Well, the devils.)
The Green Dragon Lair.  The PCs head to the waterfall and the green dragon lair.
_Stop and Fight:_ Could get crazy.
_Failure:_ The duergar spot the dragon and hold back, letting the dragon assault the PCs, and then they rush in to fight it.

Notes:
Running: Always use the lowest Athletics check.  Other PCs may Help.
Partial Success: 3+s: the bulk shows up after the PCs get a short rest.
The Bulk: (xp 2500, level 10)
2 duergar scouts		
2 duergar guards		
2 spined devils		
2 duergar shock troopers	
1 duergar theurge		
Murkelmor


Thoughts: I really should give them some choices in how to navigate the place.  Hmm... yeah, I'll add "The Fork in the Road".


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## Nebulous (Jan 7, 2009)

Aw hell, i'm gonna steal so many ideas from Enworld before i start Thunderspire Labyrinth.  It sounds like a fun adventure.  I was iffy when reading it, but seeing how the fights play out make me really want to run it now.  And duergar are cool as ****!


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## LostSoul (Jan 7, 2009)

And here is the deal with the Mages of Saruun.

First, deal with their NPC spy:  That slave guy - Hecubus - is drinking in the tavern.  Orontar approaches him.  "You're one of those slaves rescued from the Pits of Torog.  I haven't seen you around for a long time.  Where'd you get the coin?"

Here Armok is going to have to make a roll with Jace's Help vs. Orontar's Will Defense of 21.  Success: Orontar is not suspicious.  Failure: Orontar pulls Brugg aside.  "Keep a close eye on him."  Either way, the PCs get information on the disposition of the Mage's forces.

Disposition of the Mages of Saruun:

They have a total of: Orontar, Brugg, 2 dire wolves, 2 bugbears, 1 hobgoblin, 1 dwarf, 1 gnome, 18 humans.  The wolves and Orontar live in the Custom House.  The rest live elsewhere.  They also have an arcane ballista.
They are organized into three groups.  Only one is on active duty at any time, centered at the Custom House.  The others are either off-duty or sleeping.  It will take a few minutes to get the other groups action-ready.
The Mages are three: Hasifir, Niame, and Samazar.  Hasifir is an artificer, Niame is an eladrin witch, and Samazar - the leader - is a demon-summoner.
Most of the people support the mages.  They might not like them, but they keep the peace.  Rendil and the halflings are the sole exception.  They'd probably protect the PCs if things go horribly wrong.
No one knows how to get into the Mages' tower except Orontar.  He probably has some kind of spell (Linked Portal).  The Mages come out at a portal by the minotaur statue if you call their name.  Sometimes it takes a while.
Orontar is the only wizard in the Seven-Pillared Hall.

**** The Mages of Saruun ****

First: Who are the Mages?

The Mages are a group of "modern arcanists who seem to have some lesser or greater influence in what remains of the ruined city."

They are led by three powerful Wizards: Hasifir, Niame, and Samazar.  These wizards have the _command amulets_ "which allow them control the bronze warders, minotaur constructs built in the city's heyday."

These are the Ordinator Arcanis - level 12 Controllers.  Each has a Bronze Warder.

Orontar is their Steward - he runs the day-to-day affairs in the Seven-Pillared Hall.  He answers to the Ordinator Arcanis.

Paldemar is the chief or research.  He explores the Labyrinth with some of his followers.  He answers to the Ordinator Arcanis.

Brugg is the chief enforcer.  He answers to Orontar.

The enforcers are made up of guards, etc.  They have a total of: Orontar, Brugg, 2 dire wolves, 2 bugbears, 1 hobgoblin, 1 dwarf, 1 gnome, 18 humans.  The wolves and Orontar live in the Custom House.  The rest live elsewhere.

Encounter Groups:

1. Brugg and Orontar.  Level 8.  XP 1800.
[sblock]	
Orontar		level 8 Controller	xp 700
Brugg		level 8 Brute		xp 350	(1050)
5 Human Guards	level 3 Soldiers	xp 750  (1800)
Treasure: Orb of Judicious Conjuration +2, ritual book with linked portal, sending, magic circle, silence.

Setup:

Orontar sends a message to Malchior via Sending:

"Malchior.  I wish things had not come to this.  Come out peacefully and you will merely be banished.  Resist and perish.  Orontar."

Orontar will wait for the PCs on the other side of the bridge.  He will have Brugg and his guards with him.  Make sure that the two bridges are both in the encounter area, as well as the minotaur statue (escape for Orontar).

Other notes:
-stream has a current of 3.
-cloudspores at the base of the statue hill.
-Trigger: When Orontar is bloodied, he flees to the custom house.
-Trigger: When a Thunder power is used, the ground is turned into difficult terrain.
-Trigger: When the pillar is first damaged, it shudders and chips.  If it is damaged again, it collapses, attacking all creatures in a Burst 1 (+15 vs. Ref; 4d10+5 damage and the target is Restrained).  The terrain becomes Difficult.
-Trigger: When a ranged power misses, the attack hits a stalactite in the distance and it falls.  If someone targets a stalactite, it falls, making a melee attack (+10 vs. Ref; 2d8+4 damage, and the target falls Prone).  The terrain becomes Difficult.

[sblock=Orontar]
Orontar			Level 8 Elite Controller
Initiative +8		Senses Perception +7
HP 178; Bloodied 89	
AC 24; Fortitude 18, Reflex 23, Will 21
Speed 6
Action Points 1
Saving Throws +2
basic melee Dagger (standard; at-will) * Weapon
	+6 vs. AC; 1d8+1 damage.
close blast Thunderwave (standard; at-will) * Thunder
	Burst 3; +12 vs. Fort; 1d6+6 thunder damage, and the target is pushed 2.
area Fire Burst (standard; encounter) * Fire
	Burst 2 within 20; +12 vs. Ref; 3d6+6 fire damage.
area Wall of Fog (standard; encounter) * Conjuration
	Wall 8 within 10; sustain minor; grants concealment and blocks line of sight.
area Stinking Cloud (standard; encounter) * Poison, Zone
	Burst 2 within 20; sustain minor; +12 vs. Fort; 1d10+6 damage.  Creates a zone that blocks line of sight until the end of Orontar's next turn.  Creatures that enter or start their turns there take 1d10+6 poison damage.  As a move action, Orontar can move the zone up to 6 squares.
ranged Pushing Hand (minor; at-will)
	Ranged 5; +12 vs. Fort; the target slides 1.
Second Wind (standard; encounter) * Healing
	Orontar heals 44 hit points and recharges one of his encounter spells.
Judicious Conjuration (free; encounter)
	Orontar sustains a power that would otherwise require a minor action.
Skills Arcana +14, Dungeoneering +11, History +14, Insight +11
Str 10 (+4) Dex 10 (+4) Wis 14 (+6) 
Con 12 (+5) Int 20 (+9) Cha 8  (+3)
Equipment: Orb of judicious conjuration +2, ritual book with linked portal, sending, magic circle, silence.[/sblock]

Tactics:
Orontar starts off with a Fire Burst, catching as many enemies as he can, then spends an Action Point to follow up with a Stinking Cloud.  Brugg and the guards will move forward and ready actions to attack any PC coming out of the cloud, trying to form a line of defense.  Orontar will use his Wall of Fog to block any PCs who try to flank.  He will sustain the cloud and wall and use his Pushing Hand and Thunderwave to play havoc with enemies, pushing them into the cloud.[/sblock]


2.  Enforcer Barracks.  A couple of groups.  
[sblock]
The Hunters (level 4)			XP 924
2 dire wolves			xp 400
2 bugbear warriors		xp 400
4 human rabble			xp 124
Treasure: 90gp

The Ballista Crew (level 4)		XP 862
4 human guards			xp 600
1 net thrower (beetle)		xp 200
2 human rabble			xp 62
Treasure: Gloves of the Bounty Hunter (net thrower)

The Brute Squad (level 5)		XP 1000
3 human guards			xp 450
1 hobgoblin commander		xp 200
1 dwarf hammerer		xp 200
1 gnome arcanist		xp 150
Treasure: Rushing Cleats (dwarf)


[sblock=Arcane Ballista]Arcane Ballista
Large Vehicle
HP 50	Space 2 squares by 2 squares	Cost 5,000 gp (level 10)
AC 16; Fortitude 16, Reflex 2
Speed 2
Driver
	The driver must occupy the back seat of the arcane ballista.  If the driver is trained in Arcana, he adds a +2 bonus to the arcane ballista's attack rolls.
Load
	One medium creature; 100 pounds of gear.
Out of Control
	An out of control arcane ballista rolls forward and makes Wheel Spike attacks.
melee Wheel Spikes (move; when the arcane ballista enters a creature's space; at-will)
	+8 vs AC; 1d8+5 damage and the target is knocked prone.
ranged Flaming Bolt (standard; at-will) * Fire
	Ranged 20; +4 vs. Ref; 2d8+4 fire damage.  The driver adds 1/2 his level as a bonus to the attack rolls.
area Lightning Sphere (standard; encounter) * Lightning
	Area burst 1 within 10; +4 vs. Ref; 3d6+4 lightning damage.  The driver adds 1/2 his level as a bonus to the attack rolls.
ranged Freezing Bolt (standard; encounter) * Cold
	Ranged 10; +4 vs. Ref; 2d8+4 damage and the target is slowed (save ends).  The driver adds 1/2 his level as a bonus to the attack rolls.
Reload (standard; recharge 6)
	The ballista gunner recharges an encounter power.[/sblock][/sblock]

3. Hasifir.
[sblock]
Hasifir is the Artificer of Saruun.  He was the one who unlocked the Command Amulets, developing a ritual to allow use of these powerful items.  He spends most of his time building new constructs and delving into the ancient lost lore of Saruun.

The Artificer of Saruun (level 9)	XP 2150
	Hasifir				xp 1000 (elite level 10 controller)
	1 Bronze Warder			xp 600
	1 Iron Cobra			xp 250
	2 Iron Defenders		xp 300
	Treasure: Shielding Girdle

	Environment: Let's add something for each PC.  Make sure to tell them.
		Armok: There are a variety of arcane construct things in the room - grabbing hands, arms, etc. - and Hasifir controls them.  Armok can wrest control away and use them for himself!
		Malchior: The lab is full of arcane reagents.  They don't respond well to fire!
		Bren the Bold: The arcane furnace is cooled via steam vents, which let out thick, greasy smoke at regular intervals.  They give total concealment!  Bren could bust a valve open to keep the steam venting from one.
		Wexley: The Bronze Warder will keep moving, taking OAs.
		Jace: Jace sees the mark of his pact devil on all the constructs.  With an act of will, he can control them!

[sblock=Hasifir]Hasifir, gnome arcanist	Level 10 Elite Controller (Leader)
Small fey humanoid	XP 1000
Initiative +7		Senses Perception +4
HP 212; Bloodied 106
AC 26; Fortitude 24, Reflex 25, Will 21
Speed 5
Action Points 1
Saving Throws +2
basic melee Hammer (standard; at-will) * Weapon
	+7 vs. AC; 1d4 damage.
close Arcane Sparks (standard; at-will) * Weapon, Lightning
	Close Blast 3; +14 vs. Fort; 1d8+5 damage and the target is dazed (save ends).  If the target is already dazed, the target is blinded instead (save ends).
area Sulfurous Fumes (standard; recharge 5, 6) * Poison, Fire
	Area Burst 2 within 10; +14 vs. Fort; 3d8+5 poison damage and the target takes ongoing fire 5 (save ends).
ranged Chain Grab (minor; at-will; see Animate Chains below)
	Targets only characters adjacent to an animated chain; +14 vs. Ref; 2d8+5 damage and the target is grabbed.  If the target tries to escape, it uses Hasifir's Fortitude defense.
	Sustain Minor: A target grabbed by the chains takes 1d8+5 damage.  Hasifir can attack another target with the same chain, but he must release the target he has grabbed.
	Special: A character trained in Arcana can take control of the chains as a Minor action with a DC 21 Arcana check (no retry).  If successful, he can attack with the chains (Int +2 vs. Ref; 2d8+Int damage; use the above otherwise).
Animate Chains (minor; encounter)
	Hasifir activates the magic on the chains, causing them to come alive - and under his control.
close Healing Infusion (minor; encounter) * Healing
	Close Burst 5; Each construct ally in the burst heals 15 hit points.
Fade Away (immediate reaction, when Hasifir takes damage; encounter) * Illusion
	Hasifir turns invisible until he attacks or the end of his next turn.
Skills Arcana +15, Dungeoneering +9, History +15
Str 10 (+5) Dex 14 (+7)  Wis 8  (+4) 
Con 18 (+9) Int 21 (+10) Cha 16 (+8)
Equipment: [/sblock][/sblock]

4. Niame.
[sblock]
Niame is an eladrin witch who busies herself with the connection between the world and the Feywild.  She knows there are many portals in the Labyrinth and she wants to uncover all of them and the mystery behind them.

Witch of Saruun (level 9)		XP 2200
	Niame				xp 1000 (elite level 10 artillery)
	1 Bronze Warder			xp 600
	1 Satyr Rake			xp 300
	1 Eladrin Fey Knight		xp 300
	Treasure: magic rod +3

When the PCs enter her level, they emerge onto a grassy meadow.  The sun is bright and warm, the air is sweet, birds are chirping, a doe bounds by with her fawn.  It is very Feywild-esque.

This is an illusion.

In order to break the illusion, a PC needs to make a DC 21 check.  Once he has done so, he can help another PC, giving him a +2 bonus on his check (no roll needed!).

Alerted to the PC's presence, Niame will approach the PCs and attack using Eyebite while they are in the illusion.  The PCs have 1d6+4 rounds before she attacks.  If they do not know Niame is attacking them, they will feel at-peace and sleepy, like all they want to do is lie down and take a nap on the soft green lawn.  Bunnies snuggle up with them.  It's very nice.

Now if the PCs do break free of the illusion, they see Niame - a beautiful eladrin woman - attacking them.  This all seems to take place outdoors, in the Feywild, but really it doesn't (which may do something to movement).  This way I can use an outdoor battlemap.

[sblock=Niame]Niame			Level 10 Elite Artillery
Medium fey humanoid	XP 1000
Initiative +8		Senses Perception +5
HP 152; Bloodied 76
AC 24; Fortitude 18, Reflex 24, Will 25
Speed 6
Action Points 1
Saving Throws +2
basic melee Sickle (standard; at-will)
	+5 vs. AC; 1d4 damage.
ranged Eyebite (standard; at-will) * Charm, Psychic, Implement
	ranged 10; +15 vs. Will; 1d6+5 psychic damage and Niame is invisible to the target until the start of Niame's next turn.
ranged Crown of Madness (standard; encounter) * Charm, Implement, Psychic
	ranged 10; +15 vs. Will; 2d6+5 psychic damage.  Miss: Half damage.
	Sustain Minor: The target makes a melee basic attack against one of its adjacent allies of Niame's choice (save ends).
ranged Mire the Mind (standard; encounter) * illusion, implement, psychic
	ranged 10; +15 vs. Will; 1d10+5 damage and Niame and all of her allies in range are invisibile to the target until the end of her next turn.  Effect: Niame gains a +4 bonus to Stealth checks until the end of the encounter.
Skills: Arcana +14, Bluff +15, History +14, Religion +10
Str: 10 (+5) Dex: 16 (+8) Wis: 10 (+5) 
Con: 10 (+5) Int: 18 (+9) Cha: 21 (+10) [/sblock][/sblock]


5. Samazar.
[sblock]Samazar is a demon-worshipper, sacrificing victims to Baphomet.  It was his idea to come to the Labyrinth, and he hopes to unlock all its secrets and bring Baphomet to the world.

Demon-Worshipper of Saruun (level 10)	XP 2500
	Samazar				xp 2500 (solo level 10 controller)
	Treasure: 1500 gp demon statue, 1000gp ruby (holds soul of demon - put the ruby in the statue to talk to him!), magic staff +3

Encounter Notes:
-Circle of Baphomet: any Evil creatures within the circle gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls and saving throws.
-Summoning Circles: Samazar has trapped a number of carnage demons (evistro).  He cannot control them, but is working on a ritual that will allow him to (without any success).  If the circles are broken, the evistro inside will attack the nearest creature. 
-Trigger: If a summoning circle is damaged, it will break and the evistro inside will attack.
-Trigger: If Samazar is Bloodied, he will use Mage Hand to break summoning circles.[/sblock]


----------



## LostSoul (Jan 8, 2009)

Just got back from the game.  It went well, though not as I expected.  Gotta love that.

The PCs were facing down the duergar and Malchior had just fallen.  Healing Surges were low, Dailies spent, and there was no time for a short rest.

We started with the Skill Challenge I posted above.  The PCs made a dash for it.  Wexley the Fighter picked up Malchior.  Armok had the layout of the labyrinth in his head and directed where they had to fly to.  As they were fleeing the spined devils showered them with spikes, but Jace fired off an Eldritch Blast to knock down some rubble at just the right time to give them cover.

One success.

They kept running but the spined devils were catching up with them.  Thinking quick, Bren the Bold came up with a plan: a quick trap.  Armok used his knowledge of the devils to lure them in a specific direction using Ghost Sound, Wexley loosened a stone brick, and Bren tied some ropes to it - making sure they were at the right height for the devils to hit.  Then they ran.

The devils came flying into the room through the entrance the PCs wanted them to and set off the trap.  The PCs heard their devilish cries as the block of stone crashed on them.

Two successes, and the devils were removed from the encounter.

They had some breathing room now.  Malchior used his knowledge of history to come up with a plan for ambush.  Jace would lie in the open, feigning a broken ankle while the others hid.  Everyone was able to hide and get the jump on the duergar, who easily fell for Jace's ruse, everyone except Wexley.

Three successes, and we went to combat.  The PCs had rolled a success, giving them the short rest they wanted (I had pre-decided that 3 successes meant a short rest) and they were able to set up the encounter layout.

The scouts were the first to enter, but they came around to flank the PCs.  Not as expected.  The other duergar entered through the main entrance and that's when the PCs sprung their trap.

Things went well in the first couple rounds - except for Jace, who ended up flanked and sneak attacked to unconciousness by the twin duergar scouts.  Then things started to look bad for the PCs.  Healing surges were going down, and even Wexley was on his last legs.

Luckily some good use of tactics, a timely-placed colour spray, Wexley's Shield Push feat, and the fact that I couldn't hit with Murkelmor carried the day for the PCs.  The scouts were able to retreat but the Theurge was captured.

I have a much more detailed write-up which I'll post later on.

The PCs needed a place to rest.  They chose the Chamber of Eyes.  Getting there was no problem, but there was a random encounter waiting within.

The PCs heard cries - "Help me!  Help me!"  It seems someone was trapped in a web.  Things seemed very fishy, and they were.  So the PCs decided to flank.

This turned out to be a bad decision.

Armok the Wizard opened the door and saw an ettercap waiting there.  Bren stepped out to sneak attack him, and did, but two of the three ghouls in the room jumped him.  Soon he was down and out.

Armok tried to retreat but was immobilized when he drew an OA; then he was stunned and dropped unconcious.  Meanwhile Wexley and Jace were tanging with the other ghoul while the ettercap blocked off that path with a tangle of webs.

Malchior had come around to get Armok and Bren back on their feet but he ran face-to-face with the two ghouls who put them down.  Seeing as he only had 7 HP left at this point, he figured he was screwed.  But luckily he was able to flee and hold a door shut.

Wexley and Jace were able to take care of the ghoul and Malchior ran around into the main chamber, close enough to get Bren and Armok back on their feet.

Armok, with only 1 HP mind you, decided to face the two ghouls himself.  Now since they had just been through two encounters (the skill challenge and the duergar), they had an AP to spend.  He used this to immobilize the ghouls while he blasted them.

The ettercap fell in short order and the ghouls still hadn't done anything.  I decided to call it for the PCs as the ghouls were about to get smacked down.

Exhausting, but the PCs pulled it off.

Malchior got a Sending from Orontar: "We need to talk.  Come back to the Hall and turn yourselves in."  Malchior replied: "No.  Meet us at the Chamber of Eyes.  Come alone."

Orontar did not come alone.  He had over a dozen men with him, including an arcane ballista.  But it turns out all he wanted was a public trial where he could banish the PCs, so they parted ways - the PCs knowing that if they return, they would face death.

Well, we'll see about that!

Now we played through an interrogation with the captured duergar Theurge.  He spilled his guts and I showed the PCs the map of the Horned Hold.  They quickly came up with a plan - get across the chasm to the battlements - but they needed a rope of some kind.

While a _Rope of Climbing_ was outside Armok's ability to craft, they decided to try and make a 1-shot magic rope.  We ran a skill challenge.

Armok gathered all the rope and started chanting over it, trying to infuse it with arcane power while Malchior made an arcane circle to keep out unwanted arcane energies.  They succeeded.

Then Armok called animals to him using Animal Messenger.  A bird, a snake, and a spider were sacrificed, boiled and smashed into an arcane paste.  He applied this to the rope and it sprang to life!

It coiled around him, attacking him, trying to choke him to death.  Wexley pried it off him.  Jace used his devilish powers of command to force it into submission, but failed.

When Armok gave it the final words of the ritual, it obeyed him and coiled itself, crawling into his bag.  But little did he know it had a will of its own... (Failed roll.)

They made it to the Horned Hold and started climbing up to the battlement.  Armok commanded the rope to knot itself on the ledge and it did.  But Bren failed to notice that its knot was weak and could slip at any moment.  

When Malchior climbed it, it loosed itself and he fell, just barely grabbing onto the side of the cliff.  Wexley quickly climbed up to help him and manhandled the rope into submission, at which point they all made it up to the battlement.

That's where we called it.

Now that last skill challenge deserves some explanation.   I was thinking that it would just be about making the rope, but they started talking about going to the Horned Hold.  Which I let them do, no problem, so there was a plot hole there. I'm reasonably pleased with the results of the magical ritual - now they have a _cursed_ rope of climbing.  It's got a will of its own, a devilish spirit, and it craves blood.  We'll see how that plays out.

The PCs should be able to wipe out the Horned Hold next session.  They know who's where thanks to the Theurge's info, Murkelmor is dead, they have surprise, and they are on the edge of level 7.  It'll be good to run through some easy battles after all the really hard-fought ones they've been having lately.

A good game!


----------



## LostSoul (Jan 8, 2009)

Detailed encounter logs.

Now if any encounter should grind, it should be this one: fighting soldiers and an elite without any dailies left.  And there was a little bit, but it was a cool battle of attrition.

[sblock]*PCs:*
Bren the Bold (Halfling Artful Dodger Rogue 6) (player not present, run by another player)
Jace (Half-Elf Infernal Pact Warlock 6)
Wexley (Human Sword & Board Fighter 6)
Malchior (Human Tactical Warlord/Arcane Initiate 6) (player not present, run by another player)
Armok Zed (Human Wizard/Cleric multiclass 6)

*Opposition:*
XP 1750, Level 8
2 duergar scouts
2 duergar guards
Murkelmor
1 duergar shock trooper
1 duergar theurge

*Roll For Intitiative.*

*Surprise Round:* All PCs save Wexley have surprise.

*Jace:* Eldritch Blast guard 1 for 17 damage.
*Bren:* Miss guard 1.
*Malchior:* Javeling throw vs. guard 1; hit for 10 damage.
*Armok:* Cloud of Daggers guard 1 for 9 damage.

*Round 1:*

*Jace:* Eldritch Blast guard 1.  Miss.
*Bren:* Sly Flourish guard 1.  Hit for 21 damage.
*Malchior:* Action Point: colour spray.  Guard 1, Murkelmor, and the shock trooper are dazed and take 11 damage.  Guard 1 dies.  Miss with Wolf Pack Tactics.
*Scout 1:* Shoots Jace with beard spikes; hits for 4 damage.  Takes OA for 3 points of damage; misses on attack.
*Scout 2:* Moves to flank Jace; hits jace for 13 damage.
*Murkelmor:* Delays.
*Guard 1:* <is dead>
*Guard 2:* Hits Malchior for 12 damage.
*Murkelmor:* Hits Malchior for 11 damage.
*Shock Trooper:* Misses.
*Theurge:* Hits Malchior with Firebolt for 8 damage.
*Wexley:* Tide of Irons Murkelmor into the Cloud of Daggers.  Hits; 13 damage total.  AP: Sweeping Blow.  Hits Murkelmor for 13 and crits the Shock Trooper for 23.
*Armok:* Cause Fear.  Misses.  AP: Icy Rays: Murkelmor and Guard 2 take 17 damage.

