Changing Campaigns

Remember last post, where I said the trials of the tomb seemed trivial? Well, I just hadn't gotten to the hamatula (barbed devil).

It was interesting to see how the group approached the encounter. First, they assume since one statue started moving that they would all animate and therefore made a stone wall to split the room. Second, they were ready and prepped to attach a real statue, going so far as to ready an action to attack it in case it did move. (I'm glad that happened. I didn't want to look up rules for attacking statues)

And bad luck for the arcane trickster too, which set the whole ball in motion. Fail the trap DC by exactly 5, triggering it. Failed the will save on a symbol of fear which sent her running right by the real hamatula who dropped a fireball on her (good thing she had evasion), but she continued running.

It seemed that the group was especially stymied by the hamatula's powers. DR 10/good, immune to fire, resist cold 10. So a strength 10 fighter with high dex and an icy burst rapier didn't have much chance of doing appreciable damage. Add in the barbed defense and a fight of attrition is one that the hamatula will win.

The hamatula also got lucky and summoned another hamatula with a 5% on the percentile roll. That really made the difficult much harder.

I felt that I used the hamatula's hold person ability and grapple preference to target well. In the end, the arcane trickster died, the bard died, the elf fighter was greviously wounded (brought to less that 5 hp I think).

I think the druid did the right thing by summoning dire wolves to trip up the devils and slow them down just enough to regroup.

At the end of the battle, Chamele the Arcane Trickster was brought back by Aldoran using his scroll of reincarnate as a gnome.

I think it was at the point that the second hamatula appeared that the player's decided that starting the Kingmaker Pathfinder Adventure path now instead of waiting to finish the tomb was a good idea. I didn't intend for the hamatula's to be bleach for the campaign but it appears that they were regardless.

Entering the Tomb

The group has found the Lost Tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali, but it hasn't been without trial or tribulation.

After Vorian's death at the hand of a beholder, the party entered the Great Valley. There they encountered tribes of hobgoblins, who tried and failed to capture to them. The stronger tribe's spiritual leader and ally of the red dragon Khyrastryx saw the danger they posed, and tried to reason with them.

This was all for naught however, as a great wyvern spotted them on their way towards a mountain pass and flew to warn Khyrastryx. The dragon flew towards the group, trying to gauge their strength before committing herself.

Unfortunately, Chamele, perhaps overconfident in her abilities, launched a lightning bolt at the dragon, revealing herself and her power too soon. The dragon flew straight at her, snatching Chamele up in her jaws. Before losing consciousness, Chamele loosed another lightning bolt into the dragons maw. The dragon bit down, and then dropped Chamele to her death below. The other members of the group made a good showing in defending themselves, but Khyrastryx left them to recover as best she could.

The remaining members decided to hunt her down and avenge Chamele, and proved victorious. The druid's ability to nullify most of the damage caused by the dragon turned the tide of battle. The druid Aldoran then took Chamele with him back to Geanavue to be raised, using some of the dragon's horde as payment. The returned the next day to join Vorian, Kascannia and Cassandra back in the dragon's lair. It was then that the wyvern that they had seen previously attempted to bring the battle to them, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

From there, it did not take long to find the tomb, through the use of divine magics and knowledge that the bard and wizard possessed.

Thus far the dangers of the tomb have proven to be mere annoyances, though this is mostly due to resourcefulness and planning, and it remains to be seen if these will still be in abundance as they delve deeper into the tomb.

A quick DDO Post.

If only My.DDO was updating correctly, this would appear with correct stats:



But it isn't, so you'll just have to trust that he is level 15 now and thinking of picking up a tower shield for more defense.

In other gaming news, I'll be DMing tomorrow, where the PCs bring the battle to the red dragon Khyrastryx.

A brief update

I realized that I hadn't updated the chronicles of Vorian, Chamele, Aldoran and Kascannia recently:

The group entered the underground ruins, in pursuit of the green dragon. They meet little opposition, and found the dragon lying in wait. A fierce battle ensued, with the gold dragon aiding in the attacking, destroying walls and potentially collapsing the ruins.

Just as the green dragon was vanquished, the gold dragon turned on the heroes, who were already exhausted from the battle. Upon his death, the dragon's hue changed, revealing him to also be a green.

"Petty dragons," comments Chamele. "They must have been having a fued, and this one thought to use us in its dispute, and then dispatch us to add to his horde. A good thing it underestimated us."

