# Musing of an Epic Virgin



## Jack99 (Oct 23, 2009)

Since 4e was released, I have been running a campaign set in Draegor, my homebrew world. Last night, my players managed to kill the Aspect of Grazz't and finally become level 21, entering the epic tier. It's something we have been looking forward to very much. You see, my group and I have never really played much at higher level. For once, I think we prefer the grittier stuff, and also, they never managed to stay alive this long. I usually end up TPK'ing them way before they got anywhere near 20th level. So we are definitely epic virgins, if not also high level virgins. But perhaps it is only fitting that after 20 years, we finally get past 20th level...

Maybe that's why I decided to write a bit about it. Not too many epic campaigns that I know of around. Either way, I am not sure. This will definitely not be a Story Hour - my English doesn't quite feel up to it, but it will be more of a resume of the various things that happen, and some thoughts from a DM's point of view.

Below is the introduction to my campaign, as well as a very short overview (w/comments) over what has happened the last 20 levels.

[sblock=Introduction to the Campaign World]
Feron is an advanced empire on the continent of Ghalton. There has been peace for centuries, and trade, art, science and magic has flourished. All the great races live in harmony, working together to improve the realm they inhabit. Or at least that is how it was, up until 31 years ago.

No-one knows quite how things started, but one thing we know for sure is that suddenly, people stopped dieing. Or rather, people stopped passing on to the Shadowfell and the Astral Dominions of the gods. Instead, they were stuck as ghosts, somewhere in between. Then, whenever a body died, a soul would inhabit that corpse, effectively becoming living again. But the souls that came back were changed. Even the most pious cleric of Bahamut would come back as a raving homicidal lunatic. And while they might be happy with their new existence, there were still millions of souls on the other side of the veil, calling at them, begging them to make them come back. So the killings began.

It was a fight that was doomed to be lost from the start. How do you fight an enemy that can't die. How do you fight an enemy that gets stronger every time anyone dies in pain?

After just 30 years, Feron was no more. Actually, you could say that Ghalton was no more. All that was left of man, was 300.000 people, huddled up behind the enormous walls of the ancient city of Tar'Eldar. Outside, the Reborn, as they were called, were pressing on, eager to take over the last of the living.

Desperation grew, but it seemed that the 7 arch-mages of Tar'Eldar had had the solution for a while. They had (in secret) been working furiously on opening a rift to another world. 25 years ago, that day finally arrived. Almost 300.000 men and women stood in line, with all that they could carry and some more, while the immensely powerful 7 worked their magic in a ritual like the world had never seen before. They were assisted by every arcane and divine caster still alive and in the city . The rift opened, and people started to pour through. For more than 6 hours, people kept moving through the shimmering portal, into the other world. Suddenly, as thousands of people were passing through the portal, there was an explosion, and the rift closed, trapping all the arch-mages and many powerful warlocks and clerics on Ghalton, along with more than 250.000 other.

What became of them, no one knows. Not a word has come through since then.

The survivors found themselves in the new world, that they called Draegor, meaning A New Beginning in Old Elvish. It was a fresh and fertile world, with a mildly hot climate (subtropical), and no sign of other civilized humanoid races.

The first thing that was done, was to find an appropriate place to start over. After a few days, such a spot was located and rebuilding began.

The first city of Draegor was called Drahar, meaning A New Hope, also in Old Elvish.

As mentioned, the building of Drahar began almost immediately. Everyone was put to work by the Council, no exceptions. With hills, river and forest with a ½ mile, all resources were at hand. At first, most buildings were made of wood, and at the beginning only the Cathedral of Erathis and the Town Hall, along with the walls surrounding the city, were made of stone. But the dwarves mined like never before, in order to provide enough stone for the city, and priority lists were made, to ensure that eventually everyone would have a home made of stone.

However, things were definitely different than in the old world. While it was a great unknown world out there, it was much less scarier than the reborn from back home.

Soon it became obvious that some races just weren't suited for living amongst others, at least not in great numbers. In the Year of the Sundering (Year 3) an age-old Elven-Eladrin conflict blossomed up again, and before the conflict changed to civil war, it was decided that most of the Elves and of the Eladrin should leave Drahar, and find another place to live. They both went into the Silent Forest, although not in the same direction. Since then, both races have settled in, and created their own communities, out in the wilderness of the new world.

After the Elves and the Eladrin left, there was peace and quiet for a while. The people of Drahar worked on their city, getting things to work. Exploration was almost non-existent, as the Council feared what they would find. After all, they had all they needed to survive and prosper, why risk running into a hostile civilization? This is not to say that there weren't any dangers. The Silent Wood proved to be full of monsters, and several skirmishes with monstrous humanoids (mostly kobolds, goblins and also some hobgoblins and orcs) did also happen. But they were few and far between.

In the Year of the Clans (year 10), the Halflings of Drahar finally grew too restless to remain in Drahar. Embracing their ancient ways, they left on good terms, clan by clan, and struck out to explore the world.

The next year, in the Year of the Rock (year 11), the Dwarves of Drahar decided it was time to leave for the mountains, to regain their independence, and work some for themselves instead for the humans. They found a place in the Maruum, the Golden Peaks, and called their new home Magyth, the Golden Mine.

Even though the dwarves and halflings left on good terms, their departure were the catalyst for the greatest crisis so far in the new world. Some people felt that they had abandoned the humans, and eventually, those people started to hate all demi-humans. These people, later named the Purists, were led by John Blackhand, one of the more charismatic members of the Council. Officially, pressure grew on the Council to change the law, so that demi-humans had fewer rights and were punished harder. Especially tieflings and dragonborn seemed to be the target of the Purists, since they believed both races should be relegated to slave status, even though both races had played an instrumental part in holding of the Reborn on Ghalton, and in creating the rift to Draegor. The two races had also payed the highest price, very few were left. Not many had made it. Unofficially, press gang were hunting the streets at night, and woe to any demi-human caught out alone, with no guards around.

Soon enough it became clear that something had to be done, and the Council stripped John Blackhand of his powers, and arrested him, without any hard evidence, other than his rhetorics. His people retaliated by breaking him out, and setting a good part of the city on fire. While the fire raged, John Blackhand and his most trusted allies escaped the city, and went into hiding. He came back, claiming it was the will of the gods that he was not to be imprisoned, and that the fire that had ravaged the city was a sign of their displeasure. He went further, and announced that the city was cursed and tainted by the demi-humans, and that he would set out to find a new, clean place to live, and that any human was more than welcome to come with him. A week later, in the Year of The Black Hand (year 14) more than 3.000 adults left Drahar to follow John Blackhand westward, along the Elra, out to the Sea of Hope.

Over the last 11 years, more people left Drahar, some joining John Blackhand in Blackkeep, while others set out to form their own communities, most notably Laketown, whose inhabitants left because they wished to follow King Azar, and not be subject to some pseudo-democratic council.

Then, slowly, the people of Drahar and Draegor reverted to there fairly peaceful existence. But, as usual, the peace and quiet didn't last. One day, 50.000 other refugees from Ghalton suddenly appeared at the Stones of Arrival. They were amongst those caught in the blast that shattered the ritual. They had no idea what had happened, since for them, no time had passed.

Confused and confounded, the new arrivals parted ways. Most chose to live in Drahar (about 30k), while some left for Blackkeep and Laketown. Some even opted for making it on their own. This has been very hard on Drahar, from what you have heard. Most of the newcomers live together in two new wards, the Furnace and the Oak Ward, which is a ward build on the Elra. Wood on water. From what you hear, things are very heated, with many gangs fighting for the dominance of these two wards, while the old and new Draharians are trying to build lasting homes for their new co-habitants.

Now, 25 years after coming to this world, the first generation born here has grown up, and are ready to take on the world. [/sblock]

As the players figure out eventually, the gods of their old world are nothing but exarches in this world. This is a very basic premise and central point to the overarching plot, so I have included the list of the gods. Be warned, I steal left and right. Well mostly from Eberron, not that it matters 

[sblock=Overview of the Gods]
Beldar the Just (Honor, Justice, Good Dragons, Civilization)
Symbol: Gold Dragon,
Exarchs: Bahamut, Genoar, Erathis

Dol the Radiant (Sun, Humans, Agriculture)
Symbol: Sun
Exarchs: Pelor, Zevra

Akir the Strong (Strength, Storms)
Symbol: Lion
Exarchs: Kord, Irotak

Kolar the Golden (Crafting, Dwarves, Wealth)
Symbol: Mountain w/coin
Exarchs: Moradin, Gallup

Luna the Eternal (Magic, Eladrin, Knowledge, Moon, Forest, Elves, Wilderness)
Symbol: Oak Tree
Exarchs: Corellon, Ioun, Melora, Sehanine

Zira the Lady Luck (Luck, Chance, Halflings)
Symbol: Clover
Exarchs: Avandra, Linora

The Keeper (War, Tyranny, Death, the Dead, Winter)
Symbol: White Dire Wolf
Exarchs: The Raven Queen, Asmodeus, Bane, Zorich

The Shadow (Secrets, Night, Deceit, Devils, Drow, Treachery, Tieflings)
Symbol: Dark Moon
Exarchs: Lolth, Vecna

The Devourer (Vengeance, Evil Dragons, Slaughter, Orcs, Evil, Demons)
Symbol: Many-headed Dragon
Exarchs: Gruumsh, Tiamat, Torog, Zehir[/sblock]

[sblock=Heroic tier]

Captured by kobolds!
*We started with a fight. The players had been lured into a trap by the slavers and captured by the slavers' allies, a tribe of kobolds. The kobolds were bringing them to Castle Whiterock, a ruin a couple of days march into the relatively unknown jungle east of Drahar. As we start, the kobolds have been attacked by large jungle cats (re-skinned dire wolves), and the players have managed to free themselves more or less, but get spotted as they try to retrieve their weapons. It was a great none-sense way of starting a campaign. We usually "waste" at least one evening with people trying to find themselves and their characters. This way, they are sort of forced into making up their mind on how their character is, because the world is pro-active, instead of reactive.*
Discover the ring of slavers operating out of their home town.
*Slightly inspired by the Castle Whiterock setup.*
Infiltrate one of their HQ's and by accident release something from the Shadowfell
*The first HQ was Keep on the Shadowfell, although in very abbreviated form. Never a huge fan of endless dungeons, I used the maps, but removed a lot of the encounters. Most of the party wiped out against the hobgoblins, but the survivors (those who ran like girls in time) came back and managed to stop the Orcus Priest - they failed at closing the portal however, and as they hid elsewhere to rest, something came through the portal. As they found out much later, it was the aspect of Yeenoghu. Now some might wonder what the hell he was doing in the Shadowfell, but that is not public information just yet - but lets just say he was tricked there and imprisoned after the War of the Ruin*
Make new alliances for their hometown with the lizardmen tribes in a swamp nearby.
*This was totally my players running with the ball. I had just planned they could bribe the lizardmen/diplomacy their way through, in order to get a guide for the swamp to locate the old church - but instead, they figured they would put a stopper to the attacks on merchants there had been.*
Kill some witches in a swamp and watch a church disappear along with a ally(?) into the Feywild
Follow the paper trail and discover the gnolls running the slave operation
*I was leading them towards Castle Whiterock (only the outer part) and then Thunderspire Labyrinth - which fit perfectly in my campaign due to the whole slaver theme - but also because we were going away for a whole weekend to play, and I had little time to prep - so I needed something to help me. The plan was also to introduce them to the Seven Pillared Hall - it would be the first contact their City/country would have with anyone from the new continent, or rather, almost. At any rate, it would make the players quite famous, if they played their cards right.*
Get captured and sold as slaves
*This was one of those times where things do not happen as you hope and imagine. The players took a wrong turn a couple of times, made a couple of bad choices and didn't pick up any hints laid out by the DM. Result: A 5th level party runs into 4 level 14 drows. 1 dead and 3 captured, with with an eaten finger. I could of course have killed the lot, but despite what my players say, I am not a fan of killing them, at least not when it causes a character change. I like continuity in my campaigns. So I spared 3 out of 4 and instead let the drows sell them as slaves to an Arena Master in SPH.*
Win their freedom by winning an arena competition
*It was fun running them through series of odd combats, but the best thing about the arena competition was that for the first time in 20 years, my players actually decided to take a name for their group - The Swords of Drahar.*
Destroy most of the gnoll slavers and their devil allies
*Thunderspire Labyrinth pumped up a few levels, with some encounters less. They missed the end part of the dungeon, as they got stuck in the oubliette for 3 months - luckily for them, they had just made a handy little bag of Everlasting Provisions*
Enter the feywild in search of Zeke - who was in the Church of the Keeper when it disappeared into the Feywild.
Stumble over a troll invasion in the Feywild
[/sblock]