*Round 2:*

*Jace:* Eldritch Blast Scout 2 for 11 damage.  AP: Diabolic Grasp Scout 2 for 12 damage.
*Bren:* Sly Flourish Murkelmor, hits for 19 damage.  AP: Sly Flourish for 16 damage.
*Malchior:* Commander's Strike.  Wexley misses.  Moves; Wexley uses Combat Challenge on Guard 2, hitting for 15 damage and Shield Pushes him out of reach of Malchior.
*Scout 1:* Goes invisible and hits Jace for 19 damage.
*Scout 2:* Flanks Jace and crits for 24 damage.  Hits Malchior with beard for 6 damage.
*Guard 2:* Hits Malchior for 7 damage.
*Murkelmor:* Hits Wexley for 12 damage and ongoing Fire 5.
*Shock Trooper:* Misses.
*Theurge:* Brimstone.  Hits Wexley fo 12 damage and Murkelmor and the Shock Trooper for 2, knocking them Prone.
*Wexley:* Misses.
*Armok:* Cloud of Daggers on Murkelmor.

*Round 3:*

*Jace:* Fails Death Save.
*Bren:* Piercing Strikes Murkelmor for 17 damage.
*Malchior:* Takes 2 poison damage.  Moves and drinks potion.
*Scout 1:* Miss.
*Scout 2:* Moves to flank.
*Guard 2:* Miss.
*Murkelmor:* Takes 3 damage from Cloud of Daggers.  Misses.  Heals 25 damage.
*Shock Trooper:* Hits Wexley for 12 damage.
*Theurge:* Fumes.  Hits Malchior, Scout 2, and the Shock Trooper.  Malchior takes 6 damage; the duergar resist the poison.  All are blind.
*Wexley:* Miss.
*Armok:* Feeds a potion to Jace.

*Round 4:*

*Jace:* Miss Eldritch Blast on Theurge.
*Bren:* Positioning Strike Murkelmor for 15 damage.
*Malchior:* Commands Wexley to hit the Shock Trooper; he does, for 15 damage.  Heals Jace.
*Scout 1:* Stealth 25.
*Scout 2:* Misses Wexley.
*Guard 2:* Hits Wexley for 6 damage.
*Murkelmor:* Hits Armok for 11 damage and 5 ongoing fire.
*Shock Trooper:* Miss.
*Theurge:* Armok and Jace take 11 points of psychic damage and are Dazed.
*Wexley:* Crushing Blow on Guard 2; hits for 11 damage.
*Armok:* Thunderwaves Murkelmor for 13 damage.

*Round 5:*

*Jace:* Eldritch Blast misses.  Saves against the daze.
*Bren:* Takes OA for 11 damage.  Crits Guard 2 and kills him.
*Malchior:* Commands Wexley to strike; Wexley misses.
*Scout 1:* Appears out of the shadows, hits Wexley for 15 damage.
*Scout 2:* Misses.
*Murkelmor:* Misses.
*Shock Trooper:* Hits Wexley for 15 damage.  Wexley goes down.
*Theurge:* Misses.
*Wexley:* "Death 20!" is all I have written down.  edit: This is a 20 on the Death Save!
*Armok:* Misses or is unconcious.

*Round 6:* The round of whiffs, apparently.

*Jace:* Hits Murkelmor with an Eldritch Blast for 15 damage.
*Bren:* Miss.
*Malchior:* Miss. 
*Scout 1:* Miss.
*Scout 2:* Miss.
*Murkelmor:* Miss.
*Shock Trooper:* Miss.
*Theurge:* 4 damage to Jace and Malchior.
*Wexley:* Spends Second Wind.
*Armok:* 12 damage to Murkelmor with his ray of frost.

*Round 7:*

*Jace:* Miss.
*Bren:* Sly Flourish Murkelmor for 13 damage.
*Malchior:* Commands Wexley to attack; he hits Scout 2 for 13 
*Scout 1:* Invisible; runs.
*Scout 2:* Hides.
*Murkelmor:* Misses.
*Shock Trooper:* Misses.
*Theurge:* 14 damage to Armok.  Armok falls.
*Wexley:* 11 damage to the Shock Trooper.
*Armok:* Fails Death Save.

*Round 8:*

*Jace:* Hits Murkelmor for 20 damage.  Murkelmor dies.
*Bren:* Misses.
*Malchior:* Commands Wexley to strike; hits Shock Trooper for 18 damage.  Shock Trooper dies.
*Scout 1:* <flees>
*Scout 2:* <flees>
*Theurge:* <surrenders>[/sblock]


----------



## LostSoul (Jan 8, 2009)

The ghoul fight in the Chamber of Eyes.

[sblock]*PCs:*
Bren the Bold (Halfling Artful Dodger Rogue 6) (player not present, run by another player)
Jace (Half-Elf Infernal Pact Warlock 6)
Wexley (Human Sword & Board Fighter 6)
Malchior (Human Tactical Warlord/Arcane Initiate 6) (player not present, run by another player)
Armok Zed (Human Wizard/Cleric multiclass 6)

*Opposition:*
XP 800, Level 4.
1 ettercap webspinner
3 ghouls

*Set-up:* The PCs are dying for an extended rest.  They decide to head to the Chamber of Eyes.  More monsters have moved in.  One ghoul pretends to be a normal person in danger.  The PCs see through this ruse and Armok and Bren move around through a different entrance to flank it.  Armok opens the door to see an ettercap in his face.

*Roll For Intitiative.*

*Round 1:*

*Bren:* Sly Flourish the Ettercap for 19 damage.
*Ghoul 1:* Attacks Bren; hits for 8 damage and he's Immobilized.
*Ghoul 2:* Attacks Bren; Crits for 22 damage and he's Stunned
*Ghoul 3:* Moves to Jace; hits for 5 damage and he's Immobilized.
*Jace:* Hellish Rebuke ghoul 3; misses.
*Malchior:* Delays.
*Ettercap:* Attacks Armok; misses.
*Wexley:* Attacks ghoul; misses.
*Malchior:* Moves to help other PCs.
*Armok:* Moves; takes an OA from a ghoul; hit for 11 damage and he's Immobilized.  Not good.

*Round 2:*

*Bren:* <stunned>
*Ghoul 1:* Hits Bren for 11 damage.  Bren falls.
*Ghoul 2:* Hits Armok for 14 damage.  Armok falls.
*Ghoul 3:* Attacks Jace; Wexley hits him for 10 damage and pushes him out of reach.
*Jace:* Misses.
*Ettercap:* Shoots a web, fills the doorway with Jace and Wexley with webs.  Misses them all.
*Wexley:* Hits ghoul 3 for 16 damage.
*Malchior:* Delays.
*Armok:* Fails Death Save.

*Round 3:*

*Bren:* Makes Death Save.
*Ghoul 1:* Moves through entrance to flank PCs at doorway, sees Malchior, misses Malchior.
*Ghoul 2:* Follows ghoul 2.
*Ghoul 3:* Misses.
*Jace:* Misses.
*Malchior:* Colour Spray: Hits ghoul 2 for 11 damage and Dazes him; moves, takes an OA for 6.  He only had 7 HP and no Healing Surges.  Now he's down to 1 HP.
*Ettercap:* Spits web, misses.
*Wexley:* Hits ghoul 3 for 15 damage.
*Armok:* Fails Death Save.  Face goes even more pale than normal from blood loss.

*Round 4:*

*Bren:* Fails Death Save.
*Ghoul 1:* Misses Malchior.  Doesn't move to let Ghoul 2 through because Ghoul 2 is Dazed.
*Ghoul 2:* Does nothing.
*Ghoul 3:* Misses Wexley.
*Jace:* Misses Ghoul 3.
*Malchior:* Shifts back, moves through open door, slams door shut.
*Ettercap:* Readies an action.
*Wexley:* Misses Ghoul 3.
*Armok:* Makes Death Save - with a 19.

*Round 5:*

*Bren:* Makes Death Save.
*Ghoul 1:* Aids Ghoul 2 in opening door.
*Ghoul 2:* Fails to make Str. vs. Str check to open door.
*Ghoul 3:* Misses.
*Jace:* Moves to help Armok and Bren; hit by Ghoul 3 for 8 damage, Immobilized.  Hits ghoul 3 for 20 damage.
*Malchior:* Moves into room with a Run.  Spends AP to keep Running.  Heals Armok (and Bren?).
*Ettercap:* Hits Jace for 11 damage.
*Wexley:* Hits Ghoul 3 for 14 damage.  Hits again for 8.  Drops it.
*Armok:* Moves _towards Ghouls 1 and 2!_  Misses with Ray of Frost!  Spends AP; hits both with Icy Rays for 9 damage, and they're Immobilized.  Doesn't slam the door shut in front of him.

*Round 6:*

*Bren:* Sly Flourish the Ettercap for 21 damage.
*Ghoul 1:* Immobilized.
*Ghoul 2:* Immobilized.
*Jace:* Misses.
*Malchior:* Scorching Bursts the Ettercap (and the webs) for 11 damage.
*Ettercap:* Misses.
*Wexley:* Hits Ettercap for 16 damage.
*Armok:* Cloud of Daggers on Immobilized Ghoul 2.  Crits for 18 damage!  Uses Orb power to extend duration of Immobilization!

*Round 7:*

Ettercap is killed, DM calls the fight.[/sblock]


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## firesnakearies (Jan 8, 2009)

Great updates!   I love this thread.  My favorite one on ENWorld, I think.  You should have your own column in _Dragon_.  So many great examples of creative DM'ing and creative playing.

Thanks for sharing again!



*$*


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## LostSoul (Jan 23, 2009)

Played on Wednesday.

The PCs started out in the Horned Hold on top of one of the battlements, having gotten there using their rope.  They knew the layout:

Two bridges, linking up the back portion with the front gatehouse
Guards on one bridge, generally ignoring the other
Slaves in the back, tended by devils and a powerful Theurge
An old chapel with undead (Armok identifies them as wights) that the dwarves locked in and avoid, though sometimes Murkelmor would use them as a punishment or method of execution
Orcs, the master smith, and Rundarr the duergar Champion in the front gatehouse

Malchior came up with a plan:

Bren would open the door to the wight's chamber, letting them free, then he would beat feet and head back to the rest of the group.  The others would jam one bridge door the old-fashioned way, then use their new _Nail of Sealing_ which Armok created to shut the other door, pinning the bad guys between the PCs and the wights.

The plan got off to a bad start.  Bren had to unlock the door to the wight's chamber and this ruined any chance of surprise.  When he opened the door, we rolled Init, and the wights went first.

Thanks to their hit + shift ability, all 5 of them were able to get in and make attacks.  3 hits meant that he had taken 28 damage and 3 healing surges in the first round of combat!

He tumbled out of there and blew his AP to get back to the rest of the PCs, with the wights hot on his trail.

The other PCs pushed into the bridge guard area, surprising the duergar, _Sealing_ the bridge door shut and making it to the back entrance.  The duergar and their animated "crossbows on wheels" were now pinned.

Combat starts.  I'm rolling very hot.  Jace is getting blown away by the construct arbalests and the duergar are laying out some Infernally-inspired angry blows on Wexley.

Bren makes it back to the group and opens the bridge guard barracks door.  Wights chase after him, but most head for the barracks.  Shouts of anger can be heard from inside as the Theurge in there gets mauled pretty badly.

(House Rule: Since wights drain healing surges, and NPCs don't really have any, I said that the first hit does normal damage - 1d6+4 - and drains their healing surge.  Once that's gone, it does 1d6+8 damage.)

The PCs started pushing the duergar back into the wights.  One duergar was able to pry open the traditionally-sealed bridge door, trying to make a break for the front gatehouse, but was jumped by a wight, immobilized by Armok's Icy Rays (for two rounds!) and then slowed.

Once the dwarves fell, the PCs busted out their area of effect fire powers on the wights and cleaned them up.

This fight was okay.  It was tougher on the PCs than I thought it would be and took a long time to run (because the wights).  Since there were 5 wights and 5 players, I had each player run a wight until they turned their attention on to the PCs.  This worked out okay, but I wonder if I shouldn't have just handwaved the NPC-NPC conflict (or rolled a 1d20+level for each; higher roll means one guy is Bloodied; if he's hit again, he's out, or something like that).

That done, they explore the bridge area.  They check out more barracks and see two arrow slits covered with iron slats.  They open them, peer through, and see two orc guards fearfully watching the back door.

Armok tries to get them to fight each other - he uses _Mage Hand_ to have one spill its drink on the other - but they are so nervous now that this fails (i.e. failed Bluff check, even with a +2 synergy bonus from Arcana); one of them heads out to warn his boss about some strange stuff going on.

That's when the PCs jump him.  Most of the doors are opened so they can see a devil tormenting some slaves in a pit with a pitchfork (so typical!  ), but the room where Framarth, the master Theurge, has moved into has its door shut.

The orcs die.  Framarth and the devils come out to fight.  Bren uses Blinding Barrage on them to blind them all.  Blinded, the devils launch some spikes but can't seem to hit.  Framarth gets grabbed in an icy fist thanks to Armok.  He throws out his "blinding fart" and nails some of the PCs, then uses an AP to follow up with an attack that Dazes and Slows them, but it's not good enough and he runs through his Elite HP way to fast.

One devil is destroyed, and the other flees back to the slave pits.  The PCs intimidate it into surrender: When they threaten it with death, it laughs at them: "I'm immortal; my soul will live on."  Jace threatens it where it hurts.  "If I kill you, I will send your soul to my patron, Azrael."  

It gives up and offers to serve - "We just need to write up a contract and make the proper human sacrifice; let me get my pen..."  Too bad for the poor Spinagon, _he_ is the sacrifice; Jace lets the evil rope out of the bag and it strangles the devil to death.

Then it starts slithering to the slave pits, but Jace quickly gathers it up and puts it away.

The PCs rescue the slaves, who are cowering with fear.  Being slaves to hobgoblins, sold to devil-dwarves, and tormented by real, live devils isn't really good for the state of mind.  But they are happy to be freed.

The also find the lone goblin who escaped from the Chamber of Eyes in the pit.  He grovels at Armok's feet and offers to serve him.  "All the children I steal will be yours!"  Armok takes him in with the idea to convert him to the faith of the Raven Queen.  (Armok is a multi-classed Cleric/Wizard.)

(Armok's player also has some old D&D books, 1E and the Rules Cyclopedia, and we're planning to use the rules within to have him set up a Wizard's Tower.)

The slaves also said that some gnolls showed up and bought some slaves off the duergar.  "Where did they take them?"  "The Well of Demons."  "Oh great, sounds like a nice place."

Since the first fight and the planning took a long time, I offered them a Quest: kill the rest of the guys in the next real-time hour for extra XP.

They sprang into action.  They crossed the bridge leading to the smith's room.  Listening at the door, they heard screams of pain and some hammering.  When they open it, they see the master smith trying to forge a sword into a slave's arm.  "Blood for the blood god!"

The PCs gained surprise, and kill him before he has a chance to act.  Which is too bad, he had some cool powers.  C'est la vie.  Or la morte, I guess.  

So they are left with two orcs.  Armok is on the other side of the room facing one, alone - "It's okay, I haven't taken a point of damage yet."  A crit from the orcish berserker - "Berserker!" - changes that; he took 24 damage from the one swing.

Armok spies a nearby weapon rack and uses _Mage Hand_ to unlock the weapons so that their pointy ends stick out; then he _Thunderwaves_ the orc into it, dealing an extra 1d12 damage.  (Or 3d6+Int, but he chose the latter.)  When Wexley runs up to attack, the orc pulls the weapon rack down on both of them, knocking them both prone and dealing some damage (1d12 + Str, which was the same as his greataxe attack).

Then Malchior, using Murkelmor's Flaming Maul, runs up to the weapon rack and slams his maul down on it, over and over again.  We used the low limited damage option (3d6+str), on a miss both the orc and Wexley would take damage.  He hit, so no problem.

The orcs from the front gate hear the noise.  "What's going on in there?"  Malchior keeps hammering away at the weapon rack as if he were forging something.

Jace uses his Beguiling Tongue to get the orcs to come in.  "Come on in here, we've got beer and cake."  When the orcs show up, there's no beer, just death.  Not that the orcs fear death, but they really wanted some beer.  They are surprised and are demolished without landing a blow.

We wrapped up there.  The PCs are within 100 XP of 7th level now.  I think I'm going to offer Wexley a Quest to fight Rundarr, Duergar Champion one-on-one in a pit fight.  That could be interesting.

They are also going to quit the dungeon for now, bringing the slaves back to Winterhaven, stopping in Fallcrest to stock up on magical reagents since the Mages of Saruun have banished them from the Seven-Pillared Hall on pain of death.  This should be interesting; things have been happening while the PCs have been in Thunderspire (for about 2-3 weeks I figure).

Let's go into the wayback machine.

The PCs are working for a mercenary organization called the Knights of Nerath.  This group is trying to reestablish the old Empire of Nerath and bring the "Pax Romana" back to the world.  In truth, the goals of this organization are far less noble (and unestablished just yet).  The PC's mentor, Douven Staul, went missing somewhere around Winterhaven, bringing the PCs there, where they found an active cult of Orcus trying to open a gate to the Shadowfell.

When they found Douven, he told the PCs to keep Winterhaven safe while he went for more support from the Knights.  The PCs found out they didn't have any time to waste, though, since Kalarel's ritual would be complete in a few short days.  

They sprang into action like all true heroes do and put an end to Kalarel and his cult, sealing up the Shadow Rift.

When they came back to Winterhaven, the PCs deposed Paldemar, the local Lord, who had taken a bribe from Kalarel.  Shortly thereafter they left for Thunderspire to rescue the slaves.

In the meantime, the reinforcements from the Knights of Nerath finally arrived in Winterhaven, only to find the legitimate Lord deposed and locked up.  Well, that's not right.  They are waiting in Winterhaven for the PCs while they check up on the cult and have sent word to Fallcrest and the other towns that the PCs are wanted for "questioning".

I still have to figure out what's going to happen in Fallcrest for next week, but I think it will mostly be foreshadowing the upcoming conflict between the Knights and the soon-to-reach-name-level PCs who want to establish their own little fiefdoms.

Hmm, might be cool to run a neat little urban adventure in the town of Fallcrest.  Knives in the Dark.  Maybe I'll boost Kelson from the DMG to provide a challenge for 7th-level PCs.  

I also need to have a denouement...


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## Kinneus (Jan 23, 2009)

Great thread, LostSoul, just finished reading the whole thing. I don't have a group right now, so it's nice to sort of live vicariously through other people's awesome.
Your players _do_ know how lucky they are, righ?


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## evilbob (Jan 23, 2009)

I agree with all the others:  awesome stuff.  I've only read through the KotS since I think our group will also be headed to Thunderspire soon, but that was really cool.

Having just finished KotS as a player and then looked through the book, I would much rather have played your game than what was written in the H1 module.  Sure, a lot of that was PC creativity, but your additions - especially the skill challenge things - sound like they really spiced up the tedious grindfest that was what we played through.

My only question is:  how in the world did you manage to understand how skill challenges work?    Between the DMG, which is confusing, and the constant errata, which is more confusing, I can barely even figure out how they're supposed to run.  As a DM I've been winging it so far - but I really like the idea of adding powers as possible rolls for the challenge; that's cool.  I also think it works best if you ask your players to think of an idea for what they are doing, and then use your own judgement to make up a roll for that - in other words:  try to abstract it as much as possible.

Lots of good advice and good ideas in this thread!


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## LostSoul (Jan 23, 2009)

evilbob said:


> My only question is:  how in the world did you manage to understand how skill challenges work?




Playing Forge-indie games.  I was pretty familiar with the techniques that you use while running skill challenges, though I think skill challenges still need some work.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 24, 2009)

I ran Thunderspire Labrynth yesterday, too.

We have a new player and character (A female Dragonborn Barbarian adding to an Elven Paladin of the Raven Queen, an Elven Cleric and a Dwarven Orb Wizard), and I used the fact that I rolled a "random encounter" to introduce the new PC.

I combined three random encounters into one: 
- The Kruthik Encounter (but used only 2 instead of 4 Adults)
- The Firebats
- The Dwarven wanna-be-King. 

The Dragonborn got hired by the Dwarf and in his attempts to make new allies, he decided to help the Deepgem Company and retrieve lost goods (after a team was ran over by Gnolls.)

The PCs are on their retreat from their first attack on the Horned Helm (Murkelmoors group), as they discover smoke blowing their way - from the other direction, our wanna-be-king and his entourage arrives. A fight against the firebats ensues, and after two rounds, the Kruthik emerge from a tunnel, attracted by the smoke from the burning lumber. 

The fight worked pretty well, but I noticed that running NPC vs NPC combat is boring and needless book-keeping. I think I'll go back to the "hand-wave" method next time. x NPC allies occupy x NPC enemies and that's it. 

The PCs were not impressed by the Dwarf King. But after losing 2 of his Berserkes against the Kruthik, he didn't dare to do anything about it. 
The PCs head back to the Hall of Seven Pillars, and hand what little remains from the Mining Equipment over, and get the "Boar captured by Gnolls" quest (The Deepgem Company leader doesn't seem to trust the King much, either.)

They then start their next assault on the Duergar base. I reorganized the defenses - the Arbalesters are now on the balcony and the northern bridge, and guard the entrance area. The Dwarfen Elite Theurge and two Spined Devils holding guard (they are the only other creatures with enough range). 

The PCs figure out that with only two characters (Barbarian and Cleric) with ranged weapons of barely sufficient range (leaving Wizard and Paladin mostly useless), they can't succeed. They would need to break through the barricaded entrance, but they didn't even bother trying (they would have been exposed to the Double Attacks from the Arbalesters there, but they didn't see that power in action). They head back and finally give the pathetic, err valorous Paladin a ranged weapon. But they decide it might be better to look for an alternate route. (I decided that considering the Labyrinth, there is another passageway to get to the "back entrance". It's just hard to find.) That worked out well, with the Barbarian intimidating a hapless Duergar in the Hall of Seven Pillars, the Dwarf trying to make sense of the labyrinth maze, the Cleric trying to find traces and the Paladin trying to gauge the Duergars truthfulness. (They don't fail at all). They soon find themselves facing 4 Orcs, an Ogre and 2 Duergar Soldiers, and blast and slash them into oblivion, where our session ended.


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## LostSoul (Jan 24, 2009)

Cool.

The guy who plays Malchior was talking to me about the battered crown he found from the dwarf.  He said that he sees Malchior playing with it at night, staring into the campfire, thinking about his own goals and ambitions.  For him it's a potent symbol, the result of reaching to far too fast.

It's interesting in RPGs how you can have your PC thinking something like that, but is it true if you don't tell anyone else?  It's an interesting game we play.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 24, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> Cool.
> 
> The guy who plays Malchior was talking to me about the battered crown he found from the dwarf.  He said that he sees Malchior playing with it at night, staring into the campfire, thinking about his own goals and ambitions.  For him it's a potent symbol, the result of reaching to far too fast.
> 
> It's interesting in RPGs how you can have your PC thinking something like that, but is it true if you don't tell anyone else?  It's an interesting game we play.




It reminds me of what I sometimes feel tempted to use - Cut Scenes. Stuff that the player characters just cannot know, but would make the story more interesting. I did a little of that in Keep on the Shadowfell - the PCs got visions of the Paladin that lead the Keep and his activities. (Fighting the Dragon, arranging a truce with the surviving Kobolds, inviting his family into the newly build Keep, and finally as he went mad and killed hi family and comrades). It's a dangerous road, though - too much exposition means taking away the players activity and them feeling like just watching "your story". 

For this at hand - I suppose it is something that just makes the game a little more fun for oneself, but it would be even better if one could share. (I suppose that's why the player told you the story.) Maybe this is for you an opportunity to use that in the story-line maybe some NPC hitting on that (maybe someone berating him for having become to reluctant?), so that the other players can share.

Mustrum "Who is convinced that this Message Board makes him look like a better DM then he is" Ridcully


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## LostSoul (Feb 6, 2009)

We switched our night to Wednesdays.  