They then looted the small hordes the dragons had collected, and continued to explore the ruins, looking for clues as to the location of the lost tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali. Unfortunately, they ran into another beholder, which killed Vorian before it died.

Chamele used her new found magical abilities to teleport the group back to Geanavue, where they both have a keep and a powerful cleric resides, who was able to raise Vorian from the dead.

In the city, they learn that the fire giants are demanding more and more tribute. The heroes intend to meet with the leaders of the city to learn what they might do to assist with these troubles. Aldoran also thinks that he might be able to divine the path to the lost tomb, possibly saving time and energy in their search.

How to run away from demons and find refuge with unicorns

After killing the beholder without much difficulty, the group continued it's search of the underground structure, searching for possible clues of the great valley and the lost tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali. A literal maze of cooridors, there was some disagreement as to which way to proceed.

"We should go north west from the room with the beholder in it. The beholder didn't just come here for no reason. Someone put it here to guard something. We should focus our search on rooms connecting to that room," says Vorian. Everyone agrees that this sounds just as good a plan as any, and systematically open the doors in that room to see where they go. One room has manacles on the wall, chains on the floor, and a large chasm. They also see a pile of plates in the corner of the room, along with a razor, presumably a make shift eating utensil. The group circumvents that room, and continues past it, suddenly coming upon a gold dragon taking up the entirety of a room, leaving no way for the group to enter.

" I was wondering when someone would find me down here," says the gold dragon in deep, somber tones.

"Well, yes. We just happened to be searching for dragons, as it were," says Casandra the bard with her usual wit."

" I find that hard to believe, but no matter. Perhaps there is something you could help me with nonetheless. I've been trapped down here for several days, trying to evade a green dragon. These cooridors are too small for either of us to travel normally, but if I shrink myself to attempt to escape, I fear he will find me and pounce on me in a larger form, giving him the advantage. But with your assistance, we may be able to slay the evil dragon and I would free from his harrasment."

"Fighting a dragon by ourselves may be too much. Can you assist us?" asks Vorian. The dragon nods, and then casts a series of spells, shrinking down to humanish size, but keeping his dragon form.

"Very well. Let's move quickly. These spells won't last long."

The now smaller gold dragon directs the party from a position in the rear, telling them to go towards the central room of the complex. Inside, they hear a scrapping noise. Aldoran listens but can't identify the sound. "Could that be the green dragon inside?" he asks.

"I am not certain. It sounds like it could be," responds the dragon, as the slight scraping sounds continue. Vorian prepares himself, and busts down the door, charging into the room. Inside, he is confronted not with a dragon, but three bebliths, large spider like demons. Vorian stumbles slightly, wondering as to the sagacity of his original plan.

Aldoran begins casting a spell upon seeing what is inside, but well before he is finished, the bebliths attack. Vorian thinks he may have to face off against only one, as they are too large and the room too small for them to bring attacks to bear. However, the first one to move climbs up onto the wall and approaches that way, presenting as much of a threat as one on the ground. It bites Vorian, causing a small wound, and Vorian feels a poison enter his body. The second one bites him as well, but it's poison is much more potent, and Vorian visibly shakes and stubmles under it's effects. The last one flings a web at Vorian which hits him soundly, immobalizing him.

Chamele responds by changing Vorian into a spider through use of the polymorph, which enables him to escape the web (I think stricktly a freedom of movement effect would be needed, which a spider eater has but is a supernatural effect and not granted by polymorph. In the end, I thought it would make sense to allow it though. Alternatively, he could have been transformed into an ooze and the acid would have eaten through, or some sort of fire magical beast to burn his way out.)

The dragon begins casting a spell, and then speaks in Abyssal, "It would be best not to fight us or interfere, lest you risk the ire of your superiors in the abyss." After speaking, one of the spider like creatures disappears.

Vorian, in spider form, moves out of the room, and then shortly after that a tiger appears, pouncing on one of the remaining spiders, but failing to do any lasting damage to it. Aldoran then chants, holding onto his wooden holy symbol, and reaches out, causing the stone wall to fill in where the door used to be. He then casts a delay poison spell on Vorian, still in spider form.

"That will keep you from getting worse for a couple of hours, but I fear that in your weakened state the poison will be more effective against you and more deadly. Without some sort of treatment, you may very well die. Let's get to the surface and see what I can do."

The group moves cautiously back to where they entered the complex, and they reach the surface after a short climb.