[sblock=Paragon Tier]

Lead the defense of the eladrin town against the troll armies
Infiltrate the troll-home and afterwards the Feydark and kill (3 times!) the troll-king and liberate their friend.
*All Inspired by King of the Trollhaunt, although not more than that. I used the map, I used Skalmad the Troll King (although heavily modified) and 2-3 encounters from the adventure.*
Be hailed as heroes of the Feywild and their hometown (which is where the troll army was heading afterwards)
Become nobles
Learn that the aspect of Yeenoghu (which was what was released from the Shadowfell early on in the campaign) is assembling a horde of gnolls and demons and intend to head their way.
Return to the mortal world and take charge of their town (and fiefdom) as new noble of the realms.
Create visionary tax-breaks for the common man in order to attrack more business to their town.
Start building a church for Kord in said town.
Stop the magical plague that is killing their towns-men by travelling to an ancient primordial temple and taking the ritual from the dead hands of a lich and then killing the dracolich that is spreading the magical plague.
Track down the assassins who killed the high priest of Kord
Participate in the decision making process of choosing a new high priest of Kord, all while foiling a demon attack on their own manor, the goal being to secure one of the few portal areas near the home town.
Get trapped in a timeloop (1500 years back in time) in a battle between far realm's warped creatures led by a mad beholder and the dragonborn Tiamat-worshipers. Ends when the heroes kill the aspect of Tiamat
*This was just a side-treck. I was stuck on the players having to be a certain level before I could run the war against Yeenoghu (-again, because I wanted them to be a certain level before they face Yeenoghu). I have since fixed that problem by removing XP completely from my campaigns. Instead the players acquire XP as a group, based on the goals they accomplish. That way, I always know exactly what level the players will be when faced with a certain encounter. This also means that my players are free to solve any problem however they want. They know they will never lose XP over the way they choose to tackle things.*
Prepare and run the war preparations.
Strike a deal with Bane and with the Eladrin of the Feywild for support in the coming war.
Lead 30.000 men against 50.000 gnolls and demons in the Battles of Devil's Pass and winning the war.
*I used One Bad Egg's "Hardboiled Armies" to create all the armies of the war (around 25 different types). After a few modification based on the evaluation of the first test-skirmish, the rest of the war went really well and was fun. Not the best time ever in D&D, but still good fun, and as one of my players said - we will never forget the Battle of Devil's Pass - ever". Definitely a winner in my opinion and with some work, it could even be great the next time.*
Be even bigger heroes
Discover that the gods are not the real gods and that their fate is to kill the usurper gods - at least according to Bane and Asmodeus.
*Yeah, it was funny watching the party - which includes no less than 3 clerics of Kord be told that god their "god" worships is a fake, and that prophesies say they are the ones that might bring balance to things again. It definitely lit a fire in them, when they realized they might actually make their god an actual god  *
Head to Sigil to find a 3000 year old vampire - and strike a deal with him
Find a dungeon located under 2 miles of water, enter the dungeon and kill the demilich, thus acquiring one half of the ritual that will allow the heroes to enter the memories and mind of Kord.
*This was the original Tomb of Horror re-skinned to 4e. They almost screwed things up for themselves when they took the final battle against the demi-lich along with another encounter - without their magical items. They won, although it did cost them some resurrections - but at least it showed us that magical items are just a bonus, not a must, even at higher level.*
Find the Church of Luna who has the other part of the ritual. Hidden deep in the Feywild, the Oracle watches over it.
Travel to the Feydark, the mortal world and the Shadowfell, each place killing a dragon and taking his "heart", a rock described with the Draconic Prophecy.
Donate the 3 "hearts" to the Church of Luna, becoming honorary members and thus gaining access to the Oracle.
Acquiring the final half from the Oracle
Find out they are nowhere done. They need 3 things to make the ritual. A component (the Heart of Grazz't, an item (The Evil Eye, an ancient Fomorian artifact in the hands of King Balor) and a place for the ritual (undisclosed so far)
Head to the Abyss and find out the Heart of Grazz't is the high priestess he loves. Kidnap her from her inner sanctum under his nose, and flee home to figure out what to do with her.
Have their home church invaded by Orcus and Demogorgon, both after the drow as well, while demons and undead flood the town.
Defeat Orcus and Demogorgon, only to have Grazz't and friends show up for the final round of fun (and a little pain)
*The final battles (PC's vs Orcus?Demogorgon and PC's vs Grazz't) was just perfection. I wanted something over the top crazy for the battle that would be leading into epic, and I got it. I wanted the players to be a bout de souffle, and I got that too. 2 needed a resurrection, 3 had 2 failed death saves after the fight with Grazz't. The last had only 1 failed save. They were completely out of healing and for a couple of rounds, only the wizard was on his feet, facing of Grazz't alone (save by the bell.. or rather his cloak of displacement and stoneskin. I do not think I could have hoped for a closer battle and I definitely think it will be a while until they forget the opening, where two men who called on them in the church each toss their Instant Gate down and Orcus and Demogorgon step through, screaming and howling in unison: Give us the whore!*

[/sblock]


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## Jack99 (Oct 23, 2009)

While they did level to 21 after the fight last time, not much happened afterwards. A lot of time was spent talking about feats, powers and epic destinies. And damage of the monsters. For a while now (3-4 levels or so, IIRC), I have been adjusting all monsters by a simple formula *-33% hit points and +50% damage*. It has given us some very quick combats, or at least quicker combats. I like the adjustment a lot, but as it became obvious last night, at least one of my players thought it was a bit much. He felt it was pushing the cleric a lot towards being a heal-bot again. Sure, lots of heals are minor actions, its not that. Its more the fact that the increased DPR removes choices. Because once someone was bloodied, they had to be healed before a round would pass, or they would most likely be dead. I personally think his judgment is a bit colored by the fight against Orcus and Demogorgon where there pressure to heal was extremely high at first, but since my campaign is their campaign, we quickly decided to tweak damage for a while to *-25% hit points, +33% damage*. To be fair, they have been needing resurrection more often since I instituted the HP/damage change.

The next time we play (on Tuesday), they will be heading down to the Feydark and probably kick in the door to King Balor's castle and see if they can't kill their way through it to him and the Evil Eye. Then again, both the rogue and the warlock will be missing, so maybe they will take another approach.

Before that, I need to spend some time thinking about how I can incorporate their Epic Destiny into the campaign, so that it impacts on it. Some are obvious, some are not so obvious.

As noted in my sig, the characters are (all 21st level):
Gnoguh, human fighter/cleric (kensei->adamantine soldier)
Carric, elf cleric/ranger (radiant servant->saint)
Torn, tiefling wizard/cleric (divine oracle->sages of ages)
Truxas, human feylock/bard (feytouched->feyliege)
Tagron, human rogue (daggermaster->deadly trickster)


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## Desdichado (Oct 23, 2009)

I'm sorry, but I can't contemplate the concept of an "epic virgin" while at work.

Maybe this evening.  When I'm all alone in my room...


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## Jack99 (Oct 23, 2009)

*Adamantine Soldier*
First of all, Gnoguh should be properly celebrated. The common man identifies himself much easier with the fighter, the guy with armor and the axe. After all, anyone can don an armor and use an axe. It's much harder for a common stable boy to imagine the warlock or the wizard doing his thing. Kings should send their daughters in hope of securing a son-in-law who can and has killed demon lords - not to mention almost 1-rounded a Balor.

The second step is to provide Mr. Tank with an iconic armor. He already has (since level 13ish) the Arcanite Reaper (Yeah, its a cheesy steal, but it fits like a glove), which is definitely getting more and more known. Now I just need to come up with something really special armor-wise... Visually as well as mechanically.

*Saint*
Carric has already gotten his first taste of epic-dom. The day the Swords killed 3 demon lords in the Cathedral of Kord, is henceforth known as Carric's day. Obviously, as time passes, it will be more and more widely known that a Saint walks the earth again (hasn't happened in a while) and people will flock to Drahar. I am guessing that maybe his own Church of Kord will swell (in the town in his fiefdom), surpassing the original Church of Kord in Drahar. He should also have at least one or two encounters with other Kord followers who have received word of Carric through the god. Of course, to Carric it's Kord, but to most of the rest of the world its Akir the Strong.

*Sages of Ages*
He already has his own tower, that was granted to him after the Battle of Devil's Pass. Followers (read apprentices) have been flocking for at least half a year, maybe more. He should start getting visits from other archmages, some wanting information, some wanting help, some wanting to see what he is. As he gains a few levels, he should start getting in contact with a few aspects of the gods - then again, this will quickly end once the gods figure out what the Swords are up to. Maybe a gold dragon could stop by one day, that ought to scare the  out of some people at least.

*Feyliege*
Truxas already a lover of the Queen of the Summer Court, it might be time that rumours will begin that the Queen might wed truxas. Of course, the fact that Torn has found the divine spark in Truxas already makes him fairly pivotal in his own mind anyway. Since they are heading to the Feydark, maybe the Fomorians have heard of him too. Again, maybe there will be some eladrin to free from King Balor's capital, eladrins who are big fans of Truxas.

*Deadly trickster*
There is already one prophecy where Torn saw Truxas becoming a god instead of Luna, but with Tagron lurking in the shadows and the rest of the Swords dead at their feet. Of course, this he didn't tell anyone. Tagron also recently acquired a interesting dagger that might cause him to take center stage at some point, but for now, he is viewed mostly as a side kick. I think his epic destiny will be the one I play up the least.

The next thing to do is to think about how I make the Fomorian castle more epic. I mean, sure, battling through hordes of level 20+ monsters is kind of epic, but I want it to be more than just another dungeon with bigger monsters. It will be like that a bit, at least for this level. The next quest/level after this one will prove to be a bit different. And the one after that will be radically different from anything I have ever done. But more about that later.

I also need to start foreshadowing the awakening of the Tarrasque. I have decided they should run into one, later. Because they can.


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## Wik (Oct 23, 2009)

Funniest.  Thread Title.  EVER.

And yes, a Tarrasque fight would be fun.  Also, you need an encounter where they ride dragons.  And fight multiple dragons at once (restat them so they're "just" level 25 brutes or something, not Elites or solos... and then throw five of them at the party!).


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## thatdarnedbob (Oct 23, 2009)

Question. Did you tone down the demon lords at all, or did you play it straight? And if they were played as written, how in the 9 hells did your party even make it close, let alone win?


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## coyote6 (Oct 23, 2009)

I believe he said they were aspects, not the full on demon lords.


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## Rechan (Oct 23, 2009)

Jack, I'm ecstatic to find out your all weekend session went great.  



Wik said:


> And fight multiple dragons at once (restat them so they're "just" level 25 brutes or something, not Elites or solos... and then throw five of them at the party!).



You know, I remember seeing someone post on this board that they sent four young white dragons (so four 3rd level solo brutes) against an 11th level party. The fight was even only because the dragons could slow people and got a few crits, otherwise they weren't a serious threat to the party.

I think throwing some lower level solos at the party would be really cool. If you don't mind things going slower.

As far as the *Adamantite Soldier* and his armor, I think you should use Balor's armor. A great place to drop it, and a great villain to claim it from.


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## Jack99 (Oct 23, 2009)

thatdarnedbob said:


> Question. Did you tone down the demon lords at all, or did you play it straight? And if they were played as written, how in the 9 hells did your party even make it close, let alone win?




As mentioned by Coyote6, they were indeed just aspects. IMC Demon lords can't just enter the mortal world, just as gods can't. The Primal Spirits keep them out. Stat-wise, Orcus was a 21 solo, Demogorgon was a 21 solo and Grazz't was a 23 solo. A lot like a powered down version of what is in the books, but still tweaked a lot to provide suitable challenge for my players. Orcus was so-so, Demogorgon really successful and Grazz't was just plain nasty, so overall, I am quite happy with how they turned out.

I made them solos, based on player feedback. A few levels earlier, they fought and killed Yeenoghu (more or less straight by the book, ie 20-something elite) and even though it was a close battle, they were a bit disappointed that the aspect of the demon lord fell so easily.

Speaking of solos, I have found them to be a bit tricky. First of all, many of them simply do not have the damage output to be a significant threat to a 5 man party. Also, many solos rely on melee attacks to do their thing, which limits them a lot. So solos are probably the type of monster where I make the most changes. Below are the solo-specific changes that I try to incorporate in every solo.