Nothing too special; the PCs finished off the Horned Hold and decided to go into the Well of Demons to rescue all the slaves.  More on the session later.

I was surprised to see how quickly the PCs chewed through the first encounter in the Well - and then I realized they should be level 5 when they hit it, not level 7.  I mentioned this after the game, and one of the players said it's not hard to level up encounters in 4E.  I agree, but I'm not going to do that - they made their choices, we live with them.  If that means these encounters are cakewalks for them, so be it.

However, it should also mean that the slaves are dead, having been sacrificed by Maldrick Scarmaker in the Inner Sanctum.

What does that mean, though?  It says in the module:

The inner sanctum is the heart of Baphomet's power over the Well of Demons.  Maldrick Scarmaker seeks to subvert this power and offer it to Yeenoghu, the demon lord of gnolls and archenemy of Baphomet.  Maldrick is accompanied by his demonic servants, slowly completing a ritual to turn this place into a new bastion of evil.​
Okay, so it's a new bastion of evil.  I have no idea what the hell I should do with that.


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## LostSoul (Feb 7, 2009)

So here's what happened:

I tell the players that I haven't really planned anything if they leave the dungeon, but I'm okay to ad-lib it.  "Well, we can still deal with the mages."  "No, M isn't here, and I think he should be around for that."  "Let's hit the Well of Demons, then."

So they do.  But first: shopping!

Since the Seven-Pillared Hall is off-limits to them, Bren has to sneak in.  Which he does, no problem.  He talks to Gendar (?) the drow, and gives him the scepter and gets some Quest XP.  Now even though they had agreed on a higher price than what's in the module, Gendar offers less gold for it.  "Hey, I could just turn you in."  Bren takes the lesser sum.

It's funny because Bren's player isn't even keeping track of his cash.

They buy some gear.  Gendar works out a way for them to contact him without the Mages knowing about it, using Animal Messenger.  "Send me a message, then we'll meet in the room where the minotaur statue has its horn shoved up its ass."  

Yeah, I actually said that.  I was tired.

So, onwards.  After some failed Dungeoneering checks, the PCs finally make it to the Well of Demons.

First room: the PCs spot everything hiding and procede to kick ass.  They don't even care about the names.  The Phalagar hiding out lays some smack down in the first round, but they push it away, then immobilize it so it can't control the battlefield the way it wants to.

The ghoul doesn't even land a hit before it's turned into cave mulch.  The two chokers hit a few times, but come on.  It's a speedbump.  The party shows how far they have come during their time in Thunderspire.

I was getting frustrated, even to the point of saying, "Come and Get It won't work - they can't shift towards you; they'll just fall."  Fall they did.  But then I realized I was being a dick, and softened up on things.

Next encounter: they find some gnolls and a pack of hyenas.  They make short work of them.  Gnolls are cool, but again, they are too high level for this .  The hyenas, 5 levels lower than the PCs, die like crazy.

When I decide that the gnoll huntmaster is going to try to raise the alarm - he hasn't taken any damage at this point - the PCs blow him away.

That was pretty much it.  A mediocre session, mostly because I was wiped out at the time.

One note: I was letting Bren make Stealth checks all the time.  Big deal, I figured, if he gets CA.  He's supposed to.  I figure there will be a penalty for failure but he never did fail a check.

I think we should wrap up the Well of Demons in the next session.  I wonder how they will deal with the information that Paldemar is working against the Mages.  So far, they hate the Mages and have no reason not to like Paldemar, though they know he's up to no good.  I think it'll be interesting if they do contact him.  We'll see.


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## LostSoul (Mar 5, 2009)

We've played 3 times since the last update - not too much happened in the first two sessions, just regular old dungeoncrawling.

The last session was a little more interesting.  I'll write something more up later on.

In the first of the three sessions, the PCs explored the Well of Demons.  They ran into the skill challenge with the ghosts but since they had pretty much figured out everything by that point, and I thought the skill challenge was lame, I skipped it.

They blindfolded themselves in the mirror room and, since the skeletons just sit at the back, it wasn't a big deal for them.

The blood pool room was really tough - 2d10 damage + 5 ongoing when you enter and when you begin your turn!  The Wizard rode on his Dire Boar out into the pool and activated the trap, and after that it was a struggle to keep out of the blood.  The Wizard went down a few times, very close to death, the Rogue was not looking so good, but the poison resistance the Fighter and Warlord had helped them out.

I also added a Bar'lgura to this fight, since I rolled for that when the PCs took their short rest.  I think I only hit once with it, though.

They made short work of the demons in the next room.  The big trap room with the dragon wasn't too hard - 5th level solo vs. 5 7th level PCs.  He was beat on pretty badly.

Since the PCs had not yet taken an extended rest, they were in a tight spot, but they wanted to press on before the gnolls sacrificed the final slaves.  Armok the Wizard went in with no healing surges and Bloodied.

They had their dailies saved up, and combined Hunger of Hadar with a cold area spell to rip apart the demons.  The Rogue got into a tight spot when a tentacle grabbed him and dropped him down, but the Warlord was able to get him back on his feet again.

I changed Maldrick slightly, letting him regain hit points by sacrificing a slave with a DC 24 Arcana check.  He was only able to do this once before he was killed.

Then they discovered the notes implicating Paldemar in everything that's been going on and they were left with a decision to make.


Last night's game:

The PCs went back to the Seven-Pillared Hall to trade magic items.  They sent an animal messenger to Gendar, who arrived in their meeting place.  The PCs worked out a good deal - it went something like this:

"Can you give us a deal on all this?"
"Why would I do that?  If anything, you should give me the deal.  You've got no one else to trade with, since the Mages won't let you into the Hall."
"We could just tell the Mages that you're dealing with us.  How do you think they'll like that?"  (Intimidate check; result 31)
"Okay, okay, I'll see what I can do."

They traded magic items (next time I might come up with an inventory for magic-item trading merchants) and were happy.

Then they sent a message to Orontar via animal messenger:

"We have information that says Paldemar is betaying you.  We'll trade it for commuting our banishment."
"I need to see this information first.  Meet me in the Customhouse.  Come alone."

Malchior decided to meet with Orontar, alone.  But first, as a precaution, Armok cast Animal Messenger, sending _himself_ the message.  He put the animal (a snake) in a bag and gave it to Malchior; if Malchior was betrayed, he would release the snake and alert the other PCs.

Cool idea.

Malchior was not betrayed.  In the Customhouse they worked out a deal.  Malchior handed over the letters and the banishment would be commuted if Malchior would hand over, in public, a large sum of cash.  The cash would be an illusion, but it would show that the PCs respect the Mages, which is what's important to them.

Malchior heads back, fills a bag with stones, and gives it to Orontar in the tavern.  Orontar mumbles some magic words and unties the bag without moving a finger; then he reaches in and pulls out a large diamond, observing it for a second before dropping it back into the bag.  (Mage Hand and Prestidigitation)

The PCs round up the rest of the previously-freed slaves, getting a hard time gathering a few of them (one quick roll, dealing with a Rondarr? the taproom owner, intimidating him into giving up his serving wench) but in the end all the townspeople were freed.

The PCs decided it was time to leave.  They'd leave the Mages to deal with Paldemar for now.

I decided it was time for a fight.  I grabbed one of the random encounters - the demon and the gnolls - and had them hack it out.  We made an opposed perception check; the PCs won, so they decided where they were and where the bad guys were coming from.

Fun fight, but nothing out of the ordinary.  I was able to put the beat down on Wexley the Fighter after a series of awesome rolls with the Bar'lgura and the gnolls.  (I upped the damage by 1d8 on the Bar'lgura's attacks.)

The PCs leave and make it to Fallcrest.  They buy the freed townspeople a wagon and let them head off to Winterhaven; they have gathered arms and armour from the various fights in Thunderspire, so they figure they can take care of themselves.

Armok wanted to buy some building supplies and hire a carpenter to build himself a tower, but he was too short on funds so he put it off.

Bren or Jace spends some time gathering rumours and hears something interesting about Winterhaven.  Word is that cultists of Orcus took over Winterhaven and dumped the local Lord, so some Knights of Nerath went up to deal with it.  This information changed things so the PCs bought some horses and rode off to Winterhaven.

They quickly caught up with the townspeople and travelled with them, making camp just off the King's Road in the Gardbury Downs.

Around midnight, while Bren the Bold was on watch, he spotted a light flashing in the darkness.  Alone, he went to investigate its source.  He saw a human bandit with a signalling lantern communicating with someone over a mile away.  Bren was familiar with the code so he was able to decipher it (Streetwise roll) - apparently bandits scoping out the group.

One interesting note - the bandits mentioned something about the two-dozen knights who rode through here a week or two ago.

Bren kills the bandit in a "bloody versus" roll - one roll, if Bren hits he kills him, if he doesn't then the guy gets away - and sends his own signals, warning the bandits away from the group.

In the morning, Bren tells everyone about this.  As he's doing so, the townspeople are making some noise - one of them has gone missing.  Uh oh.  He turns up after a short search, choked to death, neck covered in rope burns.

Stupid rope got loose somehow.  It's not satisfied right now, constantly struggling with Jace (its owner), giving him a penalty to Athletics and Acrobatics.  And when it gets the chance it sneaks off to kill someone.

Jace is upset and they resolve to deal with the rope, but they need to proper reagents.  So they decide to check out the spot where the bandits were communicating with them.  They find their tracks but no fireplace - they were trying to be stealthy.  It seems they waited long past dawn and had just left - waiting for their lost companion, perhaps?

On to Winterhaven, then.  When they reach the walls of the town proper, they see knights and armoured men milling about - some two dozen of them.  They also see Lord Padraig on the wall.

Kaldor of Nerath, the Knight-Commander of this group, rides out and meets with them.  There are some harsh words said between Malchior (calling Padraig a liar, telling them to get out of his lands, etc.) and Kaldor (you need to go on trial for slander, you have no right to depose a legitimate lord, etc.).

Eventually swords are drawn.

And that's where break for the night.  Short session, but fun.  I'm glad we're out of the dungeon now.

Next session we'll start off with the fight.  I want to give the PCs some goal other than "kill 'em all" but that might not work in this fight.  Maybe I'll think of something.

I'm also going to draw up random encounter tables for the surrounding areas.  There will be a lot of "boring" encounters included there, and I'm not yet sure how I'll deal with them.  Maybe skill challenges?  We'll see when we get there.


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## LostSoul (Apr 2, 2009)

Played last night.  Two weeks ago we played a one-shot because one of the players was out of town.  I got to wreak havoc with a Wizard.

So last night:  We began with a fight with the "Knights of Nerath", a group of mercenaries who are little more than thugs who've laid claim to the legacy of ancient Nerath.  They're led by Sir Kaldor, a landless knight.

Some background:  [sblock]Padraig, Lord of Winterhaven, was accepting bribes from Kalarel, a Scion of Orcus.  Padraig wouldn't investigate the Keep on the Shadowfell and Kalarel would leave Winterhaven alone.  (Kalarel didn't, but that's what you get for dealing with EVIL.)

The PCs discovered this, and once Kalarel was taken care of and the Shadow Rift was closed, they put Padraig to trial - saving him from the townspeople who were out for blood.

The PCs also asked for some aid to help stop Kalarel but realized they didn't have time to wait for reinforcements.  Before these reinforcements came, the PCs left for Thunderspire in order to save some enslaved townspeople.

Sir Kaldor was the one who answered the call and he's been setting up shop in Winterhaven, hoping to become its de facto Lord.[/sblock]

The fight starts because Sir Kaldor told the PCs they were criminals who had no right to judge a noble lord, and Malchior (who does have noble blood and believes in noblesse oblige) won't stand for it.

I set up a battlemat and lay down two dozen guys.  Most are lvl 7 Minions, Kaldor's a level 8 Elite Soldier, and there are a handful of human guards and a pair of human mages.

Kaldor rides a mount - it's part of his statblock.  I also put a line in to deal with what happens if he's dismounted or if his horse is attacked.  (He doesn't get to use his Hoof Smash power or his Brutal Charge.)

Bren the Bold, our Rogue, wins Init like normal and targets the horse.  One Daily attack power and the horse is dead.  

The fight's on; Kaldor and the guards create a bottleneck, trying to focus on Malchior, while the archers rain down death.  I'm rolling like crap for the archers but things aren't going too bad for me.

Then Kaldor gets absolutely creamed, Armok puts up a Wall of Fog to block the archers, and Bren slips into Winterhaven just before they close the gate.  The archers and mages ready to shoot at anyone who crosses through the Wall of Fog, but Bren breaks into their ranks and one-shot kills a Mage (by some fancy swashbuckling, drops her into a vat of boiling oil).

At this point I've got low-level guys and minions left, Bren makes an awesome Intimidate check, and they surrender.  

There's quite a lot a party can do when they know they only have to face the one encounter.


In town, they deal with a few issues - they take Kaldor and Padraig and write up ransom letters for them, they recruit a few of the "Knights of Nerath" to bolster the Winterhaven Regulars, and they pass out arms and armour to the people in town.  There's a party in the streets as the slaves are returned from Thunderspire.

They hack their Bloodrope to pieces before it can slip away and kill again.  There was talk about trying to tie it to a tree to become an executioner, but they decided it was more trouble than it was worth.

They send a message to Orontar to see how he dealt with Paldemar.  There was no reply.

They find a message from an _Animal Messenger_: 
Kaldor -

Shadow Rift sealed.  Encountered an acolyte of Orcus and skeleton servants; we subdued him but he spoke a word of power that robbed him of his life before we could get any information from him.  Will return in the morning.

Endinomar the Fastidious​
It seems that Kaldor sent some men to the Keep to check up on things.  The PCs misinterpret this message; they think Endinomar is taking credit for their work.  He actually went down to check on the Shadow Rift, found it sealed, and found a cultist down there and killed him.  (These Orcus cultists are under the effects of a Ritual; they can speak a syllable of the "Last Word" and it will kill them.  This cultist, an Acolyte, was also checking up on the Shadow Rift, to report back to his masters.)

The PCs wait for Endinomar to show up, but he's travelling with an assassin who notices that something's out of place and they hide, wait, and watch.  The PCs head into the Keep to explore it, find marks of recent activity, but when they try to pick up Endinomar's trail they lose it on the muddy road.


Since we're changing how the campaign works, there was a bit of, "Okay, what do you guys want to do now?"  They weren't really sure, so I pulled out my random "Rumours" table, had them make a Streetwise check, and they got a few results:

The dead walk again in the Cairngorms.

A noble lord is trying to raise mercenaries in Fallcrest for an expedition into the Temple of Yellow Skulls.

The Valley of the Dead (in the Cairngorms) is changing - the trees are barren and warped, even in the summer.  It is a haunted place.


They decide that they need to deal with whatever's going on in the Cairngorms.  I tell them that, hundreds of years ago, when Nerath was strong, nobles used to bury their dead in grand tombs in the Cairngorms.  They're sealed with powerful magics; only those who are direct descendants of those in the tomb can enter, and even then only to mourn the dead (ie. no tombrobbing).

Malchior makes a good History check to see if he knows anything about these tombs, and I decide that his family has a tomb in The Valley of the Dead.  They make their way towards it, entering the Cairngorms through the Dead Man's Pass.

As they are travelling, I roll for a random encounter.  They come across a Deathpriest of Orcus, three Acolytes, and a pair of wights.  The Deathpriest has sacrificed some goblins and kobolds and is performing a ritual to break into a tomb.

After a short (but reasonably tough) fight, the PCs win.  They get no information from the Deathpriest or the Acolytes, and since it's nearly night they decide to make camp.  

No random encounters occur during the night, so in the day they start searching for the location of the cult.  A couple of castings of Hand of Fate leads them right to it - a really big tomb built long ago.  

There are a couple of flunkies standing guard outside but it looks like they aren't paying too much attention; the cult is not on alert.  They are easily dealt with and the PCs enter the tomb.

I don't have anything drawn up so I make a couple of random dungeon generation rolls and we have another encounter.  A group of human bandits (cultists, all) are torturing a kobold to death under the guidance of an Oni Night Haunter.  The PCs gain surprise and start kicking ass; the Oni tries desperately to escape, but even in a gaseous state, he cannot.

That's where we called it.  I have to draw up the dungeon for next time - there are a lot of bad guys in there, nearly a hundred cultists (mostly rabble and human bandits) led by a Battlewight Commander, a Human Lich, and a Death Knight.  

The PCs might be in trouble since they won't have the luxury of deciding when to take an extended rest, and have stirred up a hornet's nest!  Luckily they haven't yet been spotted (after each short rest I'll roll 1d6 twice - one to see if there's a random encounter for the PCs, another to determine if their handiwork has been uncovered).


Oh yeah - while the PCs are out in the Cairngorms, Endinomar has sprung Kaldor from prison.


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## Nebulous (Apr 3, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> That's where we called it.  I have to draw up the dungeon for next time - there are a lot of bad guys in there, nearly a hundred cultists (mostly rabble and human bandits) led by a Battlewight Commander, a Human Lich, and a Death Knight.




Good Grief! What level are your guys now? I'm sure you know what you're doing (judging by the, uh, way-awesome 4 pages of thread) but that sounds like a murderlization waiting to happen. 

I'm prepping for Thunderspire now and i'm so gonna steal some of your ideas.  But my Padraig was a good guy, father to a PC, and Ninaran turned out to be a half-daughter to Padraig as well who redeemed herself and became an acolyte to Sister Linora in Winterhaven. 

i'm setting up Paldemar by a letter he wrote to Kalarel, and they had a relationship as peers and sorta-rivals, one a follower of Orcus, the other Vecna.  Paldemar wants help finding a place called the Pyramid of Shadows and has asked for Kalarel's help...but Kalarel probably didn't get the chance to answer before the PCs dropped some whoopass on him.  But he got sucked through the portal and will probably pop up in the Labyrinth somewhere.

You have a really good group of roleplayers too. thanks for the updates!


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## LostSoul (Apr 3, 2009)

Nebulous said:


> Good Grief! What level are your guys now? I'm sure you know what you're doing (judging by the, uh, way-awesome 4 pages of thread) but that sounds like a murderlization waiting to happen.




It does.  They're level 8 right now; I think they could take the lich with some flunkies (not with Lord Rhyst, the Battlewight Commander) but the Death Knight is too much.

I wanted to put something in there that was beyond the capabilities of the PCs to hack to bits.  I have no idea how they will deal with him, but I've told them that there are some encounters that are too low for their level and some that are way too high.  Hopefully, for their sakes, they'll gather some info; if not, they might lose a few PCs in a retreat.



Nebulous said:


> I'm prepping for Thunderspire now and i'm so gonna steal some of your ideas.  But my Padraig was a good guy, father to a PC, and Ninaran turned out to be a half-daughter to Padraig as well who redeemed herself and became an acolyte to Sister Linora in Winterhaven.
> 
> i'm setting up Paldemar by a letter he wrote to Kalarel, and they had a relationship as peers and sorta-rivals, one a follower of Orcus, the other Vecna.  Paldemar wants help finding a place called the Pyramid of Shadows and has asked for Kalarel's help...but Kalarel probably didn't get the chance to answer before the PCs dropped some whoopass on him.  But he got sucked through the portal and will probably pop up in the Labyrinth somewhere.




I like the background, it's a good tie between the two.  The trail in the module that links the hobgoblins to the duergar to the gnolls is pretty weak; it's almost silly.  "Oh, but a few _more_ slaves have been lost.  Great."  I'd play up the Paldemar angle.

In my game the PCs set the Mages of Saruun against Paldemar, but they didn't give Orontar the silver key to get into the Tower of Mysteries.  This will probably give him the chance to complete his ritual and take control of the Seven-Pillared Hall - I'm not using the Pyramid of Shadows.


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## Nebulous (Apr 3, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> In my game the PCs set the Mages of Saruun against Paldemar, but they didn't give Orontar the silver key to get into the Tower of Mysteries.  This will probably give him the chance to complete his ritual and take control of the Seven-Pillared Hall - I'm not using the Pyramid of Shadows.




By default Orontar is the only one there. Did you reintroduce the 3rd, or make it more than three? 

Actually, i'm not really keen on running Pyramid either, but it makes a nice plot set piece for Paldemar to have a plan the PCs can disrupt. I might use pieces of it though, but that's so far down the road it's hardly worth thinking about now. What i'm really looking forward to is Trollhaunt, so i'm planting a few seeds about that in the first Thunderspire session that the players will undoubtedly forget and i'll have to gently remind them later.


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## LostSoul (Apr 3, 2009)

Nebulous said:


> By default Orontar is the only one there. Did you reintroduce the 3rd, or make it more than three?




I made three other mages.  Orontar is the guy who deals with the day-to-day administration in the Hall, and Paldemar hunts the Labyrinth for secrets.  That's how I figured they organized.  Orontar and Paldemar aren't really Mages of Saruun, but close enough.



Nebulous said:


> Actually, i'm not really keen on running Pyramid either, but it makes a nice plot set piece for Paldemar to have a plan the PCs can disrupt. I might use pieces of it though, but that's so far down the road it's hardly worth thinking about now. What i'm really looking forward to is Trollhaunt, so i'm planting a few seeds about that in the first Thunderspire session that the players will undoubtedly forget and i'll have to gently remind them later.




I am thinking of putting the Trollhaunt in the Nentir Vale - near Nenlast, I think was the plan.  I'm just going to change the name of the town in the module with Nenlast.


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## Nebulous (Apr 3, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> I am thinking of putting the Trollhaunt in the Nentir Vale - near Nenlast, I think was the plan.  I'm just going to change the name of the town in the module with Nenlast.




My game is set *loosely* in the Forgotten Realms, in the Savage North, around the Evermoors and Silverymoon. The Trollhaunt Warrens fit perfectly into the Evermoors, so that's where i'm drawing everything, including links to the Feywild. This is one reason i love running published adventures, to share ideas and tweak it for a better story overall...


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## LostSoul (Apr 16, 2009)

What do the letters "TPK" stand for again?



That was my first one ever in DMing.

We have decided to start off again in Winterhaven with new PCs at 1st level.

I'll write more later.


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## LostSoul (Apr 16, 2009)

Okay, so here's how it went down.

The player of Wexley the Dauntless Fighter was missing from the game.  We knew he'd be late so we started without him.

The PCs are in the Chamber of Bloodletting, surrounded by corpses.  First things first - they grab the robes to use as disguises, then dump the bodies outside.  They ask what rank these guys were, and I tell them that they're pretty low-rank - cults of Orcus must sacrifice to the Blood Lord, and when they don't have anyone better they use one of these guys.

I'm using wandering monsters here, rolling one per short rest or search (1 on a 1d6), and dumping the bodies triggered a roll.  But no monsters.

They look at their map and see there are seven ways to go.  So they cast Hand of Fate (which means another wandering monster check, but nothing) and ask it a few questions:

"Which way to the leader?"  The ghostly hand of the Raven Queen points west.

"Which way to do the cult the most harm?"  I think for a second and, since killing their leader will result in the cult disbanding, it points to the west.

"Which way to the most treasure?" The hand points to the east.  This way leads into a temple of Orcus in the Shadowfell where some serious badness lies.

The PCs decide to head west.  The passage soon turns north and at the bend there's a door.  The Rogue picks it and they enter.

It's a bedroom for a Large-sized creature, and he appears to be gone.  Lots of different clothing is hanging in a closet.  The clothes are of all different sorts - male, female, rich merchant, lowly peasant, goblin, kobold, etc.

And there's a ruby on a desk that appears to be magical.  What kind of magic?  It's the focus for Eye of Alarm.

This freaks out the PCs, but then they realize it probably belonged to the Oni they killed and they don't have to worry about it too much.  So they grab it and press on.

The corridor leads north to a door.  Everyone disguised except the Halfling Rogue Bren the Bold, they enter the room with a plan to pass Bren off as a new sacrifice.

The room is full of goblins and kobolds being tortured, one held positioned in mid-air by a one-foot-long shaft.  He's bleeding out onto a magic symbol of Orcus on the floor.

The Crimson Acolytes challenge the PCs: "What are you doing in here?"  The Warlock uses his Beugiling Tongue to bluff them.  The Acolytes cackle in glee: "We will enjoy tormenting a halfling - their blood is so much sweeter than these wretched goblins'!"

Then they get jumped by the PCs.  7 Crimson Acolytes vs. the PCs; the surprise round works wonders for the good guys.