Aldoran, upon reaching the surface, casts a spell, and a unicorn appears. Aldoran speaks to it in Sylvan, asking for it's aid. It touches it horn to Vorian, but his appearance remains unchanged. "The poison is gone, but the damage it has done remains," says Aldoran, and then the unicorn disappears.

"I can reverse the poisons' effects, but I will need to wait until dawn, which is still several hours away."

"That will take too long. If we are to defeat the green, we must act quickly. I will take Vorian to a town where he can get his healing and return," says the gold dragon, who upon reaching the outside changed into his normal size.

"A bargain is struck then. If you take me to the town, I will vow that the green dragon will be destroyed," says Vorian.

Vorian and the dragon leave and return, taking about four hours. Vorian brings scrolls and potions of lesser restoration, as well as several vials of antitoxin. "In case we run into any more of those creatures," he explains, distributing them from his pack.

The group then reenters the underground complex, going back to the room with the demons. Upon opening the door, they see that it is empty. They travel from that room, and in the adjascent room, they see the green dragon, lying in wait.

Bodak and Beholder

April 9th, 2010.

I'll just give a brief description of the battles, and then a small discussion.

Luckily, these weren't encountered together. Without a cleric, the undead Bodak seemed to pose a real challenge, even if it was alone. With damage reduction and energy resistance and immunity, it was quite an interesting monster. The save or die effect caused everyone to try to avert their eyes to circumvent the gaze attack, which nobody succumbed to. This was a random encounter that followed (Kobold, Desert), which actually made things interesting. They had camped near the nomadic kobolds, and it was their dying in the middle of the night that alerted the PCs to the Bodak's presence.

Once they got to the ruins, the next big battle was against a beholder. They had never fought a beholder before, and it was interesting how things turned out. When it came down to it, Kascannia the elf fighter made all 10 saving throws vs the eye stalks, which I'm certain she was thankful for. The arcane trickster was able to get two lightning bolts cast, which hurt the beholder the most.

So, my question to you is: what do you think of save or die effects? In this case, it was all save and no die. It could have gone the other way around, but for a group of level 12 PCs, I think a beholder in some ways doesn't pose much of a threat. And the damage reduction of the bodak was easily overcome by brute force. A group of either of them would have posed a more serious challange I think.

Manticores and You

March 12th, 2010

We stopped our last session just as the manticores were attacking, sending their spikey spikes of doom into the front line fighters, and the wizard casting obscuring mist in order to protect the entire group from the missiles.

This made the combat quite a bit more exciting in my opinion, as everyone had to stay inside the mist, forcing the monsters inside. The 20% miss chance due to concealment made melee combat a little longer, and let the druid's summoned monsters help a bit more than usual.

By the end of the combat with the four manticores which I gave 10 more hit dice (from 6 to 16), I decided to end it. While we could have progressed with the story, it was already later than I had hoped and I was already feeling tired.

On another positive note, the spaghetti and sauce I cooked up was pretty good. Perhaps next time we game we'll be back to our normal fair of pizza.

Random Encounters

Normally, I write about the progress the group has made and what they did in a narrative format. I'm going to depart from that today, mainly because I decided that a long journey from point A to point B would best be served in one of two fashions. Either a narrative, where the group travels through some hardships and gets to their destination relatively unscathed, or a series of random encounters.

I decided that random encounters would be appropriate in this case, as it would serve two purposes. Number one purpose was combat. I wanted a session with some combat in it, as the last session was completely narrative, and I didn't award any XP, though I plan to at some point as a story award. The second purpose was to show that the terrain in this area isn't very forgiving. One of the reasons it's called the lost tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali is that it hasn't been found. If anybody could just walk north from the city and find it, it would have been found long ago.

As a synopsis, the group bought some equipment, traveled north for about 8 hours, and when they were getting ready to set up camp, the druid detected undead nearby, heading for their location. In about an hour, half a dozen large zombies reached the group, which they had no trouble dispatching. During the night, a group of manticores came across the group, and attacked them. Chamele cast obscuring mist to prevent their aerial assault and we stopped there for the evening.

At this rate, the group might find it difficult to rest long enough to replenish their spells which could have a seriously detrimental effect as they counted on Aldoran's spells to protect them from the harsh climate.

Arrival in Dijishy

We played our ongoing Kalamar game on January 22nd, 2010. It's been a couple of months since our last session and more than a year before our previous one.