Make sure that the solo has a 3-4 attacks as a standard action. Ideally it should have to divide those attacks on several targets within range (4 focused attacks every round on a single fighter in melee might hurt a bit too much), while not being forced to only be able to hit the melee character once if he is alone.
Make sure that the solo has a way to get and hurt the casters, even after the fighter has it locked down. That can be any number of tricks, from dazing the fighter (to be used sparingly or it will be a totally unfun fight for the fighter), to teleport as a move/minor, a powerful ranged attack (preferably one that doesn't draw OA's, or the fighter will eat the solo quicker than you can say cookie) or even better, a summon ability (look up Demogorgon if you do not know what I am talking about). 
I also like to give the solos a boost when they bloody, be it more attacks or more actions. It keeps the players on their toes and they seem to enjoy it as well (masochists!)
Conditions. Those are really troublesome - There is a wizard, a cleric and a feylock in the group, and with no restrains they can lock down just about any solo for most of the combat. Sure, it might get out of conditions once in a while, but it will at that point be so amputated and not to mention  far behind in the damage it has to do to keep players challenged, that it will never be able to keep up. Now, I know the advice given by Mearls, to use lower level solos and then add standard monsters to the fight, but I want a system where I can do both. In my vision of things, some monsters just make more sense if they are alone. So I have been trying different things, such as the "save twice per turn" power that gods have, or the "use action point or standard action" to remove effects and several other things. ATM we are testing something new, that (IMO) worked quite well in the Grazz't fight - I call it the condition track.

The premise is quite simple. When a solo is hit by the last condition of a spell (so in the case of sleep, its when the sleep part affects it), the condition track takes over. When the solo then makes a saving throw, two things can happen. 
1) It makes the save - business as usual. The condition is gone (aftereffects if any kick in) and fight continues.
2) It fails the save - and gains the condition one spot lower on the condition track (save ends).

Example: Lets say that Orcus gets stunned (save ends). On his turn (at the end of it), Orcus makes his usual saving throw with +5 solo bonus. If he makes it, he is free (just as always) but if he fails, he is instead dazed (save ends). 

*Sleep / Helpless
Stun / No Attack / Dominated
Daze
Slowed

Blind / Weakened
-2 to hit

Restrained
Immobilized
Slowed*

So yes, this means that you will at most get one round of the real powerful conditions to stick on a solo. But TBH, that's like having it on 5 regular monsters for a round, or 5 rounds on one monster. It's pretty good already. I talked it over with my players before implementing it (just as I do with all rules) and they didn't think it was unfair or anything. We'll see how it works, but it will take some time to collect sufficient data.

The -2 to hit condition below Blind / Weakened is something I have added because I felt there needed to be something between free of conditions and Blind / Weakened, else the jump would be too big.


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## Jack99 (Oct 23, 2009)

Wik said:


> Funniest.  Thread Title.  EVER.



Thanks!


> And yes, a Tarrasque fight would be fun.  Also, you need an encounter where they ride dragons.  And fight multiple dragons at once (restat them so they're "just" level 25 brutes or something, not Elites or solos... and then throw five of them at the party!).




Regarding restating. 

lvl 1 solo = 500 xp
lvl 6 elite = 500 xp
lvl 10 standard = 500 xp
lvl 18 minion = 500 xp

lvl 10 solo = 2500 xp
lvl 15 elite = 2400 xp
lvl 19 standard = 2400 xp
lvl 26 minion = 2250 xp

If you look at the numbers, you will see a trend. What I am saying is that, if want a bit of verisimilitude or sandboxing in your campaign (and I do, to a certain degree) this is my go-to table.

Basically, lets say the players meet a young blue dragon (lvl 6 solo) at level 4. They are losing the fight, and decide to make a run for it, and by sheer luck, they get away. A couple of months/years later, those players are now level 12. They decide to head back to the dragon's lair and enact their revenge on it. Then I would have made the dragon a level 11 elite instead of a 6 solo - hell, for ease of things, I might even make it a level 12 elite. Had they come back around level 15 or so, I would have made it a standard monster. Still the young dragon and thus much less of a threat to a party than it was 10 levels earlier. Had they waited until epic tier to come back, it would (yes) have been a minion. I mean, a young dragon is basically just a fly to swat away for characters on the way to godhood. Okay, maybe  not with a dragon, but with any other solo, definitely.

I realize this will not work for every group, but it has worked well for mine so far. 

Anyway, what I wanted to say was that I really like your idea of battling dragons in the sky, and will definitely use it at some point. They will be riding young dragons (standard monsters) and fighting a real dragon (solo) and its children (elites/standards). Should be fun. I guess I am going to have to make something like the guy from PA to handle that 3D fight - gulp.


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## Rechan (Oct 23, 2009)

I notice most of the characters are multi-classed. What's the reason behind that?


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## Jack99 (Oct 24, 2009)

Rechan said:


> I notice most of the characters are multi-classed. What's the reason behind that?




Well, its really different reasons. First of, these characters were created back when 4e just came out, so people wanted to explore the different possibilities a bit. But also (a big part of it) was bringing the party together and creating some consistency. After a near-wipe around level 2, I brought out the idea of creating a party that had more in common. Or at least some of them. 

Carric was going to a cleric of Kord, and so the Fighter decided to multi-class into cleric (of Kord) as well, to bring them closer together (I am guessing that he didn't mind the extra Healing Word). He was also at the time afraid that a fighter might turn out to be a bit too boring in the long run (they had in the previous editions - to him anyway), so he wanted to keep his options open, maybe going for some ritual casting later on. As it turns out, it was never needed. 

The wizard made a background about his father working for the Church of Kord, having visions and premonitions that he expressed as paintings (yeah, and he has never seen an episode of Heroes). That way, we had a trio of the party, the core being Kord-centric. Then, as they gained a few levels, I started giving visions to the wizard. From there, it was a no-brainer to pick up a multi-class feat and multi-class him into cleric (of Kord of course) so that he could pick up divine oracle (and later sage of ages) to round of his character. 

Why the Cleric chose to multi-class into ranger and the warlock into bard? The cleric did it to get perception trained, and he felt it fit the theme of the campaign (lots of exploring the new world vibe). The warlock did it for some sort of optimization. Not anything broken or even remotely, but in the mind of his player, it gave him some nifty bonuses that he wanted for the character. This doesn't bother me much. I prefer that people have the character that they want, I have found it makes for much better campaigns.


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## Uruush (Oct 24, 2009)

A bit off topic, but how do you determine +33% damage relatively quickly?  (or not quickly)  Do you make all your monsters ahead of time?

A year of experience with 4E has me leaning towards this for a new Paragon game:

All opponents -2/-3/-4 to all defenses. (by tier)  

 All opponents +2/+3/+4 damage to all attacks. (by tier)

Minions typically take 2 hits to take out (bloodied on first hit) unless critically hit.  Damage 

done by a Controller or a Daily Power may also take them out (they must Save).


Elite and Solo monsters can and often will pay 10% of their full hit point value to either recharge encounter powers or to attempt Saves at the _beginning_ of their turns instead of the end.

***

So, I'm upping the damage and lowering the defenses but not lowering the HP (except lowering the defenses has a similar effect while also allowing the players to miss less often)  Expertise feats are also banned so the defense lowering is effectively more like -1/-2/-3.

Except in the case of Elites and Solos where I'm intending to effectively lower the hitpoints of those by about 80% most of the time to either guarantee a recharge for an interesting Encounter attack that the dice won't seem to let me recharge or to mitigate  some ridiculous stun/daze/prone-lock against a Solo.

With opponents doing higher damage I also expect I might have a foe or two fewer in many combats which is _like_ fewer hitpoints to chew through. And to supplement these smaller numbers with my toughened minions.

I'm using a flat number by tier because that's really easy for me, but I'm curious about your 33%.


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## Rechan (Oct 24, 2009)

I just find it really funny that everyone (except the Cleric) Multi-classed into a Leader. So you have four PCs who can throw around an extra heal. I think Jack's games must be rather brutal.  

I also wonder that, if they made their characters now, they might have went with different Divine classes. 

But that's rather cool, Jack.


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## Mr. Wilson (Oct 24, 2009)

Rechan said:


> I just find it really funny that everyone (except the Cleric) Multi-classed into a Leader. So you have four PCs who can throw around an extra heal. I think Jack's games must be rather brutal.




He did houserule a 50% damage increase, so the players probably needed the extra healing (and he did note that resurrections increased as a result).


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## Jack99 (Oct 24, 2009)

Uruush said:


> I'm using a flat number by tier because that's really easy for me, but I'm curious about your 33%.




I considered doing the flat number by tier, but the math-part of me got afraid I would screw up the balance - I realize this is totally silly, but I just couldn't get past it. The other reason for not lowering the defenses, was that IME, the rogue hits a lot of monsters on an already ludicrous roll. With lower defenses, he would be hitting on 2's and 3's very often.

I always spend time preparing for an adventure, and that includes some tweaking of monsters. With the Adventure Tools its really quick and takes only 20 seconds to "fix" a monster.

Of course, when my players do something that surprises me and I suddenly need to wing a monster, it takes some calculating. But if you are any good calculating by head, it's really quite easy and quick to divide a number by 3.


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## Jack99 (Oct 24, 2009)

Mr. Wilson said:


> He did houserule a 50% damage increase, so the players probably needed the extra healing (and he did note that resurrections increased as a result).




Well to be fair, the 50% house-rule has been in place since around level 16-17 or so. Before that I experimented with other fixes for another level or two. The players all multi-classed before level 3, and back then, our 4e was 100% by the book (IIRC, we had absolutely no house rules until the paragon tier). 

When that is said, my players have been my players for almost 20 years, and they claim I am what would translate best as a Rat Bastard DM.


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## Uruush (Oct 24, 2009)

I see now.  So you don't translate 1d8+5 into a fixed value that will be 33% higher - you roll damage then divide by three, round to nearest whole number and add that value to your rolled damage.  That makes a lot more sense.  

Probably not something I could do lightning fast, though.


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## Jack99 (Oct 24, 2009)

Uruush said:


> I see now.  So you don't translate 1d8+5 into a fixed value that will be 33% higher - you roll damage then divide by three, round to nearest whole number and add that value to your rolled damage.  That makes a lot more sense.
> 
> Probably not something I could do lightning fast, though.




Actually I do. Sorry if I was unclear in my last post. If a monsters does 1d8+5 damage; thats 9,5 average. That means it has to do on average a bit more than 3 more, which in turn it translates to 1d8+8 damage. Makes more sense?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 25, 2009)

Wik said:


> Funniest.  Thread Title.  EVER.




Agreed 100%!

Now we need someone to make a thread about Dire Hookers!

(You know, about big, dangerous rugby players?)


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## Puggins (Oct 25, 2009)

Uruush said:


> I see now.  So you don't translate 1d8+5 into a fixed value that will be 33% higher - you roll damage then divide by three, round to nearest whole number and add that value to your rolled damage.  That makes a lot more sense.
> 
> Probably not something I could do lightning fast, though.




If you want to do an approximation on the fly, do this:

(1) increase the die type by one.  If the die type is d12, add 2 points to the bonus for every die rolled.

(2) add an additional 50% of the bonus, rounded down.

This comes close as long as the bonus isn't huge compared to the die.

Exampes:

d6 + 1 becomes d8 + 1 (~23% increase)

d8 + 2 becomes d10 + 3 (~30% increase)

d8 + 4 becomes d10 + 6 (~35% increase)

d10 + 5 becomes d12 + 7 (~30% increase)

d12 + 5 becomes d12 + 9 (~35% increase)


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## Jack99 (Oct 26, 2009)

I am prepping for tomorrow - and suddenly it struck me, should you even bother with "random" encounters anymore? 

And when I say "random", I do mean pre-planned encounters that happen when the players are on the road, going from point A to point B. 

"Random" encounters should (IMO) set the tone and show what kind of area the PC's are traveling through. If they travel through Spider Woods, they should have a spider-encounter, because honestly, what is the point of creating a wood called Spider Woods and feed the players rumors of the huge spiders that live in it, if they do not encounter any when they finally go there.

Anyway, point is, how "realistic" are random encounters that technically could challenge a minor god? I mean, there is a limit as to how many elder purple worms or the like a party can meet. 

Or what?


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## Moon_Goddess (Oct 26, 2009)

I'm in the camp of you shouldn't have random encounters at that point, 

EXCEPT while traveling through areas level appropriate. like in the abyss itself.