Then one of the Acolytes dies on the symbol of Orcus and an Angel of Valor is summoned!

They take care not to kill the other Acolytes on the circle and take care of business, Bren using a curtain in the room to blind the Angel of Valor.  Malchior the Warlord grabs the _Immovable Shaft_ after the goblins and kobolds are put out of their misery, and they move on.

There are two new doors here, one going west and one north.  The acolytes, when things were getting bad for them, cried about "Warning the master!" and tried to head north.  So the PCs head north.

The door leads to a corridor.  After about 60' there's a door, though the corridor extends further north.  They listen at the door and hear chanting in Abyssal, as if someone is praying to Orcus.  Only one voice.  So this must be it!

They try the door - no good, it's Arcane Locked.  But Bren picks it, beating the DC by 2.

In the room they see a "magic-using skeleton".  Jace the Warlock identifies it as a Lich, but since it's a Paragon-level creature his roll isn't good enough to learn about its powers.  So the PCs merrily rush in to kill it.

They don't ask about the tentacles on a workbench or the summoning circle before the altar.  Too bad.  As Wexley rushes in, the tentacles reach out and smack him!  Ouch, but he's tough.  He swings at the Lich and rolls a 26...

Which misses.  And the PCs start to worry.

The fight starts and things are on the razor's edge.  The Lich drops down his Frostburn and the PCs in it start taking 15 damage - 10 + his aura - each round.  He's a hard one to hit, but Malchior thumps him with Lead the Attack, giving everyone a +5 bonus.

I ask the players if they want to know anything about the summoning circle or the tentacles, and tell them: The Lich can summon something from the Abyss with a minor action and a check; you can destroy it with a minor action, either an attack or an arcana/religion check.  The tentacles can be controlled by you if you make a successful arcana check as a minor action.

Well, they don't try to do that.  So the Lich ends up summoning an Angel of Valor from the Abyss.  And at this point Bren and Armok the Wizard are bleeding out from all the damage they're taking each round.  Malchior tries to keep them up but there's just not enough healing to go around.

Then the Lich, tired of standing in his own Frostburn, decides to bolt for it.  He spends a second wind and runs, the +2 bonus to defenses saving him from the OAs.

Malchior grabs the Lich to keep him from running and Wexley smacks him.  Bren gets lucky and rolls a 20 on his Death Save.  The Lich slips out of Malchior's grab and keeps moving down the hallway, towards the Undead Barracks.  

Yeah, not good.  Maybe the PCs should have used their Nail of Sealing on the door.  Oh well.

So Malchior runs after the Lich again, getting in front of him.  Wexley prepares to charge but the Angel of Valor gets in his face, thinking that Bren is dead (Bren made a successful Bluff check to play dead).

Wexley uses his new Cingulum of Combat Rushing (taken from Kaldor the Knight) to bowl through the Angel and charge right into the Lich.  He decides to tackle him, dropping them both Prone in the same space.

Meanwhile, Armok is making death saves and Bren is trying to feed him potions, but they're taking 10 damage per turn.  Crap.

With Wexley wresting with the Lich on the ground, the Lich recharges his Frostburn and drops another one on both Malchior and Wexley (and himself, which basically just negates his regen).  They're both _very_ low on HP and healing.  Jace is trying to blast the Lich but can't seem to roll higher than a 6.

Then Malchior comes up with a plan: slam the Immovable Shaft into the Lich's mouth to keep it from speaking.  With Wexley pinning it, Malchior just barely beats its Fort defense and shoves the rod down its throat, keeping it from speaking its arcane words.

(I asked Malchior if he wanted to "mute" the Lich - no spells, no sustain - or keep him in place; he went with the mute option.  Save ends.)

The Frostburn disappears as the Lich struggles upoking good.  But the Angel of Valor - taking some hits - smacks Jace down.  Both Bren and Armok are making death saves, but at least they aren't taking damage.

The Lich breaks Wexley's hold, ripping off his jaw bone in the process, which he picks up with a minor action.  Then the angel of valor turns on Wexley and drops him.

Malchior smacks the Lich but in the next round the angel of valor ("angel of undeath") takes him out with its wicked scythe.

No one rolls a 20 on their death save, and that is that.


We decide to start with new level 1 characters in Winterhaven.  Whatever legacy items the PCs had left in Winterhaven the new PCs can have access to; this means that they don't have to pay for arms or armour, and there is a Dire Boar.  That's about it.

Thinking about the encounter, I probably should have left more hints about the danger of the Lich - more opportunities to discover what was in the dungeon.  Live and learn.  But it was a fair encounter, on the hard end, and if Jace had rolled better or Wexley's player had showed up - we forgot about his Boundless Endurance power - I think the PCs would have won, limping out of the dungeon to lick their wounds.

The new PCs are going to be dealing with what's happening in Winterhaven while the "Lord of Winterhaven and his men" (the PCs) are out in the Cairngorm Peaks.  Eventually I think they might run into undead versions of their old PCs.  That could be cool.


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## Daern (Apr 17, 2009)

wow, sounds pretty fun -tackling a lich.  I like that you're sticking with the campaign.  Your posts make it sound like a great game.


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## LostSoul (Apr 30, 2009)

*First day of the new party*

Played tonight, the first time with the new PCs.

We have:
Lendil the Shamed, a halfling sorcerer;
Apothis, a deva invoker;
Hrogar, a dwarf shaman; and
Hekubus, a teifling paladin/warlock multiclass.

Hekubus was rescued from Thunderspire Labyrinth by Armok the Wise.

We quickly decide on a reason for the group to form: the new PCs hear that strong arms are needed in Winterhaven and head out there to check it out.  Hekubus interviewed them in Winterhaven and they formed a new elite group.

We pick up a day after the old PCs left for the Cairngorms.  They hear that Cadon the Gentle had his farm raided recently; they go out to see who did this.  (This is one of the quests I listed for them, a minor level 1 one.)

They check out his farmhouse.  It's been burned and looted.  Apothis searches around the outside, while Hekubus and Hrogar search inside.  Apothis finds goblin and kobold tracks on the ground.  (Quest reward!)  Hekubus finds a goblin poking a spear at his ankles.  (5 damage!)

The battle is joined; 3 goblin warriors, a blackblade, and a sharpshooter leap out of their hiding places.  They are pretty easily put down, and the final warrior begs for mercy.  He says he'll repent and lead a good life; of course he's lying.

They get some information out of him: he's part of the Guttersnipe tribe that was once led by a big bad goblin named Irontooth; once Irontooth left to serve Kalarel, the Guttersnipe tribe fell into chaos and were easy pickings for the White Fang kobold tribe.  He was one of the few who fled, and they set up a camp nearby.  They were picking over the scraps after the kobolds sacked the farm.

The PCs asked about the White Fangs: there's several hundred of them, they live in the Cairngorms, and they are led by a dragon named Tyranthraxus.  They decide to leave them for now and get the goblin to take them to his lair.  How many goblins are there?

"About 20."

I use the poster map that came with KotS - the Irontooth encounter - and drop down some minions.  The PCs make a stealth check and they get their goblin to try and bring some of the guards to them.  He starts creeping away, so he gets blasted.

The other minions run into the cave.  Hekubus runs after them.

Inside the cave, minions and a warrior swarm Hekubus.  From deep in the cave a goblin hexer blasts him hard and blinds him.  Hekubus is wavering.

More goblins come out from the other side and they're blasted by Apothis and Lendil.

Hekubus goes down, and Hrogar rushes in to help him out.  Apothis and Lendil enter the waterfall and get a clouding hex dropped on them.

The fight is tense - Lendil falls a couple of times, Hekubus flirts with 0 hp, but the PCs are able to pull through it with a timely daily from Hrogar the dwarven shaman.  A few goblins flee, but on their own they'll die.

I roll randomly for a treasure packet of the encounter's level (5) and come up with a cloaked falchion.  Hekubus takes it.

So they head back in town and celebrate their victory.  While drinking, one villager gets drunk enough to spill a secret: Nolor the Cooper was seen heading into Watcher's Hill (an old ruined fort built on a hill nearby Winterhave).  Strange, because it's haunted.  But some of the bandits met with him, including Nolor's brother.

In the morning the PCs question Nolor.  He spills his guts under threat of violence: his brother had his farm raised, times are tough, there's a recession on, so he joined up with the bandits.  Nolor helps them out by telling them when a caravan is leaving and what it's carrying.  (Quest reward!)

The PCs ask around, and it turns out Bairwin Wildarson is leaving for Fallcrest in the next couple of days.  The PCs decide to leave with him, keeping an eye on Nolor until they do.

They head down the King's Road to Fallcrest, staying just ahead of Bairwin's wagons.  They spot the bandits at a narrow pass in the road, two crossbowmen up on the bluffs and four other bandits appear in the woods.

A big hairy man steps out on the road: "Give us your goods or die."

"We'll take option three.  You die."

The crossbowmen deal some good damage to Hrogar, dropping him, while Hekubus takes on the berserker leader and a couple of bandits.  Hekubus is hurt after the berserker gets some heavy blows in.

Apothis takes cover behind their wagon and helps Hekubus out with some lighting.  Lendil blasts another bandit to ash and takes cover behind a rock.

Crossbow bolts hit nothing but cover.  Hrogar is helped back up and the tide begins to turn.  The berserker dies and the bandits try to flee but have no place to go.  The crossbowmen are able to move from their positions and escape the battle.

(Only one of the crossbowmen will make it back to camp; the other ended up in the Valley of Stone and got blasted by some Gorgons.  The PCs might find his statue later on.)

We called it there.

This session went pretty well considering it was all basically ad-libbed because I forgot to bring my notes!  I had done enough work (the quest to investigate the farm, the nearby goblin camp, Nolor giving information to his brother, a bandit) to just turn the players loose.  Next time we'll run through a few possible random encounters on the road and then we'll turn the PCs loose in Fallcrest.

Some of the PCs have a history with Kelson and the River Rat gang in Fallcrest.  Kelson has a tie to the cult of Orcus in the Cairngorms - his gang is taking corpses from the Tombwood and selling them to Orest Naerumar, who in turn is selling them to the cult.  We'll see how that plays out.

Consequences of this session: The one crossbowman who escaped is going to tell his leaders that the PCs were ready for them.  They are going to have some words with Nolor, and the PCs will probably next encounter him dead on a cross at the ambush point.


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## Daern (May 1, 2009)

Sounds fun!  All that prep on your other thread and you forgot your notes?  Sometimes those are the best sessions.


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## LostSoul (May 14, 2009)

We had our game last night.

We started off on the King's Road with the PCs having just cleared out the bandits.  One of the players mentioned said "and NONE got away!"  Of course everyone knew this wasn't true.

I told them that the bandits might find out that Nolor tipped them off; I went over who Nolor was again (brother of a bandit, was giving his brother information about merchants) and they shrugged off any consequence.  The feeling I got was that they thought Nolor was a douche and whatever happened to him was his own fault.  Cool.

Anyway, with the bandits dead, they don't have a strong direction.  Apothis the Deva Invoker recalls a piece of lore about the people who lived at Fallcrest centuries ago - they bound up great defensive power in their staves.  Apothis was interested in obtaining one of these, so they went along with Bairwin Wilderson to Fallcrest.

[Behind the hood - I let PCs make checks to locate a specific magic item.  Apothis succeeded at his; later on, Lendil the Shamed, Halfling Sorcerer, tried to locate a Chaos Tooth but failed (meaning he needs to gain another level before the can try again).  

Successful Aid checks meant that chaos teeth are the teeth of warped creatures, with too much exposure to the Elemental Chaos.  I have the Chaos Tooth in one of my maps, since the players let me know they wanted to find it.]

They get into Fallcrest and pass over the brigde.  Hekubus the Tielfing Paladin/Warlock of the Raven Queen is from Fallcrest and he wants to head to the Silver Unicorn, the place that would never have him before.  It's empty; the owner tells him it's because all the people are going across the river to the new Nentir Inn.  She says that the guy who built the Inn must have come across his fortune in a duplicitous manner.  [Just dropping some gameworld info out there.]  

Anyways, Hekubus and the gang have a nice evening, avoid Kelson and the River Rats (two of the PCs have a history with him), and head into the Tombwood in the morning.

The Tombwood is a scary place.  Young men go in there as a rite of passage, a test of bravery; some never find their way back out.  The PCs look around for trails and Hrogar the Dwarven Shaman finds one.  That trail soon dies out, however, and before they can try to get their bearings, Wandering Monsters attack!

A pair of zombies bursts out of the ground and from the other side a Deathlock Wight and a Corruption Corpse start shooting at the party.  The Corruption Corpse deals a fair amount of damage, but Apothis blows most of them away with his divine radiance.  What a guy.

Lost in the Tombwood, the very trees possessed of malevolent intent, Apothis calls on a divine favour or his deva heritage or something like that and asks for guidance.  A Hand of Fate appears (and no Wandering Monsters do) and helps guide him through the wood.

[I allow him to use Religion for navigation checks and give him a +5 bonus if he spends one of the questions.  He spends the first one.]

The Hand of Fate leads them to the barrow mound, a large mound half-buried in the earth, built hundreds of years ago to hold the honoured dead.  In they go.

Probing around the entrance, Apothis finds some coin stuffed into a crack in the wall.  They don't think anything of this and use the Hand of Fate to direct them towards the Staff of Defence that Apothis is looking for.

They come to an empty chamber, obviously a tomb.  There's a small depression on the ground (a grave) and some shards of pottery but not much else.  Hrogar digs up the grave and reveals a wight, who attacks.  He drains a healing surge from Hrogar but dies quickly; no XP is rewarded.

Apothis notices a secret door in the back of the room and they take it.

It leads to another secret door, on the other side of which they can hear someone screaming curses in goblin and a man wimpering in pain.  They open the door and head into the room, a torture chamber; one goblin is torturing a human strapped to a stone coffin by spitting curses and hexes at him.  Another goblin watches.

Hekubus takes the lead and strides boldly into the room, saying "The boss wants to know what you've learned."  The goblin hexer doesn't know what he's talking about - they're just torturing the man for fun - but his goblin nature kicks in and he accepts Hekubus as his better.  "Oh, yes, it's coming along great, just great."

Ral, the man on the coffin, sees Hekubus and calls out: "Hekubus you traitor!  Why are you working with these goblins?"

Hekubus considers blasting Ral with an Eldtritch Blast but, before he has the chance, there is a shout from the darkness of the secret door: "Don't trust them!  They are intruders!"

Apothis hears what sounds like three creatures in the dark but no-one has darkvision so they remain hidden.

We roll initiative, the PCs with a surprise round against the goblins.

Hrogar summons his spirit companion and orders it the hall towards the secret door to block off whatever's coming.  The other PCs blast at the hexer and the blackblade, but not enough to kill either of them.

The blackblade waits for the hexer to flank with him, but the hexer (the quintessential goblin) flees towards the door.

Out of the darkness comes a rubbery, tentacled arm that grabs Hrogar and starts choking him.  They have no idea how capable his spirit companion is [nor does the DM!] so the three of them suck up some OAs.  The PCs toss their torch down the dark hall but the chokers just throw it back.

The hexer is able to flee and runs down the hall, out of sight.

The chokers are boxed in and can't do anything to the spirit companion, they get pushed and shoved around so they don't get the chance to choke anyone, and soon enough they are dead.

That's when the PCs hear growls - drakish growls - coming from the hall, and getting closer.  They slam the door shut.

Hekubus lets Ral go and he sprints to the secret door.  "I'm getting out of here!"

Moments later the door comes crashing down, revealing a guard drake and a pair of beady goblin eyes staring at them from around the corner.  Hekubus challenges the drake, but the drake doesn't care - it just wants to guard its masters.  It bites Hekubus hard and he falls.

Apothis calls an Angel to help him fight and it blocks the hallway.  Some goblin cutters are slain by it, but a couple javelins and sword thrusts later send it back to the astral plane.

The hexer, still alive but badly hurt, drops a vexing cloud, providing concealment to the goblins.  They laugh, assured of their eventual victory.

Hekubus gets back up and the PCs move down the hall, the Hexer their main target.  He falls from an orb of acid launched by Lendil and the cloud disappears.

The goblins fight on, but things start to turn against them.  One of them runs while the underboss says, "I'll hold them off."  He does, but he pays a price for it - he is cut down as he is trying to flee.

About that time Ral comes sprinting back from the secret door.  "Run!  Drakes!" he shouts and sprints past them all.  The PCs follow him out of the barrow mound, through a pair of rooms and finally out the main entrance.

The goblins do not follow and the PCs have a chance for a short rest.

They ask Ral if he knows how to get out of the Tombwood.  He thinks it's just a simple matter of walking out.

Hekubus asks Ral what he was up to.  He tells him: "Kelson's got a good thing going - we take the bodies of the dead up to the catacombs in the falls and sell them for a tidy profit.  You want to get in on this action?"

Nope.  They attack him and Ral turns to run.  The Tombwood, mysteriously, seems to open up for him, but he doesn't get far - Lendil blasts him with an orb of acid and he falls, another dead man in the Tombwood.

[We rolled Init checks and the PCs won; that was enough to resolve the conflict.]

I made another wandering monster check and nothing showed up so we called the night there.  The PCs gained enough XP to level up already! but they can't do it until they take an extended rest.

I believe they are planning to head into the barrow mound again.  That could be interesting - there are still a number of goblins there.


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## ilmoin (May 15, 2009)

Sounds fun!  I'm sorry I'm not there anymore.

How's the new party working tactically?  I noticed that they have three ranged combatants and one melee.  Are the paladin and the spirit companion enough to keep enemies off the rest of the party?  Do the combats feel different?


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## LostSoul (May 15, 2009)

I'm still getting used to their new tactics, but the combats do feel different.

The spirit companion really helps out - in the last battle, he jammed up the 10' wide corridors and there wasn't anything the goblins/chokers could do about it!  The Invoker's movement powers really help out.  It seriously messed up the chokers, and gave the zombies some problems.

One thing that seems to be happening is that the Paladin is the only guy on the front ranks, so he gets smacked a lot and his Divine Challenge doesn't matter so much.  It might be better if he swapped out his +2 cloaked falchion for a shield, maxing out AC, though the sword is pretty awesome.

I think the best monster mix vs. this party would be something like:

2 skirmishers
1 lurker
1 soldier/brute (can be swapped out for another artillery if terrain is good)
1 artillery/controller


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## ilmoin (May 15, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> One thing that seems to be happening is that the Paladin is the only guy on the front ranks, so he gets smacked a lot and his Divine Challenge doesn't matter so much.  It might be better if he swapped out his +2 cloaked falchion for a shield, maxing out AC, though the sword is pretty awesome.




It's a disadvantage if the attackers are ganging up on Heckubus, but maybe not if they are trying to get past him and beat up on the other characters.  Even if he had Melee Training, he wouldn't be able to prevent monsters getting past him easily.  Try it and see what happens.

I like the mix of monsters--it is especially good if you can use the soldier to tie up the Paladin and beat up on everyone else.

What else is working well?


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## LostSoul (May 16, 2009)

I'm really liking the player-driven stuff.  Last game was about Apothis looking for a Staff of Defense; I like that a lot more than "GM dispenses plot hook and we grab it".

The secret door in the barrow mound also worked well.  I put it in there to reward players who took the time to search (each search calls for a wandering monster check) - I'm not using Passive Perception for stuff like this.  

Using the secret door enabled the PCs to head around behind the goblin's defenses; if they had just wandered into one of the main areas they would have ended up fighting the chokers, the hexer & blackblade, the underboss and his guys, and another group of goblins with some drakes.  3 encounters in all!

It seems to me to be a lot more dynamic than the modules we ran.  More player choices with meaningful consequences = good stuff.

I realized during the game that the encounter with the wight in the burial chamber should have been a curse instead.  That would have been cooler.  I have examples of other curses in my thread in Plots & Places; here's the thread.


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## LostSoul (May 28, 2009)

Last night's game.  Started off okay, but over time I got frustrated; I was in a bad mood, I guess.  We all have our off days.

The PCs were outside the entrance of the burial mound after retreating from the goblins within.  They just killed Ral, one of the River Rats (a gang run by Kelson out of his tavern), who was captured in the Tombwood while graverobbing - digging up corpses to sell.  They decided that they'd rest up in town and take it easy.  The Tombwood attempted to block their path, but Hrogar's spirit companion sniffed out a trail.

DM's Notes: I'm treating the Tombwood as a "creature" in itself, with malign intent.  It's pretty handy for forcing choices.

The Tombwood also hates the goblins, but I missed a chance to use this to cool effect later on in the game.  Just bad DMing on my part.​
The PCs head back to the Silver Unicorn Inn and rest up for the day, gaining a level.  Hekubus decides to send an anonymous letter via stupid, illiterate halfling messenger boy to Kelson during the day; I forget exactly what it said, but it was something about "We killed Ral, now stay out of the Tombwood or we'll come for you too".

That night, Apothis wakes up hearing some commotion outside his room.  A bunch of thugs are pressuring the halfing innkeeper into telling them where Hekubus is!

DM's notes: I had Kelson make a Streetwise check to see if he could figure out where the note came from and by whom.  It was against Hekubus' passive Streetwise score.  He won; I told the players that Kelson smacked the messenger around a bit and he got a telling description.  If Hekubus made a Streetwise check to hide his location, that would have been the DC.

Hekubus knows the River Rats, having grown up in Fallcrest.​
The bad guys are: Grug the half-orc bartender, wielding a torch and a flask of strong liquor; Fargarson Vilebrew, the cook, a dwarf exiled from Hammerfall for making a bad batch of ale, wielding a filthy cleaver and a pot of stew; a human bandit, an elf archer, and a halfling slinger.

Grug goes first and he tells Apothis: "Tell us where Hekubus is or else."  He readies an action to charge Apothis if he does anything hostile; I know this is not by the rules, but it made sense.

Apothis shouts as a free action which wakes everyone but Lendil, who sleeps the peaceful sleep of the Shamed.  But Apothis opens up a door and shouts again, and Lendil wakes.  Apothis drops a blast of grasping shards which nails the bad guys and slows them down.

Grug charges at this point and punches Apothis.  The other bandits hold off, readying actions against the first guy who comes out of his room; this turns out to be Hrogar's spirit companion, who triggers all their attacks and is not (cannot be) hurt.

Vilebrew dips his ladle into his hot stew and throws it at Lendil, scalding him.

Hekubus wakes, the only guy on the second floor, and challenges Grug, sending an Eldritch Blast at him.

More fighting; here are some highlights:

-Hekubus swings over the railing and crashes into Grug, knocking them both prone in the same square (and Hek takes some falling damage)
-Grug takes a swig of booze and lighting it on fire, breathing a blast of flame on Apothis and Lendil, hurting them badly
-Vilebrew takes a bite of raw meat and makes a mad charge against Hekubus, but he can't seem to hit anything
-The elf archer doing some nice skirmishing from the rear ranks
-The human bandit performing to expectations and doing nothing of value
-Apothis triggers an OA from Grug and the half-orc wraps his meaty hands around the deva's neck; on the next round, Grug chokes Apothis and drops him unconcious

In the end, the PCs were victorious, though it was pretty close.  The elf archer took off and Vilebrew tried to drag Grug out, but he was taken down.

Hekubus convinced the others to let them live, though they stripped them naked and painted humiliating graffiti on them.  A clear message!

DM's notes: I like designing monsters.​
The innkeeper complains about the damage the fight caused.  "Look at all the mess you caused!"  The PCs threaten her, and she keeps her mouth shut from then on.

The PCs take the rest of the night off and head out for the Tombwood in the morning.  The innkeeper is nice and she's obviously spent all night cleaning up the mess; when the PCs leave, she slams the door behind them and says, "Don't come back!"

Too bad for her, the PCs were her only customers.

In the Tombwood, the PCs try to navigate through but their path is blocked and they are exhausted (re: lose a healing surge) hacking their way in the thick wood.

They head back into the barrow mound and engage a pair of goblin sharpshooters and three guard drakes near the entrance.  The guard drakes do some awesome damage and the sharpshooters remain hidden, sniping for most of the fight; one of them breaks to alert the drunken hobgoblin commander.

The PCs clean up the drakes but the goblins get away.  They decide to head back outside the mound to take a breather; before they can, they hear some commotion - more goblins and drakes and their leader.