The rest of the trip from the coast to Dijishy was uneventful. Walking through the arid but not quite desert conditions towards to city were acceptable, but as they approached the city, they realized that it was hospitable only by it's unique location between the Elos Desert to the east and the Elenon mountains to the west. Skirting between these two easily identifiable landmarks, reaching the city-state was not difficult.

Found on the edge of a cliff, with a man made ramp leading up to it from the ground below, it is easily defensible. Boasting an almost homogeneously human population of 6,000, with dwarves being a small minority.

The group enters the gates, which are guarded by two humans, who regard them with disinterest. They quickly find an inn, and waste no time trying to gather information on where the tomb might be located, but in a circumspect way. As they entered the inn, the only group that seemed different than the local populace was a high elven female wearing plate mail, with a sword at her hip and shield on her back, surrounded by three human males, one also wearing plate mail, one wearing plain white robes, and the last wearing leather armor.

After finding their own table and ordering food and ale, Chamele and Kasandra approach the four at the table, and strike up a small conversation. Chamele says they have been hired to find a more southern overland route to Brandobia that avoids Pel Brolenon and their slaver trade, and asks what the other group is doing in the city, at the edge of nowhere.

They said they were currently unemployed and looking for work, but the location suited them, what with Kalamar to the east and Pel Brolenon to the west, Dijishy was looking pretty good for an elf like her. But she did say that the Great Sanctuary might have some maps or other information about the local area and might be a good place to start their search.

So a short while later, the group approaches the library, where Vorian says to a librarian seated behind a large desk at the entrance that he would like to peruse their collection, and is told it is 10 gold for the day. He hands over 10 gold and is given a large, red metal disk with a hole in the center. He goes to hand it to Kasandra, when the librarian says, "Sir, entrance is not transferable. If she would like to enter, she must pay her own fee."

"What?" asks Vorian incredulously. "I said I would like to peruse your collection, not that I was. I was paying for her."

"Your statement, plus the exchange of coinage implies that..."

"You can infer all you want! In that case, I want a refund."

"There are no refunds."

" Then I want to speak to your superior."

"Very well. He won't have anything different to say to you, but...," and with that he nods to one of the many assistants behind him, who goes walking off.

After waiting about a minute, Vorian looses patience and says, "So where is he?"

"Patience, sir. Some things take time."

"And some things take less time, for example, me losing my patience," attempting to intimidate the librarian.

"Let me see what I can do," and he nods to another attendant, who walks away briskly. "Perhaps you should realize that all things happen for a reason and in their own time." As he is talking, several men come back through the entrance to the library. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"No, I'm staying right here until you give me my money back."

"Then we'll have to remove you bodily," says the librarian, as two of the men approach Vorian.

"Coward! Sending your thugs after me instead of doing it yourself," says Vorian, scowling as he walks out of the entrance alcove.

After Vorian leaves, Chamele walks forward and says, "Me and my acquaintance here seek admittance," motioning toward Kasandra and handing over two platinum coins."

"Very well. No weapons are permitted inside. You can leave them here and they will be returned to you when you leave."

Chamele and Casandra then begin their search for information on the lost tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali, spending 5 days in the library. They returned each morning, given a disc of a different color, and left each evening. Towards the end of their search, they found a promising book, The Journal of Niemallion Laebrinoia. Chamele spends some time, and copies out to be what appears the most interesting parts of the journal. As she is copying the book, she sees out of the corner of her eye a librarian, who appears to be smiling slightly as he walks away.

During this time, Aldoran had been flying around the environs in eagle form, trying to get a feel for the land. On the 4th day, he begins to travel north as far as possible before returning. He make good progress, and notices a fortress ruin amongst the mountain passes. Before he can inspect further, he notices a manticore. He decides to fly back to the city, out distancing it before it could present a threat.

With that, the group feels well prepared to travel north to explore the ruins and than farther northward toward the Great Valley.

To Dijishy

November 13th, 2009

Having recovered from the tomb of horrors and finding a credible report of the location of the lost tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali, the group of adventurers traveled toward Dijishy, first by boat and then overland through the Elos desert.

On the way, they encountered a lone traveler, presumably a merchant, riding a pony. Unfortunately, he was attacked by flying, fiery beings.

His pony was attacked and knocked unconscious, and he was killed shortly after. But Aldoran used his bow to draw one of the two of them away, and it began approaching the group at full speed. It was killed quickly, and the other one was dispatched by Kascannia, who used her frost rapier and fighting ability to good effect.