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## Novem5er (Oct 26, 2009)

Jack99,

Thanks for the great thread. I'm at the start of a paragon Eberron campaign and reading through your past adventures has given me some ideas.

I also wanted to share my experience using the Monster Builder to modify monsters. I plan for all my adventures and I "fix" all of my monsters using the Monster Builder. I reduce all monster HP by 33% ( just multiply the existing HP by .66 using a calculator and edit it right there in the Builder). I then go to each attack and add 50% damage using the method you described above: take average damage (dice + modifier) and then add half of *that* as a bonus i.e. 1d8 + 5 becomes 1d8 + 9 and I change it right there in the Builder.

I then copy each edited monster as an image, then paste it in a landscape Word document. I can usually get 2 or 3 monsters per page of a Word document, and I just print those out before we play.

It's worked great. Combats are quicker and more exciting. It's a little swingy, but nobody's died... yet.

The builder is also great for some "on the fly" encounters. My players unexpectedly ambushed a Warforged NPC that I had no stats for. I just pulled up a standard Warforged Soldier in the Monster Builder, changed his level to 11, made him an elite, and rolled init. This won't work with a whole group of on the fly monsters... but given 5 minutes I can create just the encounter I need.

I actually no longer look up monsters by level. I look at monsters _thematically_ for what I want in my adventure, and then I edit accordingly with the Builder.

I might _play _third edition again... but never in a million years would I DM it


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## Herobizkit (Oct 27, 2009)

I couldn't help but think of Iron Man when the OP mentioned rewarding his Armored PC.  Perhaps something in silver and gold, maybe some wings, maybe a cross on the helmet as a visor... and of course, glowing gold runes/details all over.

Something like this:






Fits the religious aspect nicely, too. Thoughts?


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## Jack99 (Oct 28, 2009)

Herobizkit said:


> Fits the religious aspect nicely, too. Thoughts?




I think it's too Captain America for my player, but you gave me an idea. The player is quite good at drawing, and unsurprisingly, he likes drawing fantasy stuff when he has the time. I think I will tell him to draw up his own armor, how he would want it to look.


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## Jack99 (Oct 28, 2009)

*Session 58*


All monsters tonight were tweaked with the 25-33 model (-25% hit points, +33% damage)
All fomorians the players run into tonight are standard monsters (not elite, not solo). This is to simulate the fact that they are higher level than most fomorians.
We "wasted" a lot of time tonight. One of the players had to show off an appartment for sale nearby to a good (lady) friend, so we started late. Then our guest player arrived, and we spend some time telling him abit about 4e and the combat system and how to read the character sheet.
*Summary.*
After a short debate about their options and clues at hand, they decided it was time to head to the Feydark. The goblin stronghold was located deep in the Forest of Autumn Rain, about a weeks travel away.

Even though the players chose only to fly there on griffons, I fast-forwarded the treck so that the players found themselves in front of the stronghold quickly. As might have been hinted elsewhere, I am not a huge fan of random encounters at this level, unless it is to show off something or another specific purpose.
Once outside the stronghold, there was a brief debate on how to proceed. "Shouldn't we scout a bit said Torn (Wizard)" - "Nah, these are goblins, we are epic, baby" said Carric (cleric), "Lets just demand they surrender and let us past". No sooner suggested than done, and they were let inside the stronghold. Of course, since Carric had failed his initial intimidation check, the goblins were merely letting them in so that they could surround and kill the players.

At this point, there was only 3 players - a guest star would arrive later (starting his 4e career playing a 21st level barbarian with 174 hp and 17 surges!)
The goblins were level 15 minions doing on average 1d10+6 damage on a hit. This was actually the first house-rule I instituted in 4e, around level 2 or 3 I think. I grew bored of the fixed damage of minions and upped their damage a good bit (but still a bit below what a normal monster would do). Has definitely made minions work better as a 1-4 ratio to a normal monster. At level 15 they would need mostly 15+ to hit any character in the party. It was still possible, but I wanted to show off to the players that they were epic now, by using a lot of minions. Like, really a lot.
Obviously, things did not quite work out for the poor goblin tribe. They were completely outmatched by the epic characters and although they did manage to bloody both Carric and Torn a couple of times, they were nowhere near killing anyone. At least until the help arrived. 3 fomorians came out of the cave leading to the Feydark. That evened the odds a bit, but overall, it was not a huge challenge.
The goblins came in random waves, with around 15 starting on the board, and around 10 arriving per round on the battlefield. 1/4th of the goblins charged in melee, while the rest stood at range and plunked fire arrows on the characters.
All in all, they killed 52 lvl 15 minions.
3 lvl 21 fomorians, 2 soldiers and a lurker.
My players have big trouble with conditions. Especially getting rid of them. They seem to have little help if they miss their save. Ie, very little ability to grant others (other than a heal check)
Gnoguh one-shotted one of the soldiers in the first round with a crit. Then he spent 5 rounds being pounded from outside his reach because he was immobilized. Then he critted and killed the last soldier, which at this point was only slightly wounded. Criticals from a +4 executioners axe and all the other stuff is just lethal.
Overall this fight went really well. The waves of goblins managed to convey the epic feeling well, with the fomorians' arrival making a challenging fight instead of just a walk-over.
After clearing out the stronghold (they did let women and children go) they found a dwarf named gork, who happened to have nothing to do...

Yeah, it was a guest star thing, we kinda ignored the whys and hows concerning his character. We have never been huge on introductions in our campaigns.
Onwards they moved, or perhaps rather downwards. After a couple of hours of traveling in the darkness, they ran into some drows who were quickly dismissed.

Again only minions (6 level 21st minions), to show off their überness. At this level, standard monsters are just walkovers, which these were as well. I even let the players get the jump on them, something they never get to almost. 
Moving on, they finally arrived to what they figured to be the castle of King Balor. A 300' wide stalagmite standing in a even bigger pool of lava, all located in what must have been the biggest cave they had ever seen. A bridge was spanning the lava at the point where it was the narrowest (around 50-80 ft), leading to some huge iron doors.

Gnoguh immediately wanted to go hit whatever guards there surely was on the head and get things started. Torn's player however, said he was tired of going through the front doors. He was epic and thus felt he should do things in style. So using (flying) Phantasmal Steed and Passwall rituals, they quickly went up, away from the lava, and entered the castle through a wall, surprising 5 fomorians. The fomorians were relatively quickly dispatched, but a quickling who was also there got away.

+35 arcana is extremely handy for a lot of rituals. I am going to have to watch even more closely what the rituals he has can do, if I want to counter his ideas at times.
There is not 43 ways of saying things. I screwed up with the last fight. Its odd how you can figure out something is bad, then remember it every time  you prep for more than a year, and then go on forgetting it from one day to the next. I used 5 different monsters. That's a big no-no in my book. In theory, I am sure it sounds like fun and complex and whatnot, but to be honest, it slows down the combats and it makes me make mistakes, forgetting powers, forgetting auras etc. It didn't help at all that the fomorians at least had 2 attacks per round, despite not being elites. One Evil Eye power, one standard attack power, although some had two. It made the combat a bit slow (as I had to double check to hits and effects a lot) and it was already way too static.
The static nature of the fight was a more general problem, one that I will need to think about alot for time to come. Its the issue of huge creatures. Even with a huge combat area, huge stairway, hall etc, the combat was very confined to the same area. The monsters are just to big to get around easily, and they had to huddle up really close in order to be able to hit/affect the same players.
Either I need to figure out how to design the encounter area so that they are spread more out, or redesign all my encounters so that there are way fewer huge creatures. Either by making them elite again and then adding other creatures that are smaller (cyclops most likely), or just adding other monsters. Period. One thing for sure is that my idea to make use of huge fomorian minions is dead. Stonedead.
Next time, Carric won't be there, but Tagron and Truxas will return. It's always fun to see how things go when Carric is on vacation.


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## Jack99 (Oct 28, 2009)

After some thinking, I definitely think it was a bad idea to not have the fomorians be elite creatures. Huge (and bigger monsters) just work better if they are elite, else the board will be way too crowded. They also might seem too weak for their size. 

So for next time, I am going to remake all fomorians as elites and use a lot more cyclops. This means that the typical combat will have at most 1 or 2 fomorians. The rest will be cyclops (or other monsters, of course).

This change will hopefully improve the combats. I will notify my players though, since they now have a perceived idea about how strong/powerful fomorians are.


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## Jack99 (Nov 3, 2009)

Looks like tonight's game will be semi-amputated again. Cleric is on vacation and the Wizard just bought a new house and needs to work to get it ready for the move. 

So a defender and 3 strikers. That should be interesting. Sure, they still have a little healing, but the mindboggling amounts of healing that Carric tosses around is gone, so they will definitely have to consider some sneaking around instead of just kicking down the front doors. Then again, they are atm inside the Fomorian fortress, so I guess they have already kicked down *the* door.

I still need to figure out a few terrain features of the mad laboratory before tonight. What could possibly go wrong in the laboratory of a mad beholder?


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## Jack99 (Nov 20, 2009)

First of all, we canceled a few weeks. So when we played Tuesday, it was the first time in 3 weeks. This is the longest I have gone without playing since we returned to the game during 3.5, so I think I was experiencing something close to withdrawals  - Who am I kidding, I know exactly how that feels like, so yeah, it felt similar. Kinda sad.

I had 6 players on Tuesday, the usual 5 and their barbarian sidekick who so far enjoys 4e and keeps coming back. He still hasn't read a single line in the books, but going from the character sheet and a few questions, he has had very little issue keeping up, even at 21st level.

Anyway, the sacking of King Balor Castle continued. Starting where we left off the last time, the Swords of Drahar ran into (or rather found) some Eladrin who had been captured by the Fomorians. The Eladrins were honored to have been freed by the Swords of Drahar, but a little saddened that the Swords hadn't come for them. Gnoguh was very admired (which annoyed Mr. Fey aka Truxas to no end). They were freed and sent home (to the Summer Court) via a speedy Link Portal.

I allow for quicker casting time of rituals. You can halve the casting time by doubling the amount of residuum needed. You can't go below 1 minute though. So far, there has been no issues with the rule (and its been there since level 2), but I am sure if analyzed (TBH I haven't bothered), one could come up with several problematic situations. But casting Raise Dead in a minute would cost 12,8 million gold pieces, not an insignificant amount of money.

After sending away the Eladrins, the Swords proceeded to explore this level of the castle. They found a room with tubes of a gooey yellow liquid and Eladrins that had had artificial glass eyes inserted instead of their usual eye - think Aliens 4, where she discovers the clones. The Fomorians and Cyclops in the room died swiftly and without mercy. With the opposition gone, the Swords decided to smash all tubes and burn the corpses of the Eladrin. Which surprised me a lot. Epic characters who still care!

However, that was not all that was to find in the room. In the corner, chained up in magical chains like a dog, was an Angel of Akir - and also the mirror. To most, it was just another mirror, but Torn saw a glimpse of the future in it, with Carric kneeling before Asmodeus.

[sblock=Who is Akir again?]
Akir the Strong (Strength, Storms)
Symbol: Lion
Exarchs: Kord, Irotak[/sblock]

[sblock=Why the gloomy future?]
Point about the visions of the future is to make Torn (and therefore all of them) insecure of their alliance with Asmodeus and Bane. I mean, you just can't make a deal with the devil (literally) and not have second guesses, just because the DM gave you the mission. By now, Torn and Torns player are both convinced that it is some set up or trap or plot by Asmodeus to get the Swords of Drahar to do his dirty work. Well he is, but ATM, he fully intends to uphold his part of the bargain, at least more or less. Of course this may all change if the Swords start distrusting him and behave accordingly; who knows what could happen.[/sblock]

The Angel is as mentioned an Angel of Akir, named Anael. He was ambushed and trapped by the Fomorians. Why? That is a good question. I left it deliberately vague, because the point of the Angel being here was to be introduced to the players for a later purpose. I am not quite sure what for yet, but being an Angel of Akir, who is the god who has the spot Kord should have, I am sure my players will come up with something useful to do with that acquaintance. Once released, he could find his own way home, only with a little help, so  he quickly left the party. Although not before giving them the means to contact him again (just a simple ritual, involving his name).