They decide to try and hide from the goblins but the drakes sniff them out; before they can get their short rest in, they are attacked.

DM's notes: That was an interesting choice; they could have tried running off into the Tombwood but instead they decided to hide.

When the group hides, I have the PC with the lowest modifier roll his Stealth, and everyone else Aids.​
The fight does not go well for the goblins; most of the PCs barely move from the blessed circle of protection that Hekubus creates with a short prayer to the Raven Queen.  

At this point I was getting irritated; I meant to have the Tombwood do something cool, something like randomly swatting characters, both goblin and PC, or pushing them, or doing something when a character was bloodied, but I didn't.  I was frustrated, I guess.  Lame.​
One of the goblins surrenders and tells them what he knows, which isn't much:

-They set up a guard post to watch this exit
-Their hobgoblin leaders are on the lower levels, though you have to pass through a level full of undead

He guides them through the barrow mound.  They search it and they don't find any Staff of Defense +1, which is what brought Apothis here in the first place, but they do find a walled-off tomb.  They know that this is probably the ancient king's burial chamber, and that he's related distantly to the Tigerclaw Barbarians in the north.

They start digging through the wall.  Hrogar guides the dig, because as a dwarf he knows where to dig without bringing the whole place down on top of them.  Hekubus presses the goblins into service, whipping them.  Apothis helps people who are getting tired by rubbing down sore muscles, and Lendil keeps blasting away.

There is one small hiccup; some stones fall after Hrogar gets too tired and chips away at the wrong stone.  This attracts some skeletons, but once they are destroyed (and how easily!) the PCs make it into the tomb.

In the tomb they find the Staff of Defense +1, a relic of the ancient chieftan, and his shield.  Both are of value to the Tigerclaw Barbarians.

This was a skill challenge; 6/3 and any failed roll would lead to an encounter.  They made most of the rolls, only failing at the last one, and that triggered the 4 skeletons + 4 decrepit skeletons who wandered in.

Those skeletons, I though, would have been tough, but no - they were just creamed.  The PCs hit nearly every time and I wasn't rolling too well.

I didn't run this skill challenge well at all.  I should have taken a more pro-active stance with the wall, but instead I said, "Okay, what next?"  It was removed from the fiction and turned into the boring series of rolls some people get.  Oh well.

The relics from the tomb are actually valued by the Tigerclaw Barbarians, and that might come into play if the PCs decide to go there.  No one uses the shield, so they'll probably sell it; if they sell it to the Tigerclaws then they'll get more cash, and if they give it to them they'll gain a friend.  If they sell it on the market the Tigerclaws might get upset with the tombrobbers who desecrated their ancient chieftan's final resting place.​
Next time: I am not sure what the PCs are going to do.  I think they might sell/trade the shield to get some info from the wizard in Fallcrest for the location of a Chaos Tooth.  They might also decide to deal with Kelson.  Or they might just explore the lower levels of the Tombwood Crypts.  Luckily I have all of that written up, so we're good.


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## LostSoul (Jun 4, 2009)

Quick post for now - we played tonight, and things got nasty.

Over email one of the PCs was able to make a check to determine where a Chaos Tooth was, an item sorely sought by Lendil the Shamed, halfling sorcerer.  Level 4 item means it's in a level 4 dungeon.

When the level 2 PCs ended up with two level 4 encounters worth of monsters coming at them... not good.

But we haven't seen the results of the encounter yet; we were kicked out of the place we play due to time.  So in two weeks we will see who wins, who loses, and who gets a ton of XP.


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## LostSoul (Jun 4, 2009)

This is what went down:

As the PCs are digging in the barrow mound, something the goblins say about deeper caves triggers a past-life memory in Apothis:

"He recalls entering a series of caves nearby the falls back when the Nentir Vale was still wild, unclaimed territory.  Winding his way down a long dark stair as far as it would go, he discovered ruins that were ancient even then.  Within these ruins there was a portal to the elemental chaos.

Based on your previous knowledge - chaos teeth are connected to the elemental chaos, and that chaos teeth are found in the mouths of oddly-warped monsters - it's a good bet that something down there probably has a raw chaos tooth in its mouth.  It's just a matter of cutting it out."

That was done via email.  The check was a History check, DC 21 for a 4th level item.  The item is in a 4th-level area.  The players know all of this.​
The PCs in the barrow mound decide to head back into town and rest up before exploring deeper.  Hrogar is getting used to navigating through the evil Tombwood and they make it out without issue.

They decide to spend the night at the Nentir Inn, since they were kicked out of the Silver Unicorn.  It's a nice place and the half-elf innkeeper treats them well.

At one point during the night they get a message from Lady Allende Markelhay, asking if they can meet with her.  They accept the meeting for tomorrow.

The innkeeper (I forget his name) spots the Markelhay's messenger and asks Hekubus about it.  Hekubus tells him to mind his own business, and the half-elf graciously backs off, but gives a warning: "The Markelhays are not to be trusted."

The innkeeper has some plans of his own.​
The next day the PCs do some shopping.  They go to see Orest Naerumar and buy some goods from him.  He asks questions about where they are going and the PCs tell him.  Apothis notices something's up; he's a little too curious.

The PCs try to figure out what his game is, but he's tight-lipped, even when Lendil 1/2 man-handles him.  Orest pulls a dagger on them and tells them to get out of the store.

Orest is working with Kelson.  The PCs rolled a 31 on an Intimidate check; I figured Orest would not talk, so I set the DC at 32 (Will + 10).  Almost made it.​
The leave and head into Moonstone Keep.  They see the Lord and Lady and an emissary from the Knights of Nerath.

Allende takes them into a private chamber so they can talk.  She just wonders if they've had any contact with Malchior - he sent her a message regarding an old family tomb being broken into and she wanted to know if Malchior had discovered anything more.  The PCs hadn't heard from Malchior or the rest of the old PCs either, but they all assume they are doing fine.

The PCs ask some questions about the "gang problem" that Fallcrest is having and Allende starts lying.  Apothis picks up on this and she finally says, "It's a family issue; please just leave it alone."  Which they do.

When the PCs are leaving they spot a guy trying to look _too_ inconspicuous.  They head in his direction and he starts walking away; he doesn't get far when Apothis launches some _grasping shards_ in his direction.

This intimidate check goes off with no problem and he says that he's been watching the PCs for Kelson.  Kelson has holed up in his tavern while Grug and Vilebrew heal up.  The PCs also learn that Kelson has something on Markelhay (that's the rumour); whatever it is, it's locked up in his safe.

The PCs feed him some misinformation - telling him they are going to leave town soon - before they head into the catacombs beneath Fallcrest.

The caverns are pretty big and full of junk from the villagers who sneak in here when they don't want to be seen.  After some time they come to a large, windy room; the wind is strong, but Hekubus is carrying an everburning torch and it doesn't go out.  Which is what the 3 chokers in the room were waiting for.

Hrogar spots the chokers and some loot all jammed into crevices in the walls.  The chokers slip out to attack at this point.  A quick fight, the chokers are killed.

The PCs gather the loot; Apothis looks for more loot and finds a set of tracks that he has trouble identifying.  Hrogar recognizes some as gnome and elf, and Lendil realizes the other ones are dark creeper tracks.

They follow the tracks to a small room where a pair of elves and gnomes are telling each other stories; behind a curtain, in the dark, the dark creepers are praying to the Raven Queen.

Hekubus joins in the prayers and steps into the room.  They parley.  The PCs learn that the dark creepers are here to root out any death cult (ie: Orcus) activity.  They also have been stealing from merchants (ie: they are bandits) in order to fund their activities.

These are bandits from Raven Roost.​
The PCs aks them about the level; they don't know too much, just that there are some goblins to the north guarding stairs going down, and a long, long stair that leads to a creepy portal.  "Nothing ever comes up that way, so we haven't checked it out."

The PCs thank them and head down the stair in search of the chaos tooth.

At the bottom of the stair they come to a small chamber.  There is one exit: an archway carved into the likeness of a demon's mouth.  In his mouth is a magical curtain of absolute darkness, and runes are carved all around it.

A magic mouth booms out: "Welcome to the Doom of Sarnath!"

History checks are made; Sarnath is the name of an ancient city that was old when the teiflings were still human.  The runes around the archway are identified as a magic circle, keeping everything _out_; going through here is a one-way trip.

The PCs step through.

They enter a dark hallway.  Across from the stair room is a door; heading north a bit, they see a 4-way intersection, marked with the gore of a recent battle (fur, limbs, webs).  To the north, nothing interesting; to the east, a door and webs blocking the hall; to the west, a door with an ettercap head on a pike.

The PCs head to the first door they spotted, across from the stair room.

It's a cross-shaped room covered with about 5 feet of water.  A strange, ancient stone carving - a face with one large eye - stares out at them from the other end of the room.  There's a skylight in the ceiling letting in some light, and two rows of pillars, very close together, that run down the length of the room.

Apothis spots two small somethings swimming in the water and a gelatinous cube.  Hekubus steps into the water; the ripples he causes wake the cube, and we roll initiative.

The cube swallows Hekubus and Hrogar, the swimmers reveal themselves to be strange tadpoles that shimmer in and out of reality, and the eye in the strange stone face magically compels creatures to move forward.  In the end the PCs win, hacking, slashing, and chaos bolting their way to victory.

I didn't run the cube very well, and I forgot to have the eye exert its pull.  Oh well.  Still a fun fight.  The PCs had no idea what the tadpoles were.  I also should have given Lendil some kind of "chaos" effect, though I don't know the Sorcerer well enough to know what that is.​
After the battle Hekubus and Hrogar both feel something swimming around inside them.  Little tadpoles.  It doesn't seem to be a big issue right now, so they ignore it and move on.

[ident]Chaos Phage; from fighting in the water, not the tadpoles.  Level 4.[/indent]

The PCs check out the skylights and find that the light just comes from nowhere, very strange.  They also discover a corridor up there, so they follow it around.

It leads south, then west, then bends north again.  They see a set of stairs going down.  Dim light is coming up from those stairs and they can hear noises - screams of agony, wild barking laughter, shouts of ecstacy, etc.

Lendil pokes his head around the corner to see what's up:

The stairs descend to a balcony overlooking a torture room; tied to a rack is a young gnoll being tortured by a larger gnoll and a pair of orcs.  Up on the balcony level a gnoll huntmaster is laughing crazily, and a human mage is foaming at the mouth.

The gnoll spots Lendil and we roll init.

The gnoll huntmaster hits Lendil with an arrow and they know it's going to be a hard fight.

The PCs focus on the mage; he gets one attack off (a nice area burst) before he is (mercifully) killed.

The gnoll claw fighter below tries to climb up but doesn't have much luck; the orcs try throwing their axes but can't hit anything.  One of them moves towards a door.

The gnoll huntmaster, no allies on the balcony level, tries to retreat but he's held back by some _grasping shards_; Apothis then summons his angel of fire to block his exit.

The orc opens up another door and yells out: "Fresh meat!"  (Uh oh...)

The other orc throws his axe and kneels down; the orc who opened the door runs across the room, leaps onto the back of his friend, and jumps onto the balcony level.

The claw fighter below is finally able to make it up to the balcony level.

Hekubus (just finished killing the huntmaster) charges at the orc with a flying tackle, knocking them both down onto the ground.

Basic attack vs Fort, dealing 1d6+modifier damage and falling damage; Hekubus takes 1/2 the falling damage.​
The orcs get up and hack at Hekubus; one of them nails him with a crit, dropping the Paladin right there.

Ranged fire from Apothis and Lendil takes out one of the orcs and damages the claw fighter on the balcony.

About that time another gnoll huntmaster and claw fighter enter the lower room, and the PCs can hear some hyenas in the other room.  They'll be there soon!

Ignoring Hekubus, the claw fighter joins his buddy on the balcony level.  The huntmaster keeps sending arrows into Hrogar.

Hrogar is able to get Hekubus back on his feet again and use his spirit companion to block the hyenas from attacking Hekubus before falling to the claw fighters.  The hyenas tear into the spirit companion and send it back to wherever it came from.

Apothis feeds Hrogar a potion, Lendil takes out a claw fighter, but Hekubus (trying to extract himself) is taken down by the remaining orc.

And we called the game in the middle of the battle.  Things look grim, especially for Hekubus.  We'll see who survives!


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## ilmoin (Jun 5, 2009)

Sounds fun!  I'm glad to hear that you managed to tie Malchior's message in.  It'll be nice when they start turning back in that direction in a few levels.  I think the Kelson plot will lead them back that way as well.

As for the fight, it looks like they are in a bit of tough spot.  Have you been finding a four person party a bit more fragile?  I hope they manage to pull things out!


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## LostSoul (Jun 6, 2009)

Hekubus kept asking if there was a message for them in the game before this one, and I knew that there was but I couldn't remember what it was or who sent it at the time.  I made a note to remind myself to have Allende send them a message.

Kelson is connected to the Orcus cult.  Through Orest Naerumar; he's the one in direct contact with them (though he doesn't really know - or want to know - who they are or what they are doing).

The fight is going to be hard to pull off.  They might be able to retreat without any losses.  Then again, maybe not.  They might all get killed.  The gnolls, being gnolls, will chase after them (which could work out in the party's favour).


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## Derulbaskul (Jun 7, 2009)

Thanks for posting all of this. Great thread!


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## LostSoul (Jun 19, 2009)

We played on Wednesday.

First up: the fight with the gnolls.  The situation: Hekubus is unconcious on the floor, 20' below the other PCs.  Down there with him are 4 hungry hyenas (tearing the flesh off a gnoll tied to a rack in the middle of the room) and a gnoll huntmaster.  Up on the balcony level, the rest of the PCs are duking it out with a gnoll claw fighter and an orc.  Lendil is the only one out of melee.

The huntmaster was up first, shooting at Hrogar, and what did I roll?  A 20.  A bad omen!  Hrogar would have gone down but there was only one gnoll ally next to him.  Lucky dwarf.

Instead of drinking a potion, Apothis stepped back and blasted the orc and the gnoll clawfighter in his face.

I think Hrogar attacked the clawfighter, hurting him.

The orc dropped Hrogar in return.

The clawfighter charged at Lendil and clawed him good, but I rolled snake-eyes for damage.  Lendil survived to blast the claw fighter in the face, and that was enough to kill him.

The huntmaster missed Apothis with his arrow, so Apothis fed a potion to Hrogar.  The dwarf threw a rope over the ledge to Hekubus, once Hekubus was back up, he tried to climb the rope but failed.  Apothis yanked him over the edge.

The orc tried to charge Lendil but was struck down by an OA from Hrogar's spirit dog.

With all the PCs up on the balcony, no bad guys left there, the PCs decided to retreat back to the water shrine room.  They barred the doors and waited for the gnolls to come; they heard some demonic voices and the angry laughing of hyenas but the gnolls did not go through.  (It would have been certain death for them.)

The PCs took the time to cast Hand of Fate, getting lucky with the wandering monster rolls.  The Hand of Fate lead them to the safest way out of the dungeon, through a secret door into a large cavern.  They could hear water falling somewhere close by, and they could see a pool that was draining out to somewhere even deeper.

There Apothis spotted a choker.  Hekubus tried to parlay with it.  It held out its rubbery arm and ask for "shinies".  Hekubus gave it 1 gp, then a bunch of copper, and it got pissed off at the meager amount and slinked off into the darkness.

As they crept through the dark chamber, Apothis heard some steps on what sounded like a wooden bridge above them.  He blasted whatever it was with lightning, lighting up the room in a flash.  Two dark creepers were on a bridge 30' above the PCs and three chokers were closing in on them.  At the far end of the room was a waterfall.

And Apothis spotted a big, vague shape lurking in a nearby cave.

Lendil blasted the dark creepers, knocking one of them off the bridge; it barely held on at the last second (otherwise 3d10 damage + an extra 1d8 for being pushed onto a stalagmite).  Hrogar summoned his spirit hound and it bit the fingers of the dark creeper, causing the shadow creature to fall to its death.

They fight with the chokers while the dark creeper makes a fighting retreat.  One choker gets his rubbery hands around Lendil's neck and plans to throw him into the whirlpool, but he's pushed away before he can try.  Apothis goes down (totally out of Healing Surges and HP) but is brought back up to 1 HP as the chokers are being killed off.

The PCs make it to the waterfall, leaving one choker and the dark creeper behind.  As they tie their ropes to escape, they see a large black dragon, its mouth a twisted mass of chaos-warped teeth.  Ah, there's the chaos tooth.  It'll have to wait, though.  The PCs climb up the waterfall and back into Fallcrest.

They rest in Fallcrest, levelling up.  In the morning, Bairwin Wildarson says that he's leaving and he'd like the PCs to come with him.  He'll pay them 5 gp each!

"We're staying until tomorrow," Hekubus responds.  "We'll either leave with you then or we'll be dead."

The PCs head back down the waterfall, ready for round 2 with the chaos-tooth dragon.  They crack a sunrod and light up the cavern.  They spot the surviving choker hiding in a crack in the wall, the dark creeper up on a ledge, and the dragon in the cave.

Apothis thinks there's something strange about that dragon, and there is.  It's an illusion.  He can see through it and he warns the rest of his companions (who are busy killing the choker) about it.  The dark creeper hides and tries to kill Hrogar's spirit companion but fails.

Apothis goes to grab the sunrod from the middle of the room, near the lip of the pool, and the dragon explodes from it and bites him!  Oh noes!  The fight is on.

The PCs kill the choker and turn their attention on the dragon, ignoring the dark creeper for now.  Apothis slows it and it starts to lose its place in the water, slipping down the whirlpool.  It gets divine challenged and attacked a bunch of times and is pretty hurt - so it crawls out on dry land and creates a cloud of darkness around itself.

The PCs succeed in pushing it out of the darkness enough to get a clear shot once or twice at it, but it heads back in.  The dark creeper, meanwhile, keeps throwing daggers at Apothis (and hitting).  Hekubus engages it inside the cloud but it proves to be a hard fight; every time he misses the dragon it whips him and pushes him with its tail.

The PCs decide to focus on the dark creeper while the dragon is in the cloud (Hekubus harassing it with javelins).  The dark creeper tries to sneak down from the ledge it's on but falls.  It sneaks around using its Dark Step and stabs Apothis, who goes down.

Hekubus doesn't engage the dragon on one turn so it steps out of the cloud and breathes acid on Apothis, Hrogar, and the Dark Creeper.  Apothis is burnt to a crisp.  Dead-dead.

Hekubus gets into melee with the dragon and hits it, drawing blood; it uses its Bloodied Breath on Hrogar and Hekubus, dropping Hekubus.  Meanwhile the Dark Creeper stabs Lendil a few times.  Lendil steps back and blows the creeper away.

Hekubus grabs Hrogar's limp body and runs to the waterfall where he washes the acid off his body.  The dragon recharges its breath weapon and catches all the PCs, and they fall.

He still had 1 AP left, which he was going to use on any PC who survived that last breath weapon!

That was that, a TPK.  The line between TPK and "we're okay" is finer than I thought!  Hekubus never did make his final death saves, so he might escape, though Lendil's player is moving away so he's dragon meat.  Hrogar and Apothis were both down to -bloodied, so they're gone.

We are making up new PCs (unless Hekubus wants to chance the death save rolls); I'm not sure what the hook is yet, they may be a few River Rats who want to branch out on their own.

I think that fight was tough but fair, 4 level-3 PCs at top form against the lvl 4 solo, dark creeper, and choker (level 6? encounter).  They made their choice to face it; they knew what they were facing but didn't make any plans for it (though I don't know what kind of plans they could have made; they did have enough cash to buy some potions of resistance).


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## Daern (Jun 28, 2009)

wow, another tpk!  Brutal.  But the neat thing about the campaign you have set up is that the new heroes will be able to follow up on some of this stuff, or at least the players will be aware of it even if they go a different direction.  Good stuff.  Let the dice fall as they may.


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## two_fishes (Jun 29, 2009)

Hekubus lived! Dave rolled the death saves and Hek & Lendil both got 20s! Lendil's player is leaving the game, so he's gone, but Hekubus is still in the action.

I've given Hekubus a facelift using the playtest hybrid paladin & warlock classes. He's got 3 fewer hitpoints, no lay on hands, but he gained warlock's curse (doing extra damage) and a swapped in a couple of warlock powers (eldritch blast and witchfire). He has as many ranged attacks now as he does melee. Actually, he has more; his daily paladin power is radiant delerium. So I grabbed the warlock 3rd level encounter power that lets him teleport, rather than sacred circle, to make him more mobile.

The Hekubus keeps checking for messages because he's hoping to hear from Armok!


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## MortalPlague (Jul 1, 2009)

I read this thread over the last couple of days, and my hat is off to you, sir.  You are an excellent DM, and you've got an excellent group of players.  You have given me a number of ideas that I plan to use in my games.


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## LostSoul (Jul 2, 2009)

Thanks!  We try.

We played again tonight; nearly had another TPK!  3 3rd-level guys went into Kobold Hall and were nearly killed.

I will write more about it later on.


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## LostSoul (Jul 2, 2009)

It was Canada Day so we played a little longer than normal - about 5 hours or so.  Lendil's player moved away so we are down to three!  Next time we'll get some new blood in.

We had two new PCs - a half-elf Bard named Shamon Moonwalker and a human Warden named Umal.  We threw around a few ideas about how they would join up with the group while we waited for two_fishes to show up; once he got there, we jumped right into the role-playing.

I had Bairwin Wildarson approach Hekubus.  He had asked them to escort his carvan back to Winterhaven the previous day, but was told to wait.  Now only Hekubus had returned.  He asked Hekubus if he'd like to accompany the bard and the mysterious guy in the corner of bar with them to Winterhaven, as he had hired them on as muscle.

I ad-libbed that on the spot, and made sure to tell the players that they could overrule it, but they seemed okay with it once I told them about Kobold Hall.​
Hekubus must have wanted revenge on draconic creatures and the Umal the Warden was hunting down the same, so they decided to clear out Kobold Hall for the rewards promised (a bounty on kobold ears and the cured dragonscale lost somewhere within).  The PCs bid Bairwin farewell and went into the ruins of an ancient castle now known only as Kobold Hall.

We ran through the first encounter and it was a breeze for them.  3rd-level PCs, even 3 of them, made short work of the encounter.  One slinger escaped to warn his companions in the next room; the PCs debated if they should take 5 to catch their breath or not.  In the end they waited.

They moved onto the trap room and Umal got nailed with a couple darts.  Shamon spotted the kobolds lurking around the ancient coffins after lighting up the room with a torch.  Once a target presented itself, Hekubus chopped his head off his shoulders with a single blow.

Hekubus declared that he would cut the kobold's head off with a "stunt" before he made the roll; it turned out to be a crit and did enough damage to kill him anyways.​
Another cakewalk for the PCs.  Umal triggered three dart traps and lost a few healing surges, but nothing major.  The slinger who fled into this room fled into the next along with a bloodied skirmisher.

They moved into the skull-skull room and started off well.  The slinger who kept running killed himself out of shame after Shamon spoke a word of power (killed him with that one Bard at-will power, I forget the name).  The skull-skull bomb came after Hekubus but he dodged it easily.

Once again, Hekubus declared he would dodge it before the roll came and he predicted the outcome.​
Umal opened the doors and was at once set upon by the two guard drakes who tore into him, dealing 27 points of damage.  I think Hekubus got hit twice by the skull-skull and was pushed into the pit.  (We forgot about the "catch yourself" saving throw.)  But Shamon did some fancy dance moves and brought Umal back to life.

Umal went down once again after getting flanked by a skirmisher, Shamon was thrown into the pit by the skull-skull, and when Umal got back up he got knocked down at its edge (when we remembered the saving throw).  Then the PCs turned things around and started dishing out the damage to the bunched-up bad guys and soon won the day.

Two kobold minions fled into the next room; the PCs decided to take a short rest, slamming the doors shut.

After a few minutes those same minions came back into the room to parlay.  They said that the PCs could leave with their lives if they would pay tribute or something.  Shamon easily fooled the kobolds into thinking he was going to go along with this plan, giving them a statue of tiamat they had picked up and promising to give them some gold.

The kobold minions led them into the next room (the one with the boulder) and the wyrmpriest started questioning them.  Once he came into sight Umal charged him in a surprise round.  (Shamon had done such a good job of making them listen to him that they were unprepared for Umal's attack.)

