Episode 3

The big thing about this next fight... well I know I claim to be a homebrew gm, but I steal whole chunks from modules.  and this dungeon drew inspiration from the 4e Shadowkeep game.  Its not the same game at all, but their are very similar elements throughout that I twisted to my own sick designs.  So this next fight draws from that game in that, well there is an evil portal, there is a cleric summoning something evil, and... well thats all I guess.  This ended up being a long session, so this entry may be a little longer than most.

Episode 3:

The players chose to leave Giles tied up on an alter upstairs, planning to deal with him later.  I thought this was a lovely opportunity to let him escape, and cause problems later.

Leveled up and ready to take on the day the party went downstairs to a face off against Belfast.  We have a big fight on our hands.  This drifted very close to a TPK, and I am okay with that.  I love epic fights.  and this is fight lies somewhere around a CR8 in total difficulty, and this of course is a 3rd level group with 6 PC's.

You have Belfast, the 5th level cleric, 2 1st level fighters, 2 1st level warriors, 2 1 hp skeletons, and... blood elementals.  Blood elementals I made for the week, um basically they have around 3 hd and 2 dr/magic.  that made things complicated.

The blood elementals (BL) would when summoned showed up anywhere on pool of blood that was best for me

The way the fight broke down was Belfast ignored them until after the fighters died, then he summoned blood dudes, THEN he broke the seal in the middle summoned fliying black death tentacles and he fought them essentially 1 on 1 at that point.  Urz hit -10 hp, but he's a 1/2 orc so he was fine.  I dropped 2 guys that fight, but killed no one.  The blood added a few interesting things, slippery floor and the Blood Elemental threat, so that made the room feel dangerous.  The gray areas are rough terrain so that made things more difficult as well.

So bad guy drops, he curses his weak body and then turns into a 3 week old corpse! oh no what happened to the badguy!?  


Well, like any good GM I can't waste a good villain in one fight, so he had back up plans.  he had a potion of invisibility, which got wasted.  His BIG backup plan was that he has low power versions of himself roaming the country side doing bad things, if they die he loses a level. (I am keeping track of this so the players will later be rewarded for having taken out his little dudes.)  So he uses fresh corpses to spread himself a little thin.  

Anyway they gather up his hot gear and head back to town, huzzah the heroes of Dooms Ward Keep! (this title sticks with them for a while).  Lord Durris then asks them to look into an Ettin in a little town to the south and they agree to do so.

On the way there they stop in a little town called Millan.  They meet up with a nice Tavern Keeper who gets murdered, and now they have to figure it out.  It basically boiled down to asking everyone in town what happened that night and then finding out whose stories didn't match.  Pretty fun role playing experience.  The players were looking all over town splitting into small groups and asking people what happened and eventually put together that it was Leanna the bartender!  Turns out Leanna is an assassin working for Belfast and our friendly bartender Garrit found out.

This is a small lift as well.  I nabbed a chunk of another module I half looked at for some concepts and then built the story to fit.  This was to control pacing, we had just spent the better part of three weeks in nothing but combat and dungeons getting constantly beaten on.  I wanted to slow things down and give them a chance to stretch their skills.  They got to use diplomacy, bluff, sense motive, intimidate, survival, knowledge skills, all kinds of stuff.  So this is a nice way to reward people who pay attention to their skills.


Well Leanna bailed out of town and the party tracked her north a little ways.  Where she was waiting for them in ambush.

Leanna is a 5th level rogue who I just put a ton of points into bluff, stealth, and perception.  She was a glass cannon.  No armor really, but I gave her a couple of flash bangs so she could hide, sneak attack, bluff and hide, then sneak attack, leave everyone in the party bleeding and then book it.  This was a fun fight.  If things went bad for the party it could have gotten real ugly real quick.  Her feats were point blank shot, deadly aim, two weapon fighting and I intended on her taking a -20 stealth check on a snipe check once.... which she did and succeed (they rolled BAD perception).  

Eventually Lina, the gnome rogue rolled a good perception check and Durn grabbed her with a hold person spell.  They took her back to town and let the town take possession of her so she could "swing from the gallows"- which has now become a very common phrase in my campaign now.

At this point I asked, so you stay and watch her hang?  They said "nope, we are going to get that Ettin."  I smiled a little to myself, a level 5 rogue in a town of 0 level commoners... sounds like justice will have to wait.


So I hope that wasn't too long, but it was a long night.  Catch you next time!

-Ubercroz