Onwards they went, into the next room of nightmares (which happened to be nearby). In there, there was stone-slabs en masse, all filled with monsters made of parts from many other monsters. I had high hopes for the level 22 undead beholder and his cronies in here, but to be honest, he went down faster than a cheerleader on prom night. Sure it won initiative, but once it's immediate ray missed the cleric, it was all but over. Solar Wrath is just brutal, and add a turn undead, and it was already fairly wounded, due to a high vulnerability to radiant damage. Then the rogue did 273 points of damage in a round and the beholder was down to 150 hit points, with one round accounted for. All in all, it survived 1½ round, despite the fact that the fighter was confused from start to finish. Not the fine battle I had envisioned. But since the first beholder combat they had (around level 15 iirc) went pretty much the same way, I have decided and announced that there will be no more beholders in this campaign, as they suck.

Moving on, they explore quite a bit (found an ancient shrine, and a patrol of guards) ending up in an Arena several floors above where they entered. There an Hydra was released on them (or rather on Gnoguh) because he decided to cross over the arena floor instead of taking the "long" away around via where the public sits. Lets just say that even with 6 attacks per round, a level 22 solo brute is not much a danger to a fighter like Gnoguh. This one died quite quickly too, and I am not sure, but I think Gnoguh could have killed it on his own.

Then, instead of leaving out through the main doors of the Arena, they got the idea to explore the VIP-box - because, as Carric said: A real King has a secret way between his box and throne-room, after all, who wants to mingle with the rabble if you can avoid it.

Which was exactly what I thought when I decided there would be a secret short-cut there. A few traps and some disarming later, the Swords of Drahar were heading up the stairs, up towards the throne room, where they ran into King Balor, his pet Quickling and Nymph (druid) lover. There is a fourth adversary in the room, but he will be a surprise.

This is where we stopped.

Overall, there was some positive and some negative. I was happy about the speed of combats, even with 6 players. 4 combats in 5 hours, and we also did a lot of exploration and a good deal of roleplaying discussing. Overall, combats must have been around 45 minutes on average. @21st w/6 players, that's acceptable.

Problem was that the fights were way too easy. It's been 6 combats since they rested, and they seem hardly affected by it. I never expected the Hydra to be a hard encounter, but the Beholder (and friends) should have been harder than it was. I am wondering if this is a trend, or merely a coincidence. Only time will tell, but if this is how the game is at higher levels, my combat setup definitely needs some tweaking to match what they can do.


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## pawsplay (Nov 20, 2009)

Wik said:


> Funniest.  Thread Title.  EVER.




Well, you know (grandmas tread carefully), 



Spoiler



Technically, an epic virgin could still quality for Awesome Blow



Sorry, could not resist. Just could not.


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## Novem5er (Nov 21, 2009)

Jack99, thanks for the update!

I've really been enjoying your play-by-play at epic levels. Again, I'm running a paragon campaign, so it's neat to see where the characters could go (power and adventure-wise).

The problem I'm having is that I'm running my campaign in Eberron. This is GREAT for paragon-level stories and I have no shortage of ideas for the moment (in fact, I have TOO many threats/plots/villains).

However, looking ahead, I'm having a hard time visualizing what an Eberron campaign will look like at epic levels. There are a host of epic level monsters and villains that WotC has produced... but they are not necessarily tailored to Eberron. I'm not sure how to prevent the things that FEEL Eberron (dragonmarked houses, 5 kingdoms, lightning rails, etc) from becoming just a backdrop while the players kill high level demons, elementals, and titans.

But your thread at least helps to show what the players can do and the cool things they can fight. I just need to create an Eberron story behind it all.

Just musing here... not asking for advice


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## Jack99 (Nov 21, 2009)

Novem5er said:


> Jack99, thanks for the update!
> 
> I've really been enjoying your play-by-play at epic levels. Again, I'm running a paragon campaign, so it's neat to see where the characters could go (power and adventure-wise).



 Most welcome, glad you are enjoying it.



> The problem I'm having is that I'm running my campaign in Eberron. This is GREAT for paragon-level stories and I have no shortage of ideas for the moment (in fact, I have TOO many threats/plots/villains).
> 
> However, looking ahead, I'm having a hard time visualizing what an Eberron campaign will look like at epic levels. There are a host of epic level monsters and villains that WotC has produced... but they are not necessarily tailored to Eberron. I'm not sure how to prevent the things that FEEL Eberron (dragonmarked houses, 5 kingdoms, lightning rails, etc) from becoming just a backdrop while the players kill high level demons, elementals, and titans.
> 
> ...




Since you are not asking for advice, I won't be giving any. Not that I would ever presume to be able to when it comes to Eberron. I like the setting (as in when I read the Campaign Guide), but it never caught enough interest for me to explore more than just that, so my knowledge is fairly limited when it comes to that setting.

What I can say is that epic tier seems to be radically different from the two last tiers, when it comes to stories and plots. It's really more than a notch up, and therefore, I think that most epic campaigns will naturally drift off to the planes and such, leaving not only the natural world behind, but also many of the plots of the world. Many setting-specific things are just too low-key to be used at the epic tier.

My point? Well mostly that the challenge you seem face is one that many settings will have. Maybe some less than others, but I am guessing there is a very limited amount of epic tier setting specific challenges around. Even in settings like FR.


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## Hawke (Nov 21, 2009)

I too enjoy your comments.



Jack99 said:


> What I can say is that epic tier seems to be radically different from the two last tiers, when it comes to stories and plots. It's really more than a notch up, and therefore, I think that most epic campaigns will naturally drift off to the planes and such, leaving not only the natural world behind, but also many of the plots of the world. Many setting-specific things are just too low-key to be used at the epic tier.




Yes... I think I've resolved after reading a lot about epic play two different things 1) It sounds very interesting! and 2) I'm not necessarily sure it will fit my campaign as easily. As it stands I have stuff planned through ~22, but I'm worried I haven't laid enough "epic plot seeds" after a few paragon levels that it will still feel like the same campaign. Looking at Scales of War Epic I'm seeing a lot more stuff that is out of place in my world. 

On that sort of note... I wonder how Epic Dark Sun will play out. It seems like planar activity is almost a must from most of the campaigns I've read from that tier. Guess we'll see. 

Overall, I think I agree with your 22-33 and the minion damage rules - I've pretty much done what you have to minions. I also have been of the thought since reaching paragon to give minions 2 hits before death, but maybe allowing encounters to count as both those hits if they're single-target. I imagine that template up to 3 for epic makes sense, too.


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## Jack99 (Nov 22, 2009)

Hawke said:


> Yes... I think I've resolved after reading a lot about epic play two different things 1) It sounds very interesting! and 2) I'm not necessarily sure it will fit my campaign as easily. As it stands I have stuff planned through ~22, but I'm worried I haven't laid enough "epic plot seeds" after a few paragon levels that it will still feel like the same campaign. Looking at Scales of War Epic I'm seeing a lot more stuff that is out of place in my world.




Yes, epic level play is definitely a different beast that one needs to tackle a new way, if one is not accustomed to running that sort of games. 

As noted elsewhere, this is my first stab at this sort of campaign, and I am still not convinced that I am up to it. The plots and missions are completely on another scale than I am used to, and I have told my players about my reservations. But I am also determined to see how far I can take things.

The biggest difference is the change of pace. I do not like big dungeons, I prefer small dungeons, consisting of around 4 actual encounters. It is however easy to notice that the difficulty (relative to the level of players) of said encounters will need to be upped if the appropriate level of challenge is to be kept. Characters at this level have so many powers and tricks that have to be depleted before you can seriously pressure them, unless you make one encounter after the other that borders on TPK. I mean, our guest barbarian has 17 surges and heals 52 hit points per surge. The cleric adds around 30-40 hit points on top of that, and each healing word heals two characters now. So thats over 200 hit points per combat, not including surges, just from healing words. Not to mention all the other healing powers he has. 

I just see very few ways around that enormous amount of healing. Either the monsters need to do a lot of damage (and I do mean a lot) or the cleric has to be shut down early in the combat. Easier said than done, and not really fair to the poor elf if all monsters go for him every single time. I mean, I do it as much as the next rat bastard DM, but IMO, its no fun if all combats become a race to kill the monsters before they kill the cleric. I used to be able to separate him (range wise) from certain party members, and being able to apply pressure that way, but with healing word being close burst 15, I just don't see that happening a lot anymore. 

Maybe I just need to put more thought into the encounters, we will see.

EDIT: And it is just going to get worse. Next level (which they will get on tuesday) will give the cleric the ability to rez people in combat. Yikes...


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## Novem5er (Nov 22, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> Most welcome, glad you are enjoying it.
> 
> What I can say is that epic tier seems to be radically different from the two last tiers, when it comes to stories and plots. It's really more than a notch up, and therefore, I think that most epic campaigns will naturally drift off to the planes and such, leaving not only the natural world behind, but also many of the plots of the world. Many setting-specific things are just too low-key to be used at the epic tier.
> 
> My point? Well mostly that the challenge you seem face is one that many settings will have. Maybe some less than others, but I am guessing there is a very limited amount of epic tier setting specific challenges around. Even in settings like FR.




Yep, you got my point exactly. Most of the epic adventures I've read about have the players traveling all over Creation, whether it be the depths of the Shadowfell, the Astral Sea, or into the Abyss. I'm all for this!!! Yet, when it comes to a specific campaign setting (like Eberron), it seems like all that planar traveling put the actual "world" into a secondary role.

Eberron has a great Epic story... there are Demonic Overlords from the beginning of creation that have been imprissoned for hundreds of thousands of years, and have been plotting to escape. Basically, a DM can use any of the epic level threats from any sourcebook to stand in for these Overlords (Tiamat, Baphomet, etc).

So finding a big bad evil guy is not hard... but filling the adventures required to GET to them is tough. The only place where epic level monsters and minions should be roaming around IS in other planes. In order for the normal world to function, you can't have epic level demons, devils, undead, titans just roaming the countryside!

I'm not saying there isn't an answer. I just haven't been able to visualize the epic levels as easily as I have heroic and paragon. I'm sure it will involve players making short sojourns into the planes, while still maintaining their base (and concerns) on the normal world.

I thin for campaign settings like Eberron or the Realms... the answer might lie in _changing_ the world is some dramatic way for the epic tier. Maybe some world-shatter event has created some planar invasion, so the big baddies ARE running wild on the world, directly threatening well known locals and NPCs.


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## Mentat55 (Nov 22, 2009)

I think in Eberron, there are plenty of regions that suit epic play:

* The Demon Wastes: any fiends you want, especially rakshasas
* Khyber: Daelkyr, with their mind flayer, beholder, and other aberrant minions, plus every other nasty thing you can think of in the Underdark
* Xen'drik: Titans, giants
* Argonessen: Dragons

Traveling in all these regions is hazardous, both due to the monsters and the challenges of the terrain itself.  And traveling to these regions, particularly Xen'drik and Argonessen, presents yet another challenge, even for epic characters.  

But yes, plane-hopping definitely seems to be the norm for epic-tier play.


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## Jack99 (Nov 25, 2009)

We started right where we left off, with the final battle against King Balor, his pet quickling and nymph lover. What the players didn't know was that there was a 4th enemy to be fought, a balor. With a last minute cancellation by one of the players, it was suddenly a n+5 encounter. On top of having just gone through 6 encounters without an extended rest. I considered briefly making it easier, but ultimately just figured to test how far my players could go.

As it turns out, not much more. We got a very long battle (for once, I didn't enforce the 20 sec rule, simply because they were under so much pressure), nay, we got a really long battle, almost 3 hours. Not that anyone felt it as grindy. No one was sure until the second last round of how the battle would end. Everyone was bloodied, long out of healing and cool powers when the fight ended. The fighter was down no less than 6 times, and ran out of surges about halfway through the combat. He was also stunned, immobilized or otherwise impaired to a degree that robbed him of any attacks about 2/3rds of the combat. Which was not very funny for him. I had tried to tone down the number of such conditions for a good while, but when I finally fielded monsters with such powers again, it immediately became a problem again. I am definitely going to have to watch the number of monsters that have such powers.

After the fight, they returned to the church of Kord in Drahar, to find out what the place they need to complete the ritual was. The place is the Chamber of Rituals, the private ritual chamber of the Lord of the City of Brass.

[sblock=The Ritual]
Hidden Memories
Through a significant offering, you and your friends are able to enter the memories, possibly even those forgotten, of the entity which lies in front of you.
Level: 22
Category: Divination
Time: 8 hours
Duration: Special
Component Cost: 100,000 gp
Market Price: Unique
Key Skill: Arcana

With the help of ancient arcane symbols and an enormous amount of residuum, you channel the magical weave into the subject and follow it (along with up to 8 others) into the memories of the subject. In there, you can navigate from memory to memory, even finding ancient memories that the subject had forgotten.