Umal missed the wyrmpriest and the PCs rolled crap for initiative.  Umal got blasted by the wyrmpriest who shifted back to the dragonshields for safety; the dragonshields moved down the stairs and readied attacks.

The boulder came rolling out but didn't hit anyone.

Umal moved into the dragonshields, hoping to bull rush them so he'd be past the boulder; this triggered their shifty movement powers and they stepped back.  He was forced to spend an AP to move out of the boulder's path, and then the dragonshield's readied actions triggered and they nailed him.

Umal was bloodied at this point.

Hekubus and Shamon were dealing with the slingers in the middle of the room, attacking them from range, when they launched their glue pots.  Shamon was immobilized, I think, and the boulder was coming.  Hekubus leapt up onto the top of the middle area and started smacking the slingers around, pushing the ladder one was standing on.  It fell and he broke his neck.

Umal took some more punishment and dropped.  The boulder rolled over Shamon.  Shamon brought Umal back to life, but once again the kobolds dropped him.  Things were not looking good.  

Did I mention Umal was out of Healing Surges at this point?  Yeah, he was.

Hekubus tried to leap across from the middle of the room to the ledge the wyrmpriest was on - his fingers grabbed the ledge - but not enough and he fell.  A few blasts from the wyrmpriest, an attack from a shifty dragonshield, and he was down as well.

Shamon moonwalked around the room and brought the other PCs back up (Umal with 1 hp now).  They made a mad dash for the exit and the DM's hot dice failed him, just making it.

Here is where things got tense.

The wyrmpriest shouted out, "Wake the master!"  The PCs knew they were going to be chased.

We ran a quick skill challenge.  I described the area and the PCs decided they were going to try and find a place to hide.  They spotted a rotted-out log which they all climbed into.  They felt a chill in the air, their hearts started pounding in their chest, and Hekubus recognized this as the presence of a dragon.

The kobolds started scouring the area; the dragon was sniffing round.  The spiretop drake landed on the log as Shamon was quietly singing a ritual to make them run as fast as horses; he played the tune to mimic a bird and the drake scurried off into the forest to find it.

Then they ran.  Hekubus called his boar (in the woods rooting out truffles) and rode it.  Shamon and Umal ran.  It was only about 15 miles to Fallcrest; they could make it in about two hours.

The dragon spotted them on the road and the chase was on.

The dragon was gaining on them, but they had enough distance if they could keep up the pace.  Hekubus pushed his boar on.  Shamon was panting with exertion, but he was going to make it.

Umal, battered by his wounds, couldn't keep up the pace and the dragon closed in on him.

Now that I think about it, that was only 1 failure in the skill challenge - Umal's Endurance failure.  The way I proposed it was that they all had to make Endurance checks, and whoever failed would be caught by the dragon.  I guess that makes it a "partial success" kind of skill challenge.  I probably should have given them more chances to do something.  Oh well.  I was in the flow.​
Hekubus and Shamon saw that Umal was going to be overtaken and they turned around.  Umal had one last chance to catch his breath and outpace the dragon but it closed in on them.

Hekubus was overcome by the awesome presence of the dragon (the second he was facing in as many days) and was shaken.  He decided to flee after the dragon swatted down Umal.

Facing the dragon alone, Shamon feigned death after suffering a vicious claw attack.  The dragon searched his body for gems; finding none, he searched Umal's body and, taking a magic sword, flew after Hekubus in a rage, leaving the others for dead.

Hekubus made it to Fallcrest before the dragon could close in.

Hekubus went back to the inn to sulk, alone again.  An hour later Shamon and Umal arrived and they vowed revenge.

They bought some potions, healed up, and struck back out for Kobold Hall the next day.  They met the kobolds and challenged their leader; the dragon obliged.

This time the fight went much better for the PCs; the kobolds, watching the PCs in action, decided that they had new masters now and cut their ears off in tribute.  This endeared them to Hekubus and he ordered them to take care of Kobold Hall in his name.  The PCs gathered the loot, cashed in on the gp and xp bounty, and rested.

That's where we left it.

I wasn't sure if I should have had the dragon go after them, but I asked myself: what would they do?  It made sense; they could go after the wounded PCs now or wait for them to come back the next day, rested and ready for action.  I'm trying not to care about what happens to the PCs, just playing the monsters in a logical way.

A skill challenge seemed like a fair way to resolve getting away from the dragon, considering that I already felt like I was being a hard-ass by having him chase them down.  I didn't give them much breathing room, and it was a tense challenge, but in retrospect I should have called for at least two more rolls from Umal after the dragon caught up to him - though what would have made sense, I have no idea.

I did give them the option of sacrificing the boar, but Hekubus was against the idea.

I felt like I went too easy on Umal after they went down.  I had them roll a d20 to see who the dragon would eat, if anyone, lower roll = dragon food; Umal lost that roll, so he made a saving throw to see if it would eat him.  He made the save so the dragon went after Hekubus.

Maybe that makes up for the mistake with the skill challenge!  Next time we'll have to be a bit tighter about things.

Hekubus did gain a level, and the kobolds left in Kobold Hall will start up some kind of crazy temple to the Raven Queen, and that might be interesting.  They could make some good allies against the kobolds in the Cairngorms if things come to that.


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## Daern (Jul 2, 2009)

Sounds like an interesting session, and a bloody campaign!  I know how it is to feel like your pushing to hard as a DM, and then pull back too much, especially when winging it, but its overall a good thing to let them live to fight another day.  The dragon chase sounds like it must have been some great gaming!  Chased back to town by a dragon.  Classic.  
As far as the skill challenge goes, I've been thinking that an easy pit to fall into in the moment for both players and DMs is to give too much weight to a single die roll, especially when you are winging it or if the players don't know about the challenge.  It is tempting to let a single die resolve it, but really the whole point is that it should take 8 or more rolls to draw out the narrative.  This is something I've been grappling with as well.
Overall, kudos, I always lookout for your posts and enjoy your session write ups.  Thanks.


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## LostSoul (Jul 2, 2009)

If I had it to do over again, I would have had the dragon chase them; then the skill challenge, with the correct number of failures; then I would have killed anyone who went down in the fight.


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## Spatula (Jul 3, 2009)

Amazing thread!  Although it's been a bit sad reading the repeated TPKs and dwindling group size.  At least the players get to try out lots of new classes.


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## LostSoul (Jul 16, 2009)

We played again last night.  We had 6 players this time; two new regulars + Malchior's player joined us.  He might play a few more times over the next two months.

The new PCs were Keiva, an infernal warlock, and Aiden, an elven dual-fighting ranger.  Malchior's player made a druid named Sharmok.  Unfortunately I was getting over a migrane so I wasn't in top shape for their first game.

We started off with Hekubus, Umar, and Shamon returning to the Nentir Inn with the white dragon's head.  The innkeeper offered to buy it (for the princely sum of 10 gp!) and mounted it over the fireplace.

This attracted the attention of a group of homeless people armed to the teeth.  One of them had sold her soul to a devil.  Obviously the kinds of people you want to trust your life with.

Hekubus had Shamon send a message to Armok; Shamon rolled poorly for the ritual and only got 6 hours range on the sparrow that arrived.  We described the failure as the PCs turning their back as the sparrow flew out the window, thinking the job well done, missing the hawk that swooped in and killed the sparrow.

After a rest, Hekubus went back down under Fallcrest to get revenge on the black dragon that killed his friends.  This time, however, they bought out all the acid resistance potions in town (1d6, got a 4).

They spotted the dragon and he hissed at them.  Aiden was the first into the fray, and he got tail-slapped after a miss.  The dragon dropped some magical darkness around itself and crept around within.

Hekubus ran up and insulted the dragon, getting the dragon to hiss and shout back.  (Intimidate beat the Will defense.)  They knew where it was and they ganged up on it.

They were nice enough to form up into a perfect little clump for its breath weapon, but it did next to no damage thanks to the acid resistance!  Urgh.  The PCs beat on the monster some more and it was only able to slip out of the middle of the pack using its Frightful Presence.  It tried to fly to a nearby pillar connected by two bridges.

Umar ran to the top of the pillar and tried to push the dragon off it (and onto a stalagmite) but missed.  Aiden ran up behind the dragon and tried the same thing but missed; the dragon tried to tail-slap him into the whirlpool 30 feet below (the whirlpool draining down somewhere dark and dangerous, I'm sure) but missed.

The dragon dropped some more darkness and flew away from the two fighters.  Umar leapt off the stone pillar and tried to drag the dragon down the ground, but couldn't get a hold of the dragon, so he fell.  Then Aiden tried the same thing and failed in the same way, landing on top of Umar.

Backed into a corner the clumsy dragon (terribly, terribly hurt now) had to land, and Hekubus smote him mightly and got his revenge.

Easy fight, especially with the acid resistance.

The PCs cleaned up their minor wounds and searched around for treasure; they found a small pile of gold (410 gp) and ripped a chaos tooth out of the dragon's maw.  They discovered a portal into the Elemental Chaos, leading to a swampy, distorted landscape.  A huge insect the size of a man's fist slammed into an invisible barrier that made up the portal, indicating that it was one-way only.  The PCs wisely decided not to head in there.

They also checked out the portal to the shadowfell in the room; it wasn't closed like they assumed before, but apparently it only opens at certain times.  They didn't care to try and figure out when.

Rested up, they explored through a small crack leading to a tunnel.  This led into a room with a pair of open pits (filled with ancient bones) and a raised area at the far end.  A ladder led up to the raised area; otherwise it was empty.  (I made this room for the PCs to fall back to if they needed it.)

They opened a warped and stuck door and moved on, going down a corridor.  Off the corridor a side-passage led to another door, this one covered in webs.  Umar moved in to investigate and the floor collapsed beneath his feet, revealing a pit filled with thousands of hungry spiders!  Luckily he was quick and lept back.

Aiden had the smart idea of using the ladder to span the gap and they crossed easily.  Then Keiva burned the webs away from the door and they entered.

This room was covered in webs and they spotted some ettercaps prowling around in the shadows.  The fight was on.

Umar moved in, got paralyzed by the ettercap's poison.  One of the ettercaps spun a web to block off the other PCs, but Keiva set this on fire and it burned.

The PCs tangled with the ettercaps, Umar taking some hurt, but things were going their way.  Then two deathjump spiders leapt into the room and put some hurt on the PCs.  Aiden fell, as did Umar.

The webspinner fled to the next room with only a few hit points left as the PCs dealt with the spiders and finished off the ettercap guards.  The deathjump spiders were eating Aiden's face, landing a bunch of lucky hits.

The webspinner chittered to its friend in another room and another deathjump spider and a bloodweb spider swarm came to face the PCs, followed by a fresh ettercap webspinner.

Sharmok and Umar blocked the entrance to the room after the spider brought Aiden down again.  The swarm did its magic and gave Umar and Sharmok a hard time.  Things weren't looking too good.  Shamon moved up to help with some healing but he couldn't keep either one of the men on their feet.  Umar went down hard and started failing death saves.

However, the swarm was taking a lot of damage from all these attacks from Hekubus' Divine Challenge, and the Ettercap was getting pincushioned from Aiden.  Keiva kept plugging away at the swarm for half damage and it was all adding up.

Shamon got lucky and was missed by the ettercap and the swarm multiple times.  Finally, with Umar having failed two death saves, Keiva put down the swarm and Aiden killed the webspinner.  Hekubus fed Umar a potion and kept him from dying.

That was that.  They found some treasure (and missed some), and found a pair of "people" webbed up (and a few more turning into ettercaps, too far gone to save).  We ended the game there, leaving me time to decide what kind of creatures those guys are going to be for next time.

Tough fight, but a little to static; all the combat took place near a doorway.  Oh well.  The dragon fight was cool, even though the dragon was a pushover; the terrain made it interesting.  This one took place in an empty room, and I was stupid because I didn't use the other door in the room (I thought it was closed and spiders don't open doors but it was open - just filled with webs).  I blame the migraine.

Hekubus' player (two_fishes) said I should use more traps, ones that affect both PCs and NPCs.  I think I will, but I won't always give XP for those kinds of traps (they make it easier on the PCs).  That was one of the reasons why I didn't use them before.

I am also getting frustrated with how much real-world time the fights are taking; it leaves little time for exploration.  I don't find them grindy, just taking up too much time.  I have an idea for that, though - some kind of skill challenge to quickly resolve encounters, using the battlemap for the big, exciting ones.  That will require some hacking, and may be very cool.


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## LostSoul (Jul 30, 2009)

We played tonight.  It was a good game, interesting, but a little frustrating near the end.

The game started off with the PCs rescuing a couple of Kenku (Jenku and Sisku?) from the ettercap's lair.  They were slaves who escaped the demonic gnolls deeper in the "sunken city" and had roosted in the wall of a large chasm.  There were 12 of them in total and they invited the PCs back to their roost to share some grubs.  (They are raising a purple worm larvae they found and plan to feast on it once it reaches the limit of their ability to contain it.)

The PCs got a chance to rest before heading back up to the surface.  Jenku asked to go along with them, to see the outside world.  Aiden and Kieva went to pay a tab at another bar, taking Jenku with them, while the rest of the PCs headed to the Nentir Inn... where Kelson and what was left of the River Rats were waiting for them.

Kelson told Hekubus he needed to pay a fine for leaving the River Rats.  Kelson figured his "invisible sword" would do fine.  Hekubus told him he would see him dead before he paid him a cent.  Roll for initiative.

Hekubus took a pounding and the rabble Kelson brought along with him slowed down the PCs a bit.  The now-healed Grug and Fargarson Vilebrew, along with expert crossbowman Otto gave Hekubus a hard time, dropping him.  

(Grug, being the bartender, had a couple booze-related powers: he could toss a keg of ale, dealing damage in an area and "soaking the target in booze".  That gave them fire vulnerability; Grug also could take a swig of some vile brew and light it, breathing a gout of flame.)

Hekubus was brought back up on his feet by a magical word from Shamon and they beat down on Kelson and his lackies, winning the fight.  

Shamon asked Kelson why they should let him live; he told them that Markelhay was in his pocket and he'd come after the PCs if they killed him.  Plus, he had the body of Hrogar and the PCs would never recover it if they killed him.  So they let him go.  But not before Hekubus chopped off Kelson's hand in retribution, telling him he'd cut the other one off if he ever crossed paths with Hekubus again.

Kelson went back to his tavern and sent the PCs a note telling them where Hrogar's body was - sold to Orest Naerumar, the tiefling who's been buying all the corpses his men have been digging up.

Shamon quickly whipped up a disguise, making himself look like an acolyte of Orcus and went to talk to Naerumar.  His disguise worked but Naerumar was suspicious: "Who are you?  I've never seen you before."  Shamon fast-talked him and Naerumar led him into a secret cellar where he kept the bodies before selling them to the death cultists.  

Naerumar asked for double for the corpse of Hrogar, since it was so fresh.  Shamon refused, saying it had been cursed by a Paladin (Hekubus had cast Gentle Repose on it) and told Naerumar that he had screwed up.  So badly, in fact, that he should give him the dwarf for free.  Naerumar bargained him down to 50gp, which Shamon reluctantly paid.

When Shamon didn't buy the other corpses, saying he'd be back for them later, Naerumar became very suspicious.  After Shamon left he closed up shop and went to talk to Kelson.

The PCs knew something was going on but not what.  They did some investigative work: 

Aiden and Kieva went to the Lucky Gnome Taphouse and tried to listen in on things (they had not fought the River Rats), hearing nothing - but they did follow Kelson to Moonstone Keep.  Aiden attempted to climb the outer wall to try to listen in on any conversation Kelson was having, but he failed to climb the smooth, dwarven- and eladrin-built wall.

Umar spoke with the guards near the Wizard's Gate, just beside Orest Naerumar's place; he found out that one of the guards had relatives in Winterhaven and would visit them every month, and he had just left.

Sharok turned into a mangy, flea-bitten dog and kept watch on Orest's place.

Hekubus and Shamon went to speak with the Raven Roost bandits (gnomes, elves, dark ones, worshippers of the Raven Queen) to ask if they had seen any cultist activity.  They had; they spotted a group of them coming down the King's Road from the north, camping in the Moon Hills, and were planning on spying on them to see what they were up to.

Something was going on but the PCs didn't know how it all fit together.  Kieva decided to confront Kelson, posing as an agent of Orcus.  She claimed that things had gone wrong, something about a cursed body, and Kelson was going to take the blame for it.  Beaten down as he was, still clutching a bloody stump, Kelson was no match for her quick wit; he bought her story.

He took her her back to the Lucky Gnome where they could talk in private.  He tried to pin all the blame on Hekubus, hoping to get the cult to fight for him.  Of course this didn't work.  Kieva tried to figure out where Markelhay stood in all this mess; Kelson said that Markelhay was in his pocket and he'd get the Lord Warden to take care of Hekubus for him.  She noticed (through a good Insight check) that he glanced at a painting on the wall when he said this.

The two of them decided they needed to move against Hekubus; Kelson figured they should get Naerumar in on their plan.  Followed by Aiden, they passed by Sharok in dog-form and Umar, none of whom were spotted.  Sharok sent an animal messenger (he may have done this earlier, actually) to Hekubus and Shamon to tell them what was going on and call them to action.

Kieva spoke with Naerumar through his warded door; he was very suspicious, seeing two new death cultists in town raised his suspicions.  Kieva responded that she had come to pick up the rest of the bodies.  This very reasonable response allayed his concerns and he opened the door.

At which point Umar came barrelling into him, knocking him back into his shop.

Kieva moved into the shop, keeping up her disguise, while Aiden and Umar moved in to fight Orest Naerumar.  He told his homonculi guardians to attack the intruders, while Kelson slipped in, running in fear from Hekubus, Shamon, and Sharok outside.

The homonculi (4 stonefist defenders and 1 arbalester) attacked, focusing on Umar, and Kelson got a powerful blow in on him as well.  But by then the rest of the PCs had entered the shop.  Hekubus cowed Kelson into surrender, Naerumar and the homonculi were cast in a heap in the corner of the room, stunned, and soon his stonefist defenders had all been slain.  When Sharok bounded past him to cut off his escape, Naerumar surrendered to the PCs.

The PCs spared his life, locking him up in his cellar, planning to use him when the _real_ death cultists show up.

They also got quite a bit of loot from his shop - 2000 gp, 500 gp in each reagent type, and 2000 gp worth of level 1-4 consumable magic items (scrolls, potions, etc.) and wondrous items.  I let the players choose which ones they want because I don't feel like taking the time to stat it all up!


That was a cool session, lots of neat exploration and stuff.  The frustrating part was that last fight; by rights, a level 6 encounter for 6 PCs (Orest was a lvl 8 elite, Kelson with 1/4 of his HP only worth 100 XP or so) but the PCs just blew right through it.  Naerumar never really had a chance to do anything!

I'm not sure why I was so frustrated; I guess I just wanted the NPCs to do better, which is a bad way to look at things.  Luckily I didn't make any stupid calls or anything like that.  I'm not sure what the issue is, I just don't know why that last fight was such a cakewalk.  I'm struggling with how to make this campaign interesting and challenging when it's not all in a dungeon (when extended rests are hard to come by), still maintain consistency and integrity in the campaign world, and challenge the PCs on a long-term, strategic level.

That is, the PCs should be able to "nova" and blow out a challenging encounter, but I want them to be able to do that only through their own smart choices; being able to "nova" and turn challenging encounters into cakewalks shouldn't be the normal state of things.  But if I throw in 3+ encounters every day, that doesn't make any sense and means their choices don't matter.

I could decide, "Oh, the cultists are coming _that night_," but eh, I had already decided that they weren't going to.  I would just be doing that to make things hard on them, and I don't want to do that; I just want to play the world.  (Designing the world to be hard and challenging on them, of course.)  If I'm just making things challenging on them no matter what, it means they can't make smart choices and reap the benefits of those choices.

I think I might want to house rule that extended rests take a week.  Or maybe just slow down the rate at which healing surges are recovered.  Because even if they are able to "nova" with their dailies, if they are counting healing surges there's still some tension.


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## Spatula (Aug 6, 2009)

I saw a suggestion (I think it was attributed to Jonathen Tweet) that extended rests be tied to milestones instead of day/night cycles, specifically to combat the issue of PCs going "nova" when there's only 1 encounter a day.  Something like, players have to hit a milestone (or two) before they can take an extended rest.


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## LostSoul (Aug 13, 2009)

We played again tonight; 6 PCs again.  We concluded the goings-on in Fallcrest with investigative work.

After some discussion we finally settled on 2 healing surges per night OR a daily power recharge.  We'll see how that works.  So far I'm pretty happy with it; it meant the PCs stayed in Fallcrest for a week to heal up, and already I can see implications in the game world.

So: the game.  After the PCs looted Orest Naerumar's store, they heard a heavy knock on the door.  It's the dwarven guard seargent Murgeddin, veteran of the Bloodspear War.  He wants to know what the hell is going on.

Hekubus answers: "We're preparing for an ancient tiefling celebration.  Please get the hell out of here, this is delicate stuff and I don't want you screwing it up."

I have in my notes: This is a good place for a skill challenge.  So I figure, let's go with it, and see how it turns out.  Hekubus rolls Intimidate, with a bonus for being trained in Bluff, and succeeds.

Murgeddin responds: "That may be so, but I have to check on things.  Where's Orest?  Can I talk to him?"  At which point Shamon steps out of the shop and starts playing a tune, distracting Murgeddin and his detachment.  Shamon spins some lies about watching the store for Orest while he's gone, and they buy it.  (Bluff success.)

But Murgeddin still wants to have a look just to make sure, he doesn't want to let Orest down.  So he heads in.  The other PCs have been furiously cleaning things up - luckily the fight was against constructs, so there's little blood, mostly gears and lumps of clay strewn around, and a few small fires burning.  

Sharmok spots a bloodstain they missed earlier and gets Hekubus to stand on it when Murgeddin steps in. (Perception success.)  Murgeddin looks around sees things are okay, and Hekubus calmly asks him to leave, "Because the ritual has been ruined now."  (Diplomacy with a +2 for being trained in Bluff? success.)  Murgeddin shrugs and leaves.

The PCs interrogate Orest a bit.  He's reasonably talkative (after an Intimidate check), telling the PCs what he knows: the death cultists come soon after the full moon; he's contacted by one of their agents and then they use a secret tunnel that leads from his cellar to out of town to unload the bodies.  There's also some talk about Sgt. Gerdrand, who normally works at the nearby gate, but often leaves for Winterhaven "to visit relatives"; he actually doesn't, he works with the cult.

That taken care of, the PCs turn to Kelson and try to figure out what he's got on Markelhay.  Hekubus, Shamon, Umar, and Kieva head off with him to the Lucky Gnome Taphouse.  Once they get there, Kelson gives a subtle nod to one of his few remaining men; that guy enters Kelson's room, grabs a note, and takes off through a window to see Armos Kelroth.

(The note tells Armos what to do with the evidence.  Armos would love to run Fallcrest, so he'd follow through with it.)

The PCs pick up on Kelson's subtle nod (Insight success); they also spot a couple of seedy guys in the taphouse who seem a little too interested in what's going on; it's more of a professional interest than the curious looks the drunks and whores are giving the PCs.  Shamon decides to keep an eye on them, so he takes the stage and begins to perform.

The other PCs head up to Kelson's room and see the open window but spot no trace of Kelson's man (Perception failure).  Kelson tries to spin some lies but they are easily seen through (Insight success).  Hekubus sits him down and grabs a finger.  "Tell me what you have on Markelhay or else."  Kelson tries to lie his way out of it, making vague threats, and Hekubus cuts off a finger.  A successful Intimidate check means Kelson starts spilling his guts.

He tells the PCs that Markelhay's son killed a young lady of the night in the Lucky Gnome.  Kelson worked with Markelhay to clean up the crime, but he kept the head.  That's what he's got, and he knows that there are rituals that will allow someone to see the last few moments of her life.

The PCs believe that Kelson's man took the head and ran off with it; Kelson isn't saying anything, though the PCs know he's holding something back (Insight success).  But the PCs know there was a safe or something behind a painting, though when they search they can't find it (Perception failure).  Umar takes his axe to the wall and strikes steel; they pry away the boards to reveal a safe.

Umar also detects a trap on the safe.  None of them are skilled in Thievery, so they make Kelson disarm it.  He doesn't have the key - it was sent to Armos - so, one-handed and with 4 fingers, he attempts to pick his own safe.  He succeeds without triggering the trap.