Let it be known that such intrusion is very dangerous, and that the subject's subconsciousness, even if completely willing, will fight you every step of the way of your journey through his memories. The stronger the subject, the stronger the subconsciousness.

While you are inside the mind of the subject, your body will stay outside, utterly helpless. You will not be aware of what happens to your body while inside the memories of the subject, unless the body is killed, in which case your mental projection will die immediately. Also be aware that only the ritual caster can end the ritual, not those he brings with him.

Should your mental projection be killed by the subconsciousness of the subject, your body will still be alive, but your brain will cease to function. In a matter of hours, your body will die as well, unless raised from the dead. And even that is tricky at best, there has been several cases where Raise Dead has not been sufficient.

After you enter the mind of the subject, you will have to make an arcana check once every 12 hours to maintain the mental projection. Failure to make the check will stop the ritual and expulse everyone from the memories of the target.

The DC to enter the mind of a subject is: Subjects level
The DC to maintain is: Subjects level +1/12 hours passed.

This ritual can be used to enter anyones mind, even that of a god. In the case of divinity and other entities as powerful, one must have 3 things to power the ritual. 1 component (Heart of Grazz't), 1 item (Evil Eye) and 1 magical focus point (unknown so far). The component is consumed in the casting and the item and the magical focus point will be drained for 1 year and 1 day. Should you wish to recast the ritual, a new component must be gathered while waiting for the item and focus point to recharge.
[/sblock]

As they got back, Gnoguh found that that no less than 3 emissaries were waiting for his arrival. One emissary of a King, one of a merchant prince, one of a queen. As it turns out, the first two (the king and the merchant prince) want Gnoguh to marry their daughter and the queen wants Gnoguh to marry herself. He decided to talk things over with the rest of the party before he went out to view the possible prospects.

Meanwhile, Torn also got word that several people wanted to retain his services. He never found out who they were, because we had a big break leveling (ding 22), which took longer than usual. Maybe because I forgot to warn the players a couple of days in advance as I usually do. Ah well, the guy playing the barbarian did need some help changing some things with the character I made for him. I assume this means he plans on coming back on a regular basis. Sounds like I got myself a new player. Or rather an old player back - he played 2e with us for many years.

Anyway, the whole marriage galore and the sudden demand in Torn's services as a sage is of course an attempt to make the players feel more epic. When dragons and exarches come knocking on Torn's door to seek his advice and knowledge, and when kings battle for the right to wed their daughter to Gnoguh, they are hopefully going to feel pretty damn important. They will also (hopefully) realize that their actions (or lack thereof) at this level have pretty big consequences. You know, with great power comes great responsibility and all that jazz. It's corny, but true!. I am still considering what exactly will happen, but I think that at least one of those that Gnoguh does not choose will suffer greatly. Maybe the country will be invaded or something. I am still brainstorming with myself on that.

I am also brainstorming a lot on their City of Brass adventure. I have the box set, but will probably run it as a hybrid between what little info we have in 4e, and the 3.x box set from NG. Still torn on what type of adventure City of Brass will be. Faction grinding or back alley backstabbing?


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## functionciccio (Nov 28, 2009)

Great thread, Jack99! 
My group is far from Epic Levels right now, but I'm *really* interested anyhow.



Jack99 said:


> Then the rogue did 273 points of damage in a round




Wow. 
I mean... this is just... insane. 
How it can be done? Is that the norm at those levels?


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## functionciccio (Nov 28, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> We started right where we left off, with the final battle against King Balor




Jack99, can you post the King's stats? 
(unless, of course, this monster comes from a published book)


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## Jack99 (Nov 28, 2009)

functionciccio said:


> Great thread, Jack99!
> My group is far from Epic Levels right now, but I'm *really* interested anyhow.
> 
> 
> ...




I think it is. Notice that I said a round, which in this case means several (3 or 4) attacks. But none of my players are very optimized and I do not allow any of the broken items from the books. I do not have anything written down, but going from memory he critted, which triggered Two-Weapon Opening (attack with offhand as free action). Then he used Critical Opportunity (minor action, can only be used the same turn as you crit), and finally he action-pointed. I am not even sure he hit on all 4 attacks though. Rogues have some pretty lethal powers at level 22


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## Veritasinpersonam (Nov 30, 2009)

*Nifty Campaign!*

I just wanted to say that your campaign idea is absolutely superb. I wish I could explore THAT world.

Any hints on what actually happened on the old world after the rift collapsed? And will your characters ever get to explore why the dead stopped dying?


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## Jack99 (Nov 30, 2009)

Veritasinpersonam said:


> I just wanted to say that your campaign idea is absolutely superb. I wish I could explore THAT world.
> 
> Any hints on what actually happened on the old world after the rift collapsed? And will your characters ever get to explore why the dead stopped dying?




TBH, I never considered it. It was just something stolen from The Reality Dysfunction that I thought was very cool. I have a few times considered if I somehow could draw it into the campaign, but have never found out how. 

I do like the world of Draegor, and will probably use it for my next campaign, so I can't rule out some sort of expedition back to the old world at some point.


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## Twowolves (Nov 30, 2009)

Boy, was *this *thread's title ever misleading.

I'm feeling somewhat let down!


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## Jack99 (Dec 3, 2009)

61st session

Tuesdays session started off very slowly. The party talked and talked and talked. Torn is sure that Asmodeus is playing some sort of double entente, that he will double-cross them and things won't turn out as they say. There were many things. Why did Asmodeus show himself in the guise of a demon? More specifically, did the fact that he shows up as a Raavasta, a demon known for it's ability to lie and BS have any significance. Could he be trusted. Did they even have a choice? I mean, we are talking about *the* master manipulator of all times. Maybe they should just do as he wants?

In particular, Torn and Carric are leery about the ritual. What will happen once they are inside? What will happen to the target? And a host of other questions. Obviously the very long talk didn't result in an actual decision, since they do not feel they have enough information to base a decisive decision on. On the other hand, they did end up deciding to check out the City of Brass, and find out how hard it was going to be to get to the Chamber of Rituals. 

They also realized that they will have to bring the bitch (thats what they call the drow high-priestess lover of Grazz't they have locked up in the "basement") to the City of Brass. And that from what they know, the City of Brass is not on the mortal world (okay, they did know that!) and does not have the same limits for gods and arch-demons as Sigil. Ie the real Grazz't (whom they have banished from the mortal world for 101 years when they slew his aspect recently) might show up and claim his love. Not something they were looking forward to.

Before leaving, they had just a couple of things to take care of. Gnoguh and the 3 potential wifes, and a gold dragon looking for information. Torn handled the gold dragon, researching the information the gold dragon wanted about a lich and ways to defeat it. For that he was paid 500.000 gold pieces, money he decided to split with the party, which surprised me a lot. Meanwhile, the others went on a small trip to meet those who wished to add Gnoguh to their family.

First up was Queen Azimella, a proud and independent queen from the land of Tudar far to the west, who wanted Gnoguh to marry her and lead her 450.000 men into conquest of the world. She offered him a Rimefire Griffon as wedding gift, should he accept.

Next was Drahomir Zulfur, merchant prince of the Auran Empire and probably one of the 3 richest men in the mortal world. He wanted Gnoguh to marry his only daughter, Isabella. She would take care of the business, because she was able and raised to handle it, but she needed a strong husband who could take care of the private army that protected the thousands of ships in the merchant fleet. Also, men were the only ones allowed to own companies and land, so she couldn't do it on her own. He offered Gnoguh a pair of very powerful magical gauntlets, should he accept to marry his daughter.

Last was King Hjanko, King of Fredia, a kingdom to the east. Hjanko needed a strong man to marry his grand-daughter (everyone else in the family was dead) and to run the country after he was gone. He needed someone who could take up the fight against the Ebon Empire (Which is run by Bane, exarch of the Keeper). This was perhaps the most tempting offer, not because it came with 500.000 gold pieces in dowry, but because the idea of fighting against the Ebon Empire appealed to Gnoguh.

But in the end, he declined all three offers and the Swords took off.

I am still thinking about if the refusals should have some consequences. I actually thought he might take one, grab the "loot" and then split, but as it turns out, he didn't.

Arriving to the City of Brass, they found themselves waiting outside, looking up on the Elemental Chaos. There was a long line of people entering the city, and the wait took some time. At a point, they watched a man being take from the line and executed - apparently, he had been bad-mouthing the Sultan.

Once inside the city, they went exploring a bit, soaking up the flavor of the city. Slowly they were making their way towards the Great Repository, allegedly the greatest library in existence.

On the way to the Great Repository, they were suddenly facing some angry efreets who were claiming Torn was a thief. Not waiting for anyone to clear up the charges, battle followed. The people on the marketplace spread out, enough for the Swords of Drahar to have some room to fight the efreets.

Let me just say that 6 players and 9 lvl 22 efreets once again gave a fight that was way too long. Due a decent amount of fire resist, the fight never really got as challenging as I had hoped, and it is probably the first indication of "grind" we have had. Fairly soon in the fight, it was pretty obvious that the players would win, but it took forever to kill the monsters. Not that it took many rounds, but each round seemed to drag on forever. A couple of things contributed to this.
1) I was really tired, and often forgot to enforce our 20 sec rule.
2) For some reason, I chose to give each monster an individual initiative - that wont ever happen again for sure.
3) the high amount of players and monsters. 15+ actions per round is a lot and takes time, naturally.

As soon as the fight was about to end (1 bloodied efreet left) a host of archon guards arrive, wanting to arrest the Swords for attacking and killing efreets. Some attempts at bluff and diplomacy was made, but nothing helped. The Archons were firmly determined to have them arrested and executed or serving as slaves for many many years. Luckily for the Swords, their exploits had drawn the attention of Lord Zural, one of the lords of the 17 noble efreet houses.

He vouched that they had acted in self-defense and that had no choice. While the archon had little choice, he was clearly not happy at the prospect of having to let the players go. After having settled their little problem, he invited them to diner in his mansion to spend the night and talk.

As you probably have guessed, Lord Zural was the one who hired the lower-caste efreets to attack the Swords of Drahar. The encounter had two purposes. On one hand, I wanted the players to get an idea of the law in the City of Brass, to show that while they might be big in Drahar, here they would have to consider their actions. I also wanted them to get a contact in the town, one that might be able to guide them towards certain things. Last but not least, I wanted them to owe Lord Zural a favor, or at least an ear. I have a feeling that the campaign might return to the City of Brass later on, towards the end of the epic tier, just before it all goes to hell and they have to kill all the current gods. At that point (assuming it does happen), I am thinking that the Sultan himself might have to be killed or something. In which case Zural will be the trigger.

After a good night of sleep, the Swords headed back towards the Great Repository. What they found was definitely not what they had expected. A 1600 ft tall purple tower with blood coming out the doors. Inside was filled with small canals of blood and pieces of flesh and the stench of rotting corpses. Naked obese servants wandering around amongst the petitioners with sacrificial daggers, just waiting to exact the price of knowledge. Small questions are paid with blood and pain, but the big questions are paid with either an eye or your soul. In case of the soul, you have to soul-swap with a inhabitant of the tower while your questions are researched.

Oddly, Torn agreed to swap his soul without asking around or thinking about the consequences. What he didnt know was the most soul-swapping end badly, because the researcher, who has been locked up in the Repository for an eternity cant handle the freedom, goes berserk, often ending up using the possessed body to do great harm, which in turn gets the body killed by the guards. Or sentences to an eternity of slavery. Luckily for Torn, his friends were a bit smarter than him. They let the researcher go wild for a night, drinking and whoring himself into a stupor, then bound him and tossed him into a cell until the time was up and the soul of Torn found its way back into his body.

While Torn was in locked in the Repository and the others were guarding his body, Truxas had a little run in with his infernal patron. Yep, he has two pacts, and has had that ever since it was possible (I believe around 11th level iirc). The twist is that his infernal patron is none other than Asmodeus, the very same person/devil/exarch that they are working for. He was told that Asmodeus had great plans for him, and that he was very happy with the way things were progressing. He was given a word of power (daily, on a critical, Truxas can retain the power he just used), which I think will buy his silence on the matter. We will see about that. It was definitely a big WTF moment for Truxas' player. I think he is beginning to realize that he might be pitted against his party at some point.