They see the head and decide to take it back to Markelhay.

When they head downstairs they see that Shamon and the two strangers have gone.  Shamon followed them out the door, all the way to the Wizard's Gate and beyond.  Shamon followed them until they left the road and went somewhere in the Moon Hills, at which point he returned.

Hekubus met Markelhay with a group of armed men, including Janos, the emissary from the Knights of Nerath.  Hekubus asks for a moment alone with Markelhay; Janos tells him not to listen to this scum.  Hekubus alludes to the fact that he has the evidence, so Markelhay takes Hekubus into his castle (Diplomacy success).

Alone in the stables, Hekubus opens the safe.  Markelhay knows what it means.  Hekubus asks Markelhay to turn a blind eye to some of the things that have been going on over the past few days; "I've been turning a blind eye to things that have been going on over the past few years!" Markelhay responds.  Then Markelhay takes the safe.

Ding ding!  Quest XP.

The PCs all meet up back in the shop and decide to wait for the cultists to come and ambush them.  Aiden, an elven ranger, can't put up with the smell of the rotting corpses, so he spends the night in a tree just outside the Wizard's Gate.

The night passes uneventfully.  We hadn't yet decided on what to do with Extended Rests, so the PCs didn't get anything back.

The next day Hekubus gets Hrogar raised at the Temple of Erathis.  The dwarf is angry and sullen, and decides that adventuring isn't for him.  Death will do that to you.  He offers to run Orest's shop to work off the debt he owes Hekubus for returning him back to the World.

Jenku the Kenku also visits the PCs.  He's been perched on top of one of the towers of Moonstone Keep, watching things.  He saw Kelson take off towards the west.  (Otto, one of Kelson's lieutenants, tells Hekubus later that Kelson probably went to join the bandits who are camped out on the Gardsbury Downs.  "Sorry about shooting you in the spleen," Otto says.  "I hope everything's good between us."  "Just don't cross me again," Hekubus replies.)  Looking for work, Jenku offers to run the Lucky Gnome for the PCs, bringing in the rest of his flock.  The PCs agree.

(The PCs decided that they wanted to run these businesses after I told them how I was going to resolve it: give the business a level, make a check each fiscal quarter, success = a monetary treasure packet of that level, failure = a loss of 1/2 that.  Orest's store is level 8; I figure the Lucky Gnome is probably level 2, level 3 with illegal activity.)

That night, Sharmok and Aiden are keeping watch in the tree outside the Wizard's Gate.  They spot a tiefling attempting to sneak past the guards at the gate (Perception success vs. Stealth failure; one of the many 1s I rolled tonight), so Sharmok sends a bat to alert the PCs.

As the bat flies into the shop through the chimney, Taeroth Naerumar, Orest's brother and cultist of Orcus, enters the room.  This alerts Hekubus thanks to the Chime of Warding they had placed there.  

Hekubus throws on Orest's cloak and heads upstairs, trying to pass himself off as Orest.  Bluff vs. Insight; Hekubus rolls a 17.  Taeroth has a +11 modifier, and I figure a +5 bonus is about right.  I roll another 1.  Heh.  "Orest, what's going on?  Are you sick?  You sound like you have a cold."  (As a general rule, I give ties to the PCs.  Not always, though.)

Hekubus convinces Taeroth to come downstairs - Taeroth first - at which point he sees his brother with Shamon's knife to his neck.  "Assassins!  Orcus will have your souls!" he screams, and sends a swarm of skeletal snakes at Hekubus.  Fortunatly for Hek they're just illusions.  Unfortunately he doesn't see through it and they bite at his eyeballs.

At this point I say, "Let's not pull out the battlemap or any of that; if you guys hit him 4 times he's dead."

Umar charges at swings at him and misses; since I misread the Tiefling Heretic's power, he teleports past Hekubus into the middle of the shop, upstairs.  (It should activate only on a hit.)  Shamon rushes up the stairs to block the door; Hekubus teleports to the door to block it, and Tieva misses him with an eldtritch blast.

Taeroth blasts Hekubus with Balefire but misses (not like it would hurt him anyways).  He moves closer to the door.  Shamon and Umar miss him, but Hekubus and Tieva hit with ranged attacks.  (At this point I'm using the right teleport power.)

Then Taeroth moves past Shamon and Hekubus, since Hekubus stepped back to avoid an OA.  Shamon hits him, and I think, good, I can teleport now; of course, you can't use immediate actions on your turn, so it doesn't work.  Hekubus hits him with his OA and they tie him up and take him into the cellar next to his brother.

Nice, quick little combat.

Meanwhile, Aiden and Sharok attempt to follow Taeroth's tracks back to his camp.  The Moon Hills aren't "loose dirt", but they aren't "wood or stone", so I use DC 20.  Sharok aids Aiden with his excellent sense of nature, locating plants that have been tread upon.  Since Aiden is trained in Nature I give him a +2 bonus to his Perception roll.  They get a 19.  They follow the tracks for a while, but lose the trail in the scrub of the Moon Hills.

They spend a few hours trying to find the camp and finally do locate it (no roll needed, they had some campfires going), then send a bat to alert the other PCs.

Back at the shop, while Aiden and Sharok are searching for the camp, they do a little bit of interrogation.  Hekubus realizes that Taeroth would rather die than provide any information (Insight success).  The PCs debate about whether or not to kill him; they decide to let him escape and follow him back to his camp.  Taeroth sees through their Bluff but decides to go anyways.

Shamon, being a half-elf with low-light vision, shadows Taeroth and Orest.  Behind him follow Hekubus and Tieva.  This way only Shamon has to make a Stealth check, but he can get no Aid.  He succeeds.  While following the tiefling brothers, the PCs get a bat message from Sharok, so they know they have an ambush ready.

Taeroth and Orest get into the camp.  They've set it up with their backs to a 30' cliff.  They have two guards, a couple campfires going, and there are 8 of them.  There's a large wagon nearby and two mules tethered to a tree.  Aiden is up on the cliff while Sharok is in a nearby tree, completely out of sight.  (Aiden had to make a Stealth check while Sharok did not; this meant that only Aiden could get the benefit of surprise.)

Aiden hears Taeroth and Orest talk to the others and he identifies their leader - shaved head, crimson leather armour, wielding a scythe.  He also spots Sgt. Gerdrand.  Anyways, when the cultists start to put on their armour, he fires two arrows into the nearest one, bloodying him.

The fight is on.  The cultists take cover from Aiden, screaming "Assassins!"  That leaves them open to Sharok.  It takes Hekubus, Umar, and Tieva one round to reach the edge of the battlemat.

The fight is pretty cool, with the PCs spread out, the terrain (hills, a cliff, and a river) being pretty important, and a number of sources of cover.  Since the PCs are all spread out they can't coordinate attacks, though the cultists can, and bring Sharok down for a moment.  The PCs don't have any daily powers left, since we're using that house rule for Extended Rests.

But since they were ambushed and unarmoured, the cultists go down.  The PCs attempt to interrogate the survivors, but they have all been prepared with a ritual: they speak a syllable of the Final Word and have their lives snuffed out.

Aiden relentlessly hunts down Orest, who fled as soon as the combat started.  He made a Perception vs. Stealth check; Umar decided to help him track as well, but something about his Aid Another action I didn't like, so when the Perception vs. Stealth roll tied, I gave it to Orest.  Eventually Aiden was able to run Orest down.  Orest begged for mercy, but Aiden gave him none.  (I asked the player if he wanted to run a combat; he said no, so I said, "I'll roll 1d4 and that's how many healing surges you lose."  It was 4.  I guess he put up a good fight!)

The PCs hang out in town for the rest of the week, recovering from their wounds.  They decide to head to Winterhaven to investigate this cult.  Hekubus, however, plans to stay in Fallcrest; he was originally from Fallcrest, a member of the River Rats (Kelson's crew) and only left when he ran afoul of Kelson.  Now he can make it his home again, renting out a room at the Nentir Inn while overseeing the operation of their two businesses (and the kobolds at Kobold Hall, I guess).

Plus, the player is moving away.

It was a good session.  That fight against the cultists was a lot of fun.  Not sure why; maybe it was because it was tied to a lot of other stuff, some NPCs with names, the PCs were able to set up an ambush, the terrain was good, and the PCs were split up.  I also liked all the maneuvering in town, and all of that had an impact.  It was a very tight game.

I am looking forward to seeing how these level 4, nearly 5 PCs deal with the cult in the Cairngorms.  I made that dungeon level 8 I think, and there are some _really_ bad-ass guys in there.  Plus the undead, animated corpses of the old PCs!  (I screwed up in the cultist fight; I should have made their leader one of the old PCs.  That would have been awesome.)

I think it'll be a really good test of player skill.


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## LostSoul (Aug 13, 2009)

One thing maybe worth noting - I only asked for skill checks when there were two character in conflict with each other.


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## LostSoul (Aug 27, 2009)

We played again last night.  It was the last session for Armok/Hekubus' player, so we started off with a discussion of what the PCs were going to do.  Previously they discussed going to Winterhaven to see what was up with the cult there; I put an undead version of Armok in the Keep on the Shadowfell for Hekubus to confront.

Shamon's player had expressed an interest in going to Harken Forest, so I brought that up as a possible course of action.  I wasn't sure if I should tell them that I put Armok in the game up near Winterhaven.  I didn't want to railroad them.  I did anyway though, and the players decided to head off that way.

I rolled some random encounters for the trip to Winterhaven as prep for the game.  The first was with a merchant caravan making its rounds through the borderlands; 60 guards and a number of wagons.  I didn't set up this scene very well, so there was little roleplay.  The PCs bought a few items.  The merchants warned them about bandits in the Gardsbury Downs.

That evening they came across two Tigerclaw Barbarians peddlers who were selling furs, travelling down south to Winterhaven.  (I figured they were clan outsiders, peddling goods, not really Tigerclaw but part of their society.  This never really came up though.  Were they worshippers of Tiamat?  Maybe.)  They had been ambushed by bandits and robbed, a number of their party killed.

They asked to spend the night with the PCs and shared a story.  The Tigerclaw Barbarians are planning to go to war in the spring.  One of the chieftans seems to be pushing for it all of a sudden - cult activity?  (No.  I haven't decided what's driving them yet, but it's not Orcus.)  The PCs showed the TC Barbs an ancient shield they found in a burial chamber in Fallcrest; the peddlers tried to get the PCs to give it to them so they could take it back and be treated like heroes for returning the ancient relic.  The PCs didn't give it to them.  In the morning the TCs left.

We'll see if the PCs do anything with the Barbarians.

The next day Aiden, the elf Ranger, spotted a bandit trailing them.  He snuck up on him and tried to Intimidate the man into surrender, but failed.  He started moving back cautiously.  Aiden, an elf, easily kept pace.  He gave the bandit one last chance to give up, failed a check, and the man ran off as fast as he could.  Aiden cut him down.

Aiden then shadowed the party, and in the evening he noticed about a dozen bandits coming to the road to intercept the party, moving at a pretty good clip.  He warned the party using a signal light (his sword) and the PCs set up an ambush of their own.

When the bandits were preparing to attack, Tieva opened up on them first, burning a number of them and wounding their seargent.  The bandits moved in on the PCs in three waves, with two crossbowmen providing cover.  They were easily cut down.

The seargent (a Human Noble from MM2) did absolutely nothing during the fight; he tried to jump down from a small cliff and failed, landing prone, then was cut down by Umar.

The fight was pretty fun, mostly because of the utter incompetence of the bad guys.  We laughed at them, and it gave the PCs a chance to shine.  I used regular human bandits as the bulk of the enemy, but made them minions - I just gave them 1 HP, otherwise they were the same.  (I also added 2 to all their attacks because human bandits are the suck.)

Onto Winterhaven.  Everyone was happy to see them.  They heard a rumour that there was something haunting the woods near the ruined Keep - Tibon, a farmer, was found dead with his skin ripped off.

The PCs talked to Tibon's family who was packing up to move south.  They showed the PCs the spot where he was killed and described the wounds he suffered - no cuts, claw wounds, no bites; his skin was just missing.  The PCs noticed some odd tracks, something making a furrow in the ground like a snake, but they had no idea what caused it.  

They followed the tracks; they seemed to be going in a circle around the Keep, but at one point they just lost the trail.  They checked for tracks near the Keep's entrance and found a number of footprints and pawprints.  Some of the footprints had ice and snow in them.  The PCs didn't know what that was about, but they figured something was up to no good in the Keep.

While the PCs were searching about I rolled for a random encounter.  The thing that killed Kibon - a forsaken shell - spotted them and, very quietly, started tracking them.

The PCs entered the Keep and went straight for the Shadow Rift.  In the Cathedral of Shadows they came across a wight, two skeleton archers, and two zombies decked out in plate armour (dread zombies).  The wight acted quickly and immobilized Hekubus, and the zombies moved up to block the PCs in the entrance.

Shamon and Umar were able to push one of the zombies down the pit into the Shadow Rift room, at which point they heard Armok's voice screaming.  "Kill them!  I must have my soul!"  Umar and Aiden rushed at the wight after he tried (but failed) to send Umar fleeing into the pit using his horrific visage.  He was quickly cut down.

Then two slithering forsaken shells came down the stairs.  Hekubus recognized one as Jace!  (Jace was an old PC, played by Umar's player, killed a long time ago; he was tortured to death, his skin flayed, and it was animated by dread necromancy into a forsaken shell.  The other one was Tibon.  Poor Tibon.)  They grabbed onto Hekubus and Sharok and started trying to rip their skin off while dragging them into the pit.

They could also hear the howl of nearly a dozen gravehounds coming at them; Hekubus sent his dire boar to hold them off.  I gave them 5 rounds before the boar would be killed.

Umar and Aiden were making pretty good work of the skeleton archers (who could deal quite a bit of damage).  The zombies were holding their own with a bare few hit points (the one who had fallen climbed back up the pit).  Sharok was getting very low on HP and very close to the pit.

Umar charged the forsaken shell of Jace and ripped it apart.  Then a pair of specters appeared from out of nowhere and started assaulting the PC's minds.  At one point every single PC was prone!

The PCs, very low on resources, were able to clear out the rest of the undead (one specter fled) and retreat back to save the dire boar with one round to spare.  Armok cried out to Hekubus, cursing the name of the Raven Queen, still crying about how he would find his lost soul.

We ended there.  It's too bad we didn't get to the fight with Armok.

Armok is a wight now; I statted him up as an NPC wizard, but undead (he has a wight's normal claw attack).  He's trying to open the Shadow Rift to get to the Shadowfell so he can reclaim his soul.  He's also got a pair of Chillborn Zombies and a pair of Burning Skeletons (I did that so the PCs can push the fire guys into the cold guys and hurt them both).  Armok is a cold-based wizard so that should be a tough fight.

There's also a chance to get Armok to stand down and stop fighting; that would be a skill challenge, if the PCs wanted to go for it.

Next time the PCs are going to rest; I'm not exactly sure what Armok is going to do, but I think he might make a move against the PCs.  He doesn't have the ability to open the Shadow Rift (he's been there for about a week).


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## LostSoul (Sep 10, 2009)

Just finished playing.  A quick recap here.

We only had 3 players, so 3 third-level PCs ventured into the Cairngorms - a level 6 area.  Dangerous, but smart play would triumph and lead to generous rewards.  Exactly the kind of play I am looking for in this game.

The PCs went in, encounter some wandering monsters:


A clutch of griffons, a mating pair and two nearly grown, flying around.  They ignored the party due to their lack of horses.
The survivors of the Guttersnipe Goblin Tribe, 4 goblins and 4 hobgoblins.  The PCs laid an ambush; at a tense moment in the fight, where one hobgoblin had readied an action to coup de grace a PC, the goblins tried to parley.  The PCs killed them, but only barely.  My DM notes said that they would not fight, but would attempt to gain allies.
Camping out on the side of a mountain using a ritual to summon nature spirits to hide them, dire wolves approached, following their scent, but lost it and moved on.

The PCs spotted an old PC - Malchior, now a battle wight - leading a group of zombies to his old family tomb in the Cairngorms.  The PCs laid an ambush; three of the zombies turned out to be ghouls and the fight was very close.  Once again the PCs triumphed.

Cool features:

A quick flowing mountain stream that knocked you prone and dragged you downstream.  (+9 vs. Fort, prone and slide 1d6 squares.)
Players strategizing and planning out when to engage, using rituals to hide themselves.
Setting up an amush and creating a trap on the fly using the damage guidelines on page 42.  (A rockslide; level 5; +8 vs Ref in a specific area; 3d10+4 damage, miss half, area turns to difficult terrain; DC 21 Endurance and Atheletics checks to create the trap, failure on either one indicates the loss of a Healing Surge.)
The utter kick-assitude of the Druid Daily 5 power, Wall of Thorns (or whatever it's called).
Using the PC's Intimidate checks as monster morale checks (Free Actions).
Giving the elven Ranger a +2 to saves against ghoul paralysis.
Sharok the dwarven druid making a diving leap off a 15-foot cliff, driving a Corruption Corpse into the wall (attack vs. Reflex, push 2 and prone, Sharok takes 1d10 falling damage and falls prone).

I'm sure there were a few others; I was in an ad-libbing mood tonight.

edit: One other cool thing.  When the hobgoblin was readying an action to coup de grace Umar, I described him holding Umar's head in his hand.  That meant he didn't have his shield ready.  When Sharok attacked, the 2 points of AC from being without his shield was the difference.


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## LostSoul (Sep 27, 2009)

We played again on Wednesday.  Not too much to say.

The PCs in the Cairngorms returned; I decided not to roll on the wandering monsters chart.  They spent a few days in Winterhaven resting up.  I actually wasn't expecting this!  I had to think on my feet about what the cultists would do once they found out about wight-Malchior's fall.

I decided they would send a vampirized Bren the Bold to scout for information about these new troublemakers.

After a few days the PCs saw some bats flying about.  They heard about a young single male farmer (John) who went missing.  They checked out the scene and saw some small-sized tracks, sign of a scuffle, and some blood.  No tracks leading away, though.

Since they wanted to head to Harken Forest, they cast Undead Ward around the walls of Winterhaven.  A bad roll meant that only level 1 undead would be blocked, but the PCs didn't know this so they were stuck with the roll.  They told everyone to stay indoors after dusk and hoped they would be okay as they left for Harken Forest.

As they neared the wood they saw some goblins - a band of about 20 - marching through with an elven prisoner.  Aiden, who is from Harken Forest, knew the guy - Theron.  They ambushed the goblins and took them down.  These goblins were a different kind - their leader wore a holy symbol of Lolth and they cursed the PCs ("Lolth will lay eggs in your eyeballs") and fought like fanatics to the death.  (Most of them.  Two ran off.)

Theron did some exposition.  The goblin raids were getting worse.  Spiders roam the wood.  Everyone knows they're coming from Daggersburg Keep - an old elven fortress called Lanath Keep built to house their noble dead, destroyed during the Bloodspear War - but Dara, leader of the Woodsinger clan, has forbidden the elves from going there.  Theron got fed up with it and was hunting goblins, but this gang tracked him down and caught him.

The PCs rested in Harkenwold.  The humans don't have any contact with the elves - the elves turn them back whenever they enter the wood.  The goblins sometimes raid the road but they've never threatened Harkenwold.  They also heard a rumour about the Baron's son out fighting trolls somewhere to the north.

The PCs decided to check out Daggersburg Keep.  The stone foundation was still standing but it had been burnt out.  Only one tower was in good shape.  They could see long, ropy strands of spiderweb all around the keep.  The main gate was filled with crimson strands of webbing, which they burned. 

When they entered the keep some goblins hiding in the gatehouse poured burning oil on Aiden and a swarm of spiders leapt down.  One of the goblins threatened to throw a torch at Aiden, igniting the oil, but Aiden was pulled out of danger by a gust of wind from Sharok.  The battle was short.

In the courtyard they could see a number of spiders lurking about... but that's where we called it for the night.


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## LostSoul (Oct 8, 2009)

Just got back from the game.

So we last left the PCs in the ruined courtyard of an ancient elven keep, where the compound eyes of three deathjump spiders were looking down on them from behind the ruined battlements.

A spiders leapt on Umar when he closed in range of its amazing leap.  The fight was on.  Umar fought bravely and whalloped the spider, and between him and Aiden the spider didn't last long.

The others raced for Shamon, Kiva, and their elven ally Theron (an NPC saved from goblins last adventure).  Kiva and Shamon took some hits, but together they were able to take one out.  Kiva was bitten and poison burned in her veins, making her legs feel like lead.  She stuggled to get out of the courtyard.

The lone spider skittered up the wall away from Shamon and dropped down to block of Kiva's escape.  Another crept out from the well in the middle of the courtyard to see what all the fuss was about.  It crept up the wall and leapt down on Shamon, dropping him, the soporific poison taking effect.  With its fangs in Shamon's leg it started dragging Shamon back to the well.

Theron tried to rouse Shamon with a shake and a slap, but could not.  Aiden and Umar raced to lend aid and a shout from Umar broke through the Shamon's poison-induced haze.  A few quick blows later and the spiders were dead.

I like deathjump spiders.  They don't hit too often but they do scary damage and their movement is cool.  I decided that their leap from above attack that deals the extra d6 damage could only be used if, you know, they _leapt from above_.  The spiders also trailed a web behind them as they lept, creating a line that needed one extra square of movement to cross.​
The noise from the battle alterted a goblin guard in a nearby tower (the only one left in any kind of habitable condition); he snickered at the PCs and retreated back into the tower.

The PCs took a short rest and checked out the tower.  Aiden noticed that the goblin's tracks in the dust were extra-light over a certain area of the floor; it turns out they had dug a pit there.  Aiden gathered some planks from the ruins outside and laid them across the pit.

The tower was big enough to hold a number of rooms.  They entered one and saw a small pool that had formed in the collapsed floor.  An elven statue - Correllon? - was half-submerged in the pool, along with a bed.

Umar connected with the primal forces of the world and peered into the murky pool, seeing a large slime moving about in it (and a silver mace - untarnished).  Umar alterted the party, and when the stinking blue slime erupted they were able to put it down without much fuss.

The goblin underboss they had encountered a couple of days ago (and let go) came around the corner, clapping sarcastically.  "Oh, well done.  We just avoided that thing."

The goblin had been sent up to the tower on guard duty as punishment for being a survivor of the raid.  He filled them in on what lay beneath the keep:


A lair of 50 or so goblins, half non-combatants, ex-Guttersnipes from the Cairngorms; not too happy with the presence of all the spiders, or with all the necessary obidience to Lolth
15 or so hobgoblin mercenaries come to kill elves
20 or so goblin slaves to Lolth
A drow witch
Female elven screams coming from somewhere deep within the dungeons
A sacrificial altar to Lolth and some prisoners
An underground forest, the ceiling appearing to be stars, magically created by the elves, now full of spiders
A pool far underneath the dungeons

The drow was the obvious leader, and the obvious target.  Several plans were worked out, including killing them all, assassinating the drow (but having to go through the guards first), and having Shamon disguise himself as a drow in order to cause chaos.

When Aiden asked about ventilation, he recalled (with an Insight check) that the well must lead down to the pool.  The goblin told them that he didn't know where the well led to, but it didn't go to the forest.  

They sent Theron, the [-]NPC cannon fodder[/i] brave elf scout to check it out.  When he came back his face was white and he was obviously terrified.  He reported a big cave, the sounds of water, and terrifying screams from somewhere in the darkness.

The PCs went down while Aiden threw down burning bits of a cart to illuminate the area.  They fell into a pool at the bottom of the well, but lit up the area well enough for the PCs to see.  There was some dry area they could make it to if they swam, so they went down there.

Umar was first.  As he was climbing down the deathjump spider-web rope, he suddenly found himself staring into the face of a female elven ghost - and her horrific visage caused him to freeze up and lose all control.  He was stuck there, immobilized on the rope, until Shamon slid down the rope and knocked him into the water; the sudden cold broke him out of it.

The ghost, meanwhile, had disappeared.

The PCs swam to the shore of the underground pool.  They spotted a skeleton lying in a small cave nearby; Umar checked it out.  It was a humanoid skeleton, lying there for a long time, its dress stained and torn in the brest as if someone had plunged a dagger through it.

The dress was very similar to the one the ghost was "wearing".