Overall I was happy with a lot during this session, there was a lot of good roleplaying, a lot of exploring the world and a lot of fun stuff (Torn's player playing the guy in his body who just went nuts in booze and whores was very descriptive and funny) but the slowness of the combat really annoyed me. From what I gathered, the players were more or less okay with it, but still, it was way too long.

I need to focus when I make the encounters. Not too many creatures, and not too many different creatures. Which is kinda funny. A lot of people blame solos and elites for long combats, but often, it is not true. Multiple non-minion creatures create their own problems, not  because of high AC or whatnot, but because its harder to focus fire and a lot more damage is wasted. Like this session, where twice criticals of 100+ damage were dealt to creatures which had less than 15 hit points left. I am also working on cutting down the number of powers, so that on any given turn, I do not have to make 34 different choices.

I am atm considering running a little intermezzo to push the story along. Just to see how players respond to it.


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## Jack99 (Dec 6, 2009)

As preparation for the next game, I decided to move things a bit along, and let the players discuss via mail what to do. I posted this on my campaign blog:

 Intermezzo in the City of Brass

After 6 hours of waiting in line outside the palace, the Swords finally get bribed enough officials to be let inside the Chamber of Audience, where the Sultan holds court and lets petitioners bask in his glory. He sits on a platform, surrounded by lava and his Unquenchables - the elite Efreets that guard the Sultan with their life. It is said that one is a match for a Pit Fiend and the Sultan has 1000's of them with an earshot, ready to do his bidding, no matter what it may be.

Not long after, they find themselves facing the Sultan, announced by a slave:

    Slave: My Lord of Fire, Rule of the Center of the Universe, I present you the Swords of Drahar, heroes of the mortal world. They are the ones who killed the avatars of Tiamat, Yeenoghu, Orcus, Demogorgon and Grazz't recently.

    Sultan: HA HA HA - Swords of Drahar. I have heard of ya. You might be big around where you come from, but here, in the center of the Universe, you are nothing. But I am guessing you are beginning to figure that out. Why are you here?

    Truxas (bowing): My Lord of Fire, we have come here with a mission of great urgency and secrecy. We besiege you to let us use your Chamber of Rituals for powering a ritual of ours. We would of course be willing to compensate you for the use of the Chamber.

    Sultan: HA HA HA. The only reason I do not kill you is that I like creatures with big brass balls. HA HA HA, the audacity of coming here, asking me of a favor. You bring no gifts of significance, you do not kneel, you hide the truth and you barely show the proper humble attitude - You must have me mistaken for someone else, because I am Jazir Al-far, Sultan of the City of Brass, the Lord of Fire. I rule the greatest city in the Universe and even the gods fear me and my infinite legions of Efreets!

    Truxas: But..

    Sultan: Silence mortal, another word and you will scream in the Minaret for an eternity. Come back when you have earned the right to stand before me. Be gone from my sight now, before I tire of your silly requests.

After talking to the Sultan, Lord Zural contacts the Swords again and explain that they need to make a name for themselves, they need to make the Sultan "owe" them if they want to stand any chance of getting access to the Chamber of Rituals. Luckily, he has a few ideas. While nothing is sure, he has a good idea that the Sultan might look more favorable upon the Swords, should they complete any or all of these quests. Of course, if they could spice things up with a gift of gold and/or magic, even better. Giving him an artifact is always a good way to get on the Sultan's good side, at least for a while.

As mentioned, Lord Zural knows of 3 things they can do.

1) There is a rebel Gith that has built a strange castle of Ice in one of the colder areas of the Elemental Chaos, a couple of days travel from the City of Brass. The Sultan recently learned that the same rebel Gith (who has assaulted several merchants and diplomats from the City of Brass) is somehow trying to infect the Elemental Chaos with the Shadowfell. How that works, he has no idea, but the Gith and his death giants have surely been an annoyance.

2) There is a Djinn Lord in town that infuriates the Sultan to no end. He will probably die sooner than later, but whoever kills him will surely be owe more than gratitude. Of course, no one else can know of this.

3) One of the Volcanic Dragons that guard the Plane of Molten Lava (the solid piece of land on which the City of Brass is located) has gone mad and is one a rampage, even assaulting people traveling under the banner of the Sultan. 

It was mostly just to see what people thought about it. But also to try to get some focus back. It seems at times as my players feel is a very open-ended campaign (which they like) but also that its very hard to keep an overview of the big picture. They spend more and more time debating what they should  do, which is fine and entertainment, but I figured we could make better use of our time together by guiding them a bit.


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## Jack99 (Dec 9, 2009)

After a bit of debating, the Swords of Drahar decided to heed the words of Lord Zarul and try to gain some faction with the Sultan of the City of Brass. Gnoguh wanted to kill some dragons, but he was outvoted and instead they headed out to find the Fortress of Shadow and Ice and the Githzerai rebel running things.

Before leaving, they do invest 100.000 gp into healing potions. We had a whooping 3 cancellations this week. One Pet Shop Boys concert, one due to sickness and the last one had to work late due to an important deadline. It sucks, but it happens. Cleric, wizard and rogue were MIA; so the party was fighter, barbarian and warlock.

The Swords asks around a bit, and find out where this place is located. They track down a captain with an elemental ship willing to take them their for some gold (10.000 gp) and head out. A couple of days later, they arrive. The rock of ice upon which the fort is supposed to be is hidden inside a permanent blizzard laying on the edge of a maelstrom of lava.

I wanted to describe more of the Elemental Chaos, but the book hadn't arrived yet, so I was lacking some inspiration (curse you WotC for not making your print schedule after my campaign!). It's a cool place, but I am not sure I have the visual creativity to describe it.

Arriving at the edge, the Swords bravely jump off and head towards the center, because "that must be where the bad guy is".

A couple of hours later, the Swords are closing in on the fortress, when they are jumped by a few ShadowIce Archons. Even though surprised, the Swords make short work of the Archons.

This is the best part about the wizard (and cleric for that matter) not being there. The impossibility of surprising a divine oracle is definitely on my top5 list over annoying player abilities/powers.

Pressing on, they find a huge icebridge that leads to the fort. No enemies in sight and the Swords move over it cautiously. On the other side lies the fort, right on the edge to the nothingness of the Elemental Chaos. After a quick round of recon (still no enemies in sight), the Swords open the gate and are (yet again) surprised by an archon and two death giants. The Swords, except for Gnoguh (who was held by the ice magic of the archon), move in, and before they can do anything about it, the archon has raised a wall of ice and shadow, blocking Gnoguh. Fortunately, Gnoguh has little regard for pain, so grabbing his axe he started climbing the wall, despite the pain it inflicted.

This was pretty cool. He climbed over a 30' tall wall that dealt 20 necrotic and cold damage per round. Once at the top, he attempts to make a jump-charge from that height. He needs a 17 on the acrobatics check, and he makes it.

With Gnoguh back in the fight, the foes were quickly dispatched, although the Swords were by now beginning to miss Carric just a little bit.

Surges really disappear quite a bit faster when you do not add 40 hps to them.

This was a fun fight. In general there was a lot of acrobatic checks to perform wacky stuff  There were plenty of options with things place on different levels of height. I had also placed a lake which was very slippery, and the last archon positioned itself out in the middle to gain some advantage. Didn't do much good since Gnoguh still had Come and Get It left

Once they were dead, the Swords took a quick breather and entered the unlocked fortress. Inside, they eventually got to a big room with a black pool and some stairs. On the stairs was a death giant telling them to bugger off, or they would die. They could still run, his master would not seek justice for what they had done so far. The Swords took that as a sign of weakness, and attacked. Out of the pool came a little surprise, a death Titan

I tried testing a few things, with the many elites used tonight. Instead of giving them two attacks, I ramped up the damage of their main attacks. Around 50-60% extra damage. This is on top of the usual changes I made. This was in order to avoid too many rolls constantly. I also tweaked monsters to use less damage die. I realized that I spend too much time looking for that 4th or 5th d6 way too often. It seemed balanced enough.

The Titan especially proved nasty, and the fight was very tense for a while, but eventually the Swords got the best of the death dudes.

Moving on, they found a corridor full of 12 iceblocks, all but one containing an Efreet. The Githzerai was as noted earlier planning to use the souls of the Efreets to power up a portal to the Shadowfell and explode it, creating a rift which would infuse the Elemental Chaos with the necrotic energies of the Shadowfell. Or something. Either way, it never happened, because further in, the Swords found the so-called Temple, with the rebel Gith was working the portal and the magical pedestals that would serve as conduits for the efreets' souls. He and his death titan and archon, of course. The battle was long and brutal, with both Gork (finished battle with 1 hit points and 0 surges) and Truxas (bloodied and 0 surges) very very beaten up. There was some close calls (all 3 were below 0 at at least 1 point), but it all ended well. And they even found some loot.

I was surprised at several things tonight. How well it went (I expected that they would die, with a n+0, n+1, n+2, n+4 combat in rapid succession and no healer). Speed was okay, obviously being 3 players make a world of difference, but I am hoping that next time, when we are more players, it will still be quicker due to the tweaks I do. Of course, there is a limit to how big a change a tweak can be. Only having 1 or 2 initiatives for all the monsters also helped, for sure.

As a side note, I thought that Thief of Five Fates was the most annoying power ever, but my warlock player has found worse.

[sblock=Thief of Five Fates]

You bind your target’s fortunes to five ill-omened stars. Under their dire influence, all sorts of mischance and bad luck befall your enemy.

Daily        Arcane, Implement
Standard Action      Ranged 10

Target: One creature

Attack: Charisma vs. Will

Hit: Until the end of your next turn, whenever the target makes a saving throw or an attack roll, you roll a d20 without modifiers. If your result is higher than the target’s unmodified die roll, the target’s attack misses or the target’s saving throw fails.

Sustain Minor: Make a Charisma vs. Will attack against the target. On a hit, the effect continues. On a miss, the effect ends.

First published in Player's Handbook.
[/sblock]

Meet...


[sblock=Wakeman's Invocation  Level 22 Utility]

You employ a defensive technique developed by the scholar Strom Wakeman, who learned to use the power of Far Realm creatures without risking one’s sanity.

Daily        Arcane, Teleportation

Minor Action      Personal

Effect: Until the end of the encounter, you gain a +2 power bonus to all defenses against ranged attacks, and whenever an enemy hits you with a melee attack, you can teleport that creature 2 squares as an immediate interrupt.

First published in Arcane Power.
[/sblock]


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## Jack99 (Dec 12, 2009)

On Tuesday, the players have decided to continue their faction quest and go for the dragon.

I have made a solo version of the Ancient Volcanic Dragon, and I am very excited about the fight. Still working out the kinds, but it will of course involve some lava pools to fall in.

Aside from that, I really want to trip to the dragon's lair to emphasize the lethality of the Elemental Chaos, the brutality and chaos that comes along with the elements, so in order to do that, I am planning a skill challenge to let them navigate the terrain, avoiding the many natural hazards there will be. Including, but not limited to earthquakes, lava geysers, fire storms. Come to think of it, I might not run it as a skill challenge, but instead as a series of hazards/traps to be avoided/beaten. 

All this could arguably be more epic, but right now, I am focusing most of my attention on the future. Once they are able to cast the ritual, they will enter the mind of a god and relives his memories while they search them to find the divine source. 

The plan is to have 3 different types of memories. 
1) Just information-memory: The players will be told what they see, with no way of interacting. They will basically be there to learn something.
2) We are Kord-memory: In this type of memory, the players will "play" the part of Kord or rather, they will be Kord, reliving his memory. Of course, when it gets to combat, the end result of the memory might be different, if they lose the fight.
3) Discovery-memory: This starts out as either other type of memory, but the subconsciousness detects them and tries to expel them, personified by Maruts and/or Angels attacking the players' characters.

I am still considering how to abort a memory, and what consequences. I am also thinking about how much the ritual caster can decide when navigating the memories. I can't just give a list of all memories, since that would mean that they would go straight for the one including the divine source. Perhaps it has to be an unlocking game, where access to certain memories is only achieved after experiencing certain other memories.

On a side note, I really hope the Kord article slated for January comes on time and has lot of goodies


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## functionciccio (Dec 12, 2009)

As always, great read!


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## Jack99 (Dec 17, 2009)

63rd session

After returning from the cold fortress of the rebel Githzerai, the Swords of Drahar wasted little time. They researched about the Mad Dragon, found out where it had it's lair, and hired Captain Morgan again to fly them out near the area where the Mad Dragon lived. As it turns out, it was a nightmarish place, full of lava, geysers, firestorms and in general a lot of nasty terrain and hazards. Luckily for the Swords, Torn's Phantom Steeds can fly, so after a rough arrival where Gnoguh got tossed around by some geysers, the Swords took the arial route to the 3 volcanoes further inland, where the dragon should have its lair.