At that point the ghost - the banshee - appeared from out of the wall and moved into the middle of the party.

More in a bit.


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## LostSoul (Oct 8, 2009)

"Who dares disturb me?"  The words cut through the air, pregnant with power and despair.  "This is my lair; leave or suffer."

"You don't mind the goblins and the spiders?" Aiden asks, knocking his bow.  The banshee looks familiar - much like Dara, the current leader of the Woodsinger elves.

"What do I care?  The war is over for my people.  Let the others do as they will."  Umar realizes that she is speaking of the Bloodspear War, which ended in defeat for the forces of Nerath.

Kiva prepares to blast the banshee.

Theron steps forward.  "Thia, my Queen," he says, referring to Dara's mother, the last Queen of the elves, "what has happened to you?  How can I help you?"  He kneels before her.

Thia smiles.  "You can share my pain!" she screams.  The sheer power of her words, fuelled by a will tormented by incredible anguish, overwhelms the party.  Each one of them is stricken by one thought only: _flee_.

Shamon, Theron, and Kiva are forced back to the water's edge.  Shamon is able to throw himself to the ground, but the others leap into the pool to get away.  Kiva is able to launch a blast of infernal fire, but in her panic she misses the banshee.  Their limbs frozen in terror, Theron and Kiva begin to sink into the depths.

Aiden rushes back up a set of stairs leading to a door.  With his back to the door he fires a pair of arrows; one strikes true, but it passes through Thia, carrying only a small wisp of her ghostly form with it.

Umar flees into the alcove containing the skeleton, just out of sight of the banshee.  His heart pounds in his chest and he's unable to force himself to move.  He focuses his will enough to call upon the primal forces of the world to get a better look at the skeleton.  He can see that it's been there for about a hundred years, where it fell after Thia plunged a dagger into her own heart.  He's able to tell that someone moved it months ago and took the dagger.

From the ground, Shamon launches dire radiance at the ghost, but his spell does not break through the banshee's defenses.

Aiden, with his back to the door, can hear someone moving around in the room beyond.  He notices a faint purple light coming from underneath the door.  He decides to ignore this for now and instead wills himself to address Thia.  "What killed you?" he asks.

Thia turns her attention to Aiden.  "Hope," she says.

"Hope?  I've never heard of hope killing someone."

"I had hope that we would win the war.  I had hope that my husband would be at my side forever.  I had hope that Corellon would not ignore my pleas.  I had hope, but in the end all I had was betrayal."

"What happened?"

"Let me show you."  Thia sails towards him, and Aiden is unable to will himself to move.  She touches him on the face; her hand is as cold as death itself, and Aiden experiences an instant of ultimate despair (times two).  His flesh is seared by her touch.

Shamon casts a quick spell to embue his words with a magical glamer and asks: "What do you want?"  The spell breaks through Thia's unearthly will, and she shudders.

"What do I want?  I want my husband to be at peace, to undo the awful horror and torment I put upon him.  I want to undo the pact I made with the Queen of Spiders.  I want to rest and be free of this mortal coil."

"If we do this, will you help us get rid of the goblins?"

"I will let you leave.  Leave now.  Being in the presence of your hope multiplies my anguish."

"We're cool with that."

The PCs quickly gather their drowning companions (Theron and Kiva); the banshee stirs uneasily at their continued presence and begins to wail quietly.  The PCs attempt to open the door (where the strange purple light is coming from), but find it barred; Shamon lends Aiden his crowbar and he's able to force it open with Umar's help.

The PCs enter a bedroom and discover the source of the purple light: an altar to Lolth.  A dark elf in robes stands across the room from them, near the altar, a rod carved into the shape of spiders in one hand and a dagger in the other.  She smiles at them and says, "Lolth will devour your eyeballs."

More to come.


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## LostSoul (Oct 8, 2009)

"Lolth will devour your eyeballs," the drow archanomancer says as she points her rod at the PCs.  Invoking words of abyssal power, a tiny portal opens to the abyss for a mere instant; this is enough time for dark, spectral webs and a swarm of tiny spiders to explore out.  The webs, strong as steel, wrap and bind everyone save Shamon who hides behind Aiden.

Shamon springs at the drow, forcing his way through the webs as he is being devoured by the abyssal spiders.  Outside of the web, they collapse off of him and retreat back; Shamon lunges at the drow and stabs at her, his sword turned aside by a last-minute dodge.

Umar roars, overcome by primal fury, and appears next to the drow in a thunderclap.  The drow is dazed by the thunder and a drop of blood trickles from her ear.

Kiva, being eaten in the web but trapped and unable to move, spots the only space free from spiders that she can teleport to: just above a curtained area.  She teleports there and falls on her face, but the spiders don't come with her.

Theron fires his bow at the drow but misses as she dodges the arrows with inhuman agility.  The spiders feast on his elf-flesh, burrowing deep into him, and he cries in pain.

Aiden does not try to escape the spiders, as his armour is keeping the worst of them at bay; he looses a pair of arrows; one glances off the drow's arm, leaving a minor scratch.  She responds by casting a spell, the most she can do while shaking off the effects of Umar's dazing thunder.  A cloud of darkness rolls out from her spider rod, completely obscuring her, Theron, and Shamon.

Hidden in the darkness, no one is able to strike true.  Aiden is able to break free from the webs tying him down, but Theron is not.  The elf cries in pain as the spiders burrow through his flesh towards his organs.

The darkness disappears as the drow steps out, heading towards the stairs, where she points her rod at the party.  A gout of poison covers everyone save Kiva, who is out of range.  The poison burns and Theron falls to the ground.  The drow smiles and turns to flee up a set of stairs.

Shamon tries to cut her escape off, but she hits him with her spider rod and webs tie him to the ground; this momentary distraction allows Umar to stomp on the ground, throwing the drow a few feet away from the stairs.  Shamon and Umar attack the drow bu she's far too fast, moving with speed they did not think possible.  Kiva, however, aims a shot and an eldritch blast of infernal energy strikes the dark elven witch, searing her flesh.

"Curse you!" she screams.

Aiden looks at Theron, who is on the ground and being devoured from the inside out by the abyssal spiders.  He springs at the drow, moving through the webs with elven grace and draws his blades.  The drow, harried from all angles, cannot dodge; Aiden plunges his twin blades into her chest.  She lets out a gurgled curse as Aiden kicks her corpse away; her still beating heart rips free, impaled on his scimitar.


And that was it for the night.  Pretty cool session.  We ran the talk with the banshee as a normal combat, not a skill challenge, though in retrospect I probably would have done that instead.  It worked out well in any case.

The fight with both those high-level normal monsters was fun.  The drow battle was tense as the PCs were low on surges (Aiden spent his last one during the fight, I think), it was really hard for the PCs to hit, and its web spell did a lot of damage.  It only took a few good hits to bring her down; the last attack from Aiden included a critical and his total damage was 55.

Lots of loot, but the drow had some guards up the stairs who are going to come by pretty soon (after the PCs get a short rest).  Things could still go bad for them; we'll see what they decide to do.


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 9, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> I'm not sure why I was so frustrated; I guess I just wanted the NPCs to do better, which is a bad way to look at things.  Luckily I didn't make any stupid calls or anything like that.  I'm not sure what the issue is, I just don't know why that last fight was such a cakewalk.  I'm struggling with how to make this campaign interesting and challenging when it's not all in a dungeon (when extended rests are hard to come by), still maintain consistency and integrity in the campaign world, and challenge the PCs on a long-term, strategic level.
> 
> That is, the PCs should be able to "nova" and blow out a challenging encounter, but I want them to be able to do that only through their own smart choices; being able to "nova" and turn challenging encounters into cakewalks shouldn't be the normal state of things.  But if I throw in 3+ encounters every day, that doesn't make any sense and means their choices don't matter.




This is the system fighting you, and is a feature of the "daily attrition" vs. "long-term attrition" model.  Making extending rests rely on some form of long-term model, as was suggested re: milestones, is one way to deal with this problem.

The basic rule is that, if you want the players to not "nova", then not "nova"ing has to be a smart choice.  And that means, perforce, that there must be some consequence for "nova"ing.  Classically, the consequence is the potential of running into a wandering (or set) encounter without any big guns.  By making it take longer to restore your abilities the larger the gun used, 1e made players perforce consider using lower-level spells, etc., instead of their better, higher-level counterparts.  This was another way to help prevent "nova"ing.

(This is something that got discussed quite a bit in light of the pre-4e design blogs.  Mustrum_Ridicully made some astute observations then that might help you now.  I'd consider giving him a poke.)

Best of luck,


RC


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## LostSoul (Oct 9, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> This is the system fighting you, and is a feature of the "daily attrition" vs. "long-term attrition" model.  Making extending rests rely on some form of long-term model, as was suggested re: milestones, is one way to deal with this problem.




We switched to a slightly different extended rest system; each night you can get back a daily power or two healing surges.  So far, in play this has allowed the game world to progress at a decent rate ("Let's rest up in Winterhaven for 4 days before heading out"), and it makes the attrition model more long term.

It's hard to get used to a different style of gaming.  I miss the days when I could just offer up moral quandries!


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 12, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> We switched to a slightly different extended rest system; each night you can get back a daily power or two healing surges.  So far, in play this has allowed the game world to progress at a decent rate ("Let's rest up in Winterhaven for 4 days before heading out"), and it makes the attrition model more long term.




Often it's just a matter of identifying the source of the problem, and then fixing that.   Glad you were able to do so.



> It's hard to get used to a different style of gaming.  I miss the days when I could just offer up moral quandries!




Well, there are a lot of other options out there.  4e is a game I would be willing to play in, but that I would have no interest in GMing.  The focus is just not on what I consider interesting from that side of the screen.....well, from either side of the screen, but as a player I can deal with it.  


RC


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## two_fishes (Oct 13, 2009)

Looks like things are really clipping along! I miss this game!


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## ferratus (Oct 13, 2009)

Your two threads on the Nentir Vale LostSoul are half the reason I come to Enworld.  Keep it up!


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 13, 2009)

Absolutely.  LostSoul, don't let my comments be too much of a digression.  Overall, it seems as though you have the system working for you!


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## Nebulous (Oct 13, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> We switched to a slightly different extended rest system; each night you can get back a daily power or two healing surges.  So far, in play this has allowed the game world to progress at a decent rate ("Let's rest up in Winterhaven for 4 days before heading out"), and it makes the attrition model more long term.




Lostsoul, was this YOUR idea you brought to the table, or was it a collaborative agreement? What about the current extended rest rules (all surges back, all dailies returned) was particularly problematic? 

Personally, i'm not a fan of the rule and i really like the solution you came up with, but i don't think my players have any problem with "per the book."  Usually they don't abuse the extended rest rules, and there have been times where they pushed themselves too hard and PCs have been killed as a result.

BUT...i do like them having to pick whether to return a Daily Power or Healing Surges.

I'm also toying with an idea to make Action Points more lucrative.  If you can save up 3 (maybe 4) then you can recharge a Daily.  That might mesh well with the reduced effectiveness of extended rests.


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## LostSoul (Oct 13, 2009)

The idea that I liked best (not mine) was to go with 1 extended rest per week.  We talked about it for a while and one of the other players suggested the current change, which has worked out pretty well.

There were two triggers to the extended rest thing.  

The first issue that I noticed was that the PCs were in constant motion.  This didn't give the NPCs enough time to do anything (within my own limits of disbelief), so the environment - from my point of view - was very static.

The second issue came up when the PCs blew through an encounter because it was the only one in the day.  This offered up some problems - either we spend some time going through cakewalk encounters or I up the difficult for those lone encounters, but if the PCs end up pulling two of those we're looking at a TPK.

Both issues have been resolved.  I also feel much better about my ability to challenge the PCs, because even if they wipe out an encounter with no problem, a couple of healing surges lost or one daily spent is important.  It gives me the feeling that I'm able to challenge the party, and that makes it more fun for me.

*

As far as everything else goes, I'm still learning how to give them meaningful choices to make.  Aiden's player and I had a good talk over beers - it's funny but it seems you have to get away from the table to get that kind of critique, which I think is very important.

I also have to figure out what Hekubus has been up to in the past couple of weeks since he left for the Shadowfell to retrieve Armok's soul.


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## Wik (Oct 13, 2009)

The only problem I see with your rest model is the same that plagued fighters in 2e (where all PCs healed 1 hp a day).  The more surges you have, the longer it takes to "heal".  My paladin has twelve surges, and everyone else has seven.  That means I need to rest six days (longer if I have to recharge dailies), compared to everyone else's four.  

Personally, I think something like "one quarter of your healing surges" (so everyone heals at the same rate) would work better for this sort of game model.  And I'd personally adjust the dailies to something like "one at heroic, two at paragon, three at epic".  

Just nit-picking, here.  You have a great thread, and I'm really enjoying a lot of your ideas.  I'll be using some of them in my upcoming 4e Dark Sun game (eeee!)


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## Wik (Oct 13, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> As far as everything else goes, I'm still learning how to give them meaningful choices to make.  Aiden's player and I had a good talk over beers - it's funny but it seems you have to get away from the table to get that kind of critique, which I think is very important.




Absolutely.  I find I get the most feedback from my games a few days after they happened over phone calls, or during the hockey game when we're having a few drinks.  Never did figure out what that is.


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## LostSoul (Oct 13, 2009)

Wik said:


> The only problem I see with your rest model is the same that plagued fighters in 2e (where all PCs healed 1 hp a day).  The more surges you have, the longer it takes to "heal".  My paladin has twelve surges, and everyone else has seven.  That means I need to rest six days (longer if I have to recharge dailies), compared to everyone else's four.




Yup.  Thankfully the elven melee ranger is making sure we don't have to deal with that issue.


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## LostSoul (Oct 22, 2009)

Played tonight.

Featured a massive battle vs. goblins (Lolthbound goblins are hardcore!) and a skill challenge.

More later, but I need to make sure that the massive battle has an impact beyond the immediate.  This was set up in colour via the dying elf scout Greenleaf giving Aiden a token to present to Dara, the Woodsinger Queen.  

(RPG theory time: I am convinced that colour is the most important feature of RPGs; any system that wants to grab my attention should put a priority on it.  I feel that 4E _can_ do so, but only with effort.)

I am thinking that the skill challenge that I would have presented will be considered a success because of their valiant efforts.

More later.  Not too much happened, but they did get wind of what's going on in Winterhaven.  The result is that they have a choice to make: finish up with the elves and the despair that is ruining them, or head back to their home town and deal with that.


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## LostSoul (Nov 5, 2009)

We played again tonight.

The PCs went to the Woodsinger village and had some talk with some folk.

We ran a skill challenge (still ongoing) to deal with bringing the elves to action against the threats in the Harken Wood.

We ended the night with a big fight against 15 hobgoblins (no minions!) which the PCs were barely able to pull through.

I had fun; I'll try to post more later.


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## LostSoul (Nov 5, 2009)

So this is what happened, part one:

After killing the goblins, four elves lay dead, including their leader Greenleaf.  The two remaining elves wanted to take their dead companions back to their village.  The PCs needed some rest and wanted to take their campaign to Dara and see what was happening there.

They faced 4 lolthbound, 2 bugbear warriors, 2 bugbear wardancers, 4 deathjump spiders, a hexer, an underboss, and 8 warriors.  The warriors were reduced to minion status due to level difference.​
As the PCs neared the village some elven guards spotted them and greeted them.  The leader of these elves was a friend of Aiden's, named Talesid.  He was happy to see his old friend - less happy to see the 5 dead elves.  Talesid escorted the PCs into the village.

There was a little elven boasting and bragging directed at Umar - everyone else has some elven heritage except Umar, who is 100% human.  Mostly it was about how short-lived and rash humans are.

The elven village was a large clearing in the middle of the forest where they had built houses into huge, magically grown trees.  Like Ewok Village.  In the centre of town there stood a pair of trees that had grown into each other; at their base there was an open space, and this space was a portal to the Feywild.  Two elves guarded the portal.

One small tree, younger than the rest, held a temple to Corellon.  The temple was in bad shape, obviously neglected.  Talesid explained to Shamon that the old priest hadn't taken an acolyte when he died and no one worshipped there much any more.

Upon seeing the dead, the elves wept openly, gnashed their teeth, beat their breasts, pulled out their hair, and moured openly.  The PCs spotted Dara, the elven Queen, at her balcony watching them.  She didn't look too happy.

With all the elves mourning, Shamon climbed to the temple and stood on a balcony overlooking the throng.  He played an elven dirge that he knew and mesmerized the crowd.  All the elves stopped and listened to him.  Even Dara came out of her home to listen.

Shamon rolled Diplomacy; he knew the dirge because he's trained in Religion, and I gave him a +2 bonus because of that.​
When the song was over he adressed the elves, saying that they should be given a burial worthy of their deeds - they should be buried at Lanath Keep (Daggersburg Keep, where all the goblins are; it was a tomb for the noble elven dead).  It was time for the elves to rouse themselves and strike back at the goblins and retake what was theirs.

Dara was nearby on her balcony and she spoke back, saying that Shamon was a stranger to their village, that they would be honoured in their own way, buried in the ground so that they could rejoin the wood; Shamon should respect their customs, they stay away from Lanath Keep for good reason - 5 good elves died because their broke with tradition.

Shamon had a good comeback line to that... I can't remember what it was.  Something about her mother, the banshee?  At any rate, Dara spun on her heel, rebuffed, and went back inside.  The elven villagers talked about what Shamon had said, and there was some debate in the crowd.

These were a couple rolls in a skill challenge, both successes; I didn't state that we were in a skill challenge, or what the goal was, or anything like that.  I think everyone knew.  The level, I decided, was 11, since that's Dara's level.​
The PCs decided to rest for the night, since they were pretty banged up; Talesid set them up with some food and a vacant house to sleep in.  The PCs went to bed.

Shamon woke up in the middle of the night after his eye of alarm was triggered - swarms of spiders crept into their room and attacked them!  Oh no!  The spiders crept over the PCs but they were able to kill them without burning down the tree.

After the fight Aiden tried to spot some spider tracks but saw nothing.

I wanted to see what would happen if I attacked the PCs at night, while they were sleeping; I've never done that in 4E.  I also liked the image of spiders creeping into their room.​
Talesid soon arrived and other elves were waking.  No one had seen anything suspicious; Talesid said he would guard them for the rest of the night.

When the PCs woke, Talesid and a number of other elves came to see them.  These were the elves who were most moved by Shamon's words the other day, the ones who felt like they should do something, but they didn't want to break Dara's laws.  They talked with the PCs a bit; I forget what was said, but they didn't have their fears allayed enough to throw in with the PCs.

In other words, a Diplomacy failure.​
This was the second of the six days of mourning (the day of rememberance).  On the forest floor Dara had set up a crescent table and had the bodies of the dead, cloaked in black shrouds, lying before her.  Elves were there saying how they knew the dead and what they remembered of them, adressing Dara, and she would reply with some words of her own.

Decided on the fly that they had six days of mourning and a feast on the seventh day.  All this was made up on the fly.​
Umar stepped forward to address the crowd.  The elves were hesitant, unsure what this young human had to say, but Dara let him speak.  He talked about how he fought alongside the elves and how brave and valiant they were.  All the elves nodded and were pleased at his words.

Then Dara responded with a little dig... something like, "We thank you for your kind words, you are a true friend of the elves.  It's unfortunate that we have only just met you because of this senseless tragedy, where these brave and noble elves died for absolutely nothing at all."

That triggered some back and forth between Umar and Dara, with the other PCs chipping in now and again: Umar called Dara a coward and talked about how their village was in decay and stagnant; Dara responded with "How dare you!  At this time!"; it escalated until Umar badmouthed Dara's mother, Thia, saying that she was working with Lolth or something, and Dara reacted by leaping at Umar and attacking him.

Umar westled her to the table, but the other elves leapt to her defense.  Dara spoke out, saying, "You attack us during our time of mourning.  Leave here, all of you; never return."  So they were banished.

The other elves did nothing to stop Dara, pretty disgusted by the PC's behaviour.

Once again, failed Diplomacy check.​
Talesid escorted the PCs out of the village.  He didn't quite believe the PCs, with their stories of drow and what not at Lanath Keep, so they offered to take him there and show him directly what they had found.  (They considered using Last Sight Vision to show him what Theron saw - specifically the ghost of Thia, just before he was killed, but they'd have to get the bodies from town.)  They could also take Theron and Greenleaf and inter them at Lanath Keep, like they deserved.

Shamon used a Bard power that gave him a nice bonus to his Diplomacy check and Talesid agreed to bring the bodies to the PCs.  The PCs rested outside of town and at night Talesid brought the bodies along with a pair of elves.


That ends the first part of the adventure.  The skill challenge is still in the open, so we'll see what happens.


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## LostSoul (Nov 5, 2009)

Part two: a big fight.

The PCs made it through the wood to Lanath Keep.  When they got there they saw tracks - lots of them - leaving the keep.  One set of them got their attention: heavy booted feet dragging some bodies behind them, and blood in the trail.  These tracks belonged to hobgoblins using razorvine (a rare vine that's like barbed wire) to drag some living prisoners away.

The PCs decided to head out after the hobgoblins to see if they could save Silverleaf (an elf who went there about a month? ago with a party of adventurers, who was captured).

They followed the trail for a while and knew they were close when they heard the screams of Silverleaf.  They spotted a group of heavily armed and armoured hoboglins - about 15 of them - torturing Silverleaf and a pair of human women (Morgan Ironwolf and Sister Rebecca).

The hobgoblin commander on watch spotted Shamon and we had a fight on our hands.  It lasted about 7 rounds:

Round 1: Umar and Talesid move up to challenge the commander and hit him pretty hard.  Shamon moves up to Divine Challenge the hobgoblin Fleshcarver (the torturer) but can't get quite close enough; he Dominates him instead.  Aiden, Kiva, and the two elven archers start firing.  The commander is killed.

At this point the players realize that none of these guys are minions.

The four archers lay into Umar and Talesid and the six soldiers form a line on them.

Round 2: Dominated, the Fleshcarver attacks the Warcaster.  Talesid, beaten pretty badly, second winds, and Kiva switches spots with him with a Teleport.  A lot of bursts and blasts go off.  Kiva is able to drop an archer.

Round 3: The warcaster tries to drag Kiva behind the line but fails.  The Fleshcarver displays his skill by making a close burst 2 attack with his glaive.  Umar is hurt by the soldiers beating on him.  The elven archers lay into the Fleshcarver.  Talesid moves back into the fray.

Round 4: Shamon is pinned in difficult terrain near a number of soldiers.  More damage is handed out; Umar drops.  Kiva is beaten down pretty hard.  Aiden and Talesid engage two of the archers in melee.  The elven archers continue to pound on the Fleshcarver and start moving out of difficult terrain so they can get their skirmishing bonus.

Round 5: The Fleshcarver pounds on the PCs with his at-will close burst.  Kiva drops.  A number of soldiers are killed.  The hobgoblin archers fire their arrows then try to engage the elves in melee.

Round 6: Fleshcarver's revenge.  He smacks all the PCs around then spends an action point to do it again.  Kiva and Aiden are on the ground.  The archers focus on him, but don't drop him; they know that if he's able to get another attack off he'll probably kill them all, so Talesid sucks an OA to get to a flanking position, stabs him in the back and kills him.  More hobgoblins are killed; at this point there are 3 soldiers and the two archers.

Round 7: Shamon intimidates a hobgoblin into surrendering.  The soldiers attack but miss; the elven archers are able to avoid the hobgoblins and keep loosing arrows.

Round 8: The hobgoblins surrender.


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## LostSoul (Dec 25, 2009)

Pretty late reply:

Things progressed, and I ran it with the same principled decisions that I had been, but the players didn't seem to like it.

I had that feeling for a few sessions before this; I tried to deal with it, but in the end I decided that it wasn't in my best interest to carry on with the game.

I am hoping to start over in the same setting with a new group of players, along with a number of house rules that will deliver the kind of gameplay I want.

As to what I want, here is a blog post about that:  anyway: Lazy Play vs IIEE with Teeth

I have some ideas on how to solve that, but I need to playtest them first.


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## Snoweel (Feb 3, 2010)

LostSoul said:


> So this is what happened, part one:
> 
> After killing the goblins, four elves lay dead, including their leader Greenleaf.




*NO, NOT GREENLEAF!*


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