They didn't quite make it all the way though, because about halfway across the rocky island, they were hit by an imploding thunderstorm. That turned out to be quite painful, and Truxas ended up dieing to a weather phenomenon.

[sblock=Imploding Firestorm]


Imploding Thunderstorm  Level 22 Solo Hazard

The very air around you crackle with fire and energy.
Hazard: An imploding thunderstorm is a magical phenomenon found exclusively in the Elemental Chaos. They appear out of nowhere, with very little warning, and cause havoc and death to anyone caught in one. Sages speculate that it is the symbiosis of different types of energy that causes these storms to appear.
Perception
     DC 27: The character notices something like heat waves in the air, just thicker
     DC 31: The character notices that the heat waves seem to move towards the same point in space
Arcana (if perception is passed)
     DC 34: An imploding thunderstorm is about to form, a lethal magical hazard that destroys everything within.
.Initiative +8
Trigger: When a character is within the radius of the Imploding Thunderstorm
Attack
Standard Action      Close burst 20
Targets: Every creature within the burst.
Attack: +25 vs. Fortitude
Hit: 3d8 + 13 fire and thunder damage and the target pulled to the square of origin and knocked prone. Miss: 1d8 + 7 fire and thunder damage and the target is pulled 4 squares towards the square of origin.
Special: Each creature takes 15 fire and thunder damage at the beginning of each turn it starts within the burst of the Imploding Firestorm.
Special: Vision within the storm is difficult at best (DC 21 to see into the square adjacent to you, +1 for each squared removed from you)
Countermeasures
     Leave the thunderstorm

This homemade hazard proved to be just as lethal as intended. Actually a bit more. The poor vision made coordinating things hard for the players, and shut down the use of most teleports. At first, they underestimated its lethality a bit, and by the time things they realized just how bad it was, it was almost too late. They could probably have gotten out with everyone alive, but a reluctance amongst some to use AP's to "beat" some bad weather cost the life of the Warlock and quite a few surges around. I think they even used a couple of daily utilities. It was a big surprise and worked like a charm. Gave some very different dynamics and (for me) it was fun.But to be honest, I should never have prepared all the hazards for the journey. I should have realized there was no way the epic wizard would walk across such an area, unless forced to.[/sblock]

Of course, with Revive handy, Truxas was up and running in only a few moments. Torn quickly made some new flying Phantom Steeds, and the Swords continued their trip towards the Tri-volcano-area. Once there, they quickly noticed several cave entrances, picked one, and landed in front of it. And promptly got jumped by 5 elementals. Even though they seemed to do their best to focus their firepower on a couple of targets (Torn and Gnoguh in this case), the Swords managed to dispatch them without anyone dieing.

[sblock]
This was actually a n+3 combat against 5 elites of equal level. It was quick enough and went well for my players. I wouldn't call it a very hard encounter, but they definitely used a lot of healing and powers in order to beat the elementals.

I have now been trying a new thing. With elites, instead of giving them two attacks, I am instead increasing the damage they do on one attack significantly. For example, an elemental which would normally deal 3d8+10 now deals 3d8 + 22, or 50% more damage. Seems to help a little, speed-wise, that I only have to make one attack for the elites. It also gives a few more scary moments, such as when Gnoguh used Come and Get It and then got attacked by all 3 and then they all action pointed. If he hadn't had some fire resist, he would have been dead in a round. Which is no mean feat.
[/sblock]

Once the elementals were dead, the Swords searched the area, and Carric determined which entrance was the most likely to lead to the dragon's lair. And his perception didn't fail him again. Deep inside the volcano, they found a huge grotto with a lake of lava, an island covered in gold, and of course the dragon and his two pet fire titans.

And boy did they get owned. First Torn slept one of the Titans, which made Gork rip him a new one in a matter of seconds. Then Torn rendered the other helpless, which caused Gork and Truxas to rip it apart in a few more seconds. And thank god for that, because the Dragon proved just as hard as expected. For a while it looked like an easy fight, and the Swords even wounded it greatly (bloodied) but then suddenly the tide turned, and its aura became more and more lethal. But in the end, it still died.

[sblock]Sleep, Face of Death, Thief of Five Fates, Rune of Peace and Moment of Peace are all powers I have grown to despise quite a bit. They can just shot down solos and turn an interesting combat into something uninteresting.

Then again, without those spells, they would probably have TPK'ed, because it was fairly close, even after burning those.

But yet again, the single most difficult feature to deal with is the enormous amount of healing. Monsters have to dish out a huge amount of damage to get anyone down if Carric is around. Or they have to last long enough to make Carric run out of healing. Which means looooooong combats. Like really long, of the n+5-6 type[/sblock]


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## Jack99 (Dec 21, 2009)

Tomorrow, my players will be heading towards the third quest in order to score enough faction with the Sultan, which in turn should give them access to the Chamber of Rituals. Little do they know that their path will be diverted once again.

As you might know (if you have reading this thread), they are currently holding captive a high priestess of Grazz't, who is none other that his lover as well, in the Church of Kord in their home town of Drahar. When they stole her right under his nose and fled home, both an Aspect of Orcus and an Aspect of Demogorgon showed up to claim her. And right after the Swords of Drahar killed them, an Aspect of Grazz't showed up. Since they all died, they are all banned from the mortal world for 101 years. But that doesn't mean Grazz't has given up on getting his bride-to-be back. He has been plotting, working on getting demons into the mortal world, ready to strike.But demons are hard to control, especially when they are a world away. And with the Swords deeply engaged in the City of Brass, and getting closer to their goal, which will cost the high priestess her life, Grazz't has decided that he can not wait any longer.

In order to get the girl back, he is sending one of his right-hand demons, a nasty fellow named Duality. Duality and a small army of demons will invade Drahar and cause havoc, going for the Church of Kord in order to get the girl.

So, at some point, the Swords will receive a call from Trevor, the high priest, mentor and best friend of the Swords, that demons have invaded Drahar. They will rush back and have to fight their way through a city in chaos, only to find Trevor dead on the altar and Duality in the middle of making a portal back to the Abyss with the girl in tow. Or at least that will depend on their actions.

In order to really put pressure on my epic players, the whole situation will be put under a time limit. There will be several encounters on the way (unless they do something I do not expect) to the church, some optional (save the mother defending her children), some not so optional.

They will have 14 minutes to get to the Church, which includes 5 encounters and 5 minutes of running. This should leave them enough time to take one short break, but depending on when they take it, Trevor will be dead when they arrive.

Warning
Minute 1: Open portal to Drahar, to Torn's father's mansion (A house rule allows players to speed up casting of rituals by pouring more residuum into the ritual. Twice the residuum halves the casting time, cumulatively, down to 1 minute).
Minute 2: Fight with Demons which have killed Torn's father (he gets tossed his father's head in his face when he steps through the portal)
Minute 4: Duality starts casting his portal.
Minute 5: A lone surviving priest is hiding in the church and uses the church sending stones to warn the Swords that Duality has the high priestess and is about to leave.
Minute 9: Trevor gets killed on the altar of his beloved church (which means the players can only save him if they do not take a break on the way)
Minute 14: Duality finished his portal and leaves with the drow high-priestess

Overall, I am hoping that the pressure creates some tension and pushes the players to not save all their good stuff for the last encounter, making it even harder. Should be fun...


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## davethegame (Dec 22, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> Overall, I am hoping that the pressure creates some tension and pushes the players to not save all their good stuff for the last encounter, making it even harder. Should be fun...




Very cool, consider the idea stolen!


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## Jack99 (Dec 22, 2009)

davethegame said:


> Very cool, consider the idea stolen!




Yeah, and it worked all too well. The adventure pretty much happened as I had figured. They hurried and cast a quickened portal (bye-bye 40k residuum), fought their way through the encounters, skipping the one with the mother begin the demons to not kill her child, arrived at the church 9 rounds before their good friend Trevor would die, thus saving him, but then it all went to hell. Instead of taking the strong hint that they had enough time to take a short rest, they pressed on, and the cleric forgot to use healing sun to at least heal all up, which resulted in them going into the final n+4 battle with 4 battles under their belts and no rest. Needless to say, they were wiped. For a while it didn't even look close, but a strong finish (3 crits in a row) from the fighter (last man standing) almost turned the battle. 

But in the end, they died- so game over, new campaign.

It was great fun playing from 1-22, but it definitely taught me a couple of things. 

I am a heroic DM, that's for sure. And oh boy I loathe the 4e economy.


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## davethegame (Dec 23, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> But in the end, they died- so game over, new campaign.




I know we've talked about this before, but boy, I couldn't even imagine doing that to my players


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## Jhaelen (Dec 23, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> But in the end, they died- so game over, new campaign.
> 
> It was great fun playing from 1-22, but it definitely taught me a couple of things.
> 
> I am a heroic DM, that's for sure. And oh boy I loathe the 4e economy.



Wow!

I can't think of anything else to say, right now.

Except: thanks for sharing, this was quite intriguing!


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## Stalker0 (Dec 23, 2009)

So Jack share with us some overall thoughts.

How did you like high level 4e?

Did you feel that the "sweet spot" was truly extended over a longer period of time?

Did you feel that epic combats were faster,slower, or about the same as lower level combats?

Did it feel "epic?"

How did the math pan out? Were playing hitting pretty well, better than lower levels, worse?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 23, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> I am a heroic DM, that's for sure. And oh boy I loathe the 4e economy.



That's almost worth its own topic. 

Here's my idea at least for magic items: 
- Use inherent bonuses
- Certain items only "activate" their properties and powers if you fulfill the minimum level requirement to create it. The benefits improve with player level.

Rituals might be another matter... But maybe moving the gold piece cost into special materials required that don't have exact gp values might help, but it's certainly a little more effort.


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## Jack99 (Dec 23, 2009)

Stalker0 said:


> So Jack share with us some overall thoughts.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Jack99 (Dec 23, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> That's almost worth its own topic.
> 
> Here's my idea at least for magic items:
> - Use inherent bonuses
> ...




Yeah, that was the plan, unfortunately I have a few players who would prefer not to use inherent bonuses, as it makes magic even more bland (we used a similar system for the last  year of 3.5). So I am considering a few other options. But no doubt that something will have to change. Taking away Magic Item creation is another solution I am considering.


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## ShadowBite (Dec 30, 2009)

Great Thread, have really enjoyed reading it. I wanted to ask, I know that you give an hourly breakdown of how long the campaign took but I'm curious how long this campaign stretched out. From what I gather, you guys seem to meet once a week with a few cancellations. Just curious how long it took for you guys to go from 1-22. 


And hearing about your 30 min to 1 hour combats makes me salivate, it takes us around +2 hours to get through a battle. Part of this is due to only having a 3 person party but your 20 second rule and monster hp reduction sounds golden.


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## Jack99 (Dec 30, 2009)

ShadowBite said:


> Great Thread, have really enjoyed reading it. I wanted to ask, I know that you give an hourly breakdown of how long the campaign took but I'm curious how long this campaign stretched out. From what I gather, you guys seem to meet once a week with a few cancellations. Just curious how long it took for you guys to go from 1-22.
> 
> 
> And hearing about your 30 min to 1 hour combats makes me salivate, it takes us around +2 hours to get through a battle. Part of this is due to only having a 3 person party but your 20 second rule and monster hp reduction sounds golden.




Yes, we meet once a week, play for about 5 hours. Once a year, we go away for the better part of a weekend, during which we get around 30 hours of game time. The campaign started the week 4e was launched, so in June 2008. We played 64 sessions. So, with 21 level-ups, thats one level every 3 weeks or so. At first, our average of leveling up was perhaps a bit lower than 3, but I purposely slowed down things later on, when I eliminated XP and made the acquisition of levels based on progression through the campaign plot.

As for the fights, on a good day, we could even do 1 hour or a bit less with 6 players. Of course, this would be just a n+0, perhaps n+1 fight, so nothing really challenging, but an encounter none the less.

Cheers


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## Eladimir (Jan 25, 2010)

*Excellent after action report*

Finally registered at these forums so I could post on this story.
Was an excellent read I enjoyed it and looking forward to following the new campaign. I knew a TPK was coming but wow I was still shocked when it finally happened.

Got me thinking about my characters epic destiny and long term plans.
I'm going to forward this to my DM for him to read because we only place 4 hours a week and at most we get 2 encounters in.


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