There are a couple of reasons I am combining these 2 episodes 1: lawschool takes a lot of time. 2: These are very closely entwined so it allows me to better discuss what was involved in the episodes. 3: It will help me catch up with where we are in the game.
I don't want to spend too much time getting into a lot of discussion this week, but I don want to let you know that I have decided to run my group through the Tomb of Horrors. They are the right level for it, they are a solid thinking party, and it just seemed like a good opportunity to play a module that has been elevated to the point of legend. Its a lot of fun, and I think the group is enjoying it just as much.
Episodes 23 &24
Things are going pretty well at this point in the game, Belfast has been beaten, Leanna has paid for her crimes, the Duke is alive, and its almost Christmas time! Things would really be going well if it wasn't for the fact that Ismana had been captured by some cruel wealthy lord and the fact that there is a Demon Lord about to tear open the fabric of reality between the Abyss and Proveria. So outside of those couple of things, you know, life is pretty good.
The party spends a couple of days celebrating christmas and having a little bit of festivity before they head out to find Ismana. Urz decided it was time to teach Wisthaven about one of his tribes traditional games: you walk as far onto the ice as you can before it breaks. Urz was fine, but 7 people lost their lives that Christmas day. Damone ended up getting drunk and woke up with... someone else- at some point we decided he was mildy bisexual, or at least accidentally so, so whenever he gets drunk there is a percent chance it will be one gender or the other.
When the party finally left the snow was deep and the whether was cold, so I modifed the way that the cold damage would be taken, rather than 1 save per hour I did 1 save per day that dealt CON damage. That was fun way to do it. Lina took about 6 points of CON damage on the way out to Osht (the half-way point between them and Lord Pelegrin).
Once they made it to Osht it was new years eve, Lina stayed in to heal up while the rest of the party went out to party. Urz once again introduced people to his game, this time he sunk under the ice, almost drowned, and then was dropped to about 3 total CON left by the time he got back to shore. Life can be exciting when you are a half-orc barbarian.
After spending a few days recovering and dodging some of the poor weather coming their way they made the last 4 days of travel down to Lord Pelegrins Estate. They were escorted below and met with him, and he had Ismana right there with him. He let them know he would exchange Ismana for either $75,000 or for 1 service. The service he requested was that they travel to an ancient tomb, the tomb where Nagaste-Tor and his apprentice Shay-Sek researched immortality. Inside of the Tomb, past layers of horrific traps, is a Silver Dragon Orb, the ancient and powerful artifact. If they can bring him this item, then Lord Pelegrin agreed to give them back Ismana.
Hesitantly the party agreed, after using spells and abilities to verify that he was telling the truth. They made their way down to the Tomb, using the only man who had ever gone in and come back out again as their guide. Once they arrived at the frozen swamp they spent a few days searching for the entrance. After a few false entrances had been found and Lina had disabled the traps they finally found the correct entrance way. The hall in front of them was long and had a winding mosaic path that led towards a 5 foot tall green demon head and to an archway with mist in it.
My party chose to completely bypass both of those when Urz smashed a chunk of the wall, set off a trap, and then accidentally found a secret door. Inside of that secret door was a four armed gargoyle that deal almost 90 points of damage to Urz in the first round. A few lucky rolls on the parties part and they barely managed to bring the gargoyle down before it killed any one. At this point Lina took the lead and with her insane Perception and Disable device checks, supported by Good Hope from Damone, she managed to work her way through a series of secret doors and dart traps.
On the other side of those secret doors the party set up camp. They woke and found themselves in another long hallway, this one had a number of orbs that were going up an down the hallway. The first took them to a 4 armed gargoyle statue and a puzzle that required them to destroy a number of gems and then earned them a gem of seeing. Further down the hallway another secret door led them into a room with a brain in a jar. It dominated Urz and when the party tried to destroy it Urz swung on Lina dealing about 50% of her total HP in damage. The brain was quickly destroyed and Urz was back to normal.
The next entrance they took led them to a large evil chapel. After setting off a poison trap, then a lightning bolt trap, then a fireball trap they finally managed to solve the secret door in the room and opened up to another hallway. A couple of put traps later they found that there was yet another secret door that led to another secret door and then into a room with 3 vats. The first vat was water, the second acid, and the last a gelatinous cube. Sam dumped acid into the cube vat and dissolved it. Once that was done they pulled 2 key halves out and moved on to the next room.
They then flew over a 30 foot long pit and somehow stumbled onto the most optimal route to get to a magically sealed door. This door required a DC 45 Disable Device check to unlock, which means that Lina would need a natural 20 to open it, unless they could solve the puzzle (I did not tell them this, they found out after). Lina rolled a natural 20. So into the next room they went! A huge chamber filled with columns and a strange soft orange glow from the other side of the room.
And that folks is where we left off this last week. I don't want to get into too much detail on this because they are still in the dungeon and there is a good amount left to deal with.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Episode 22
The campaign has been moving along nicely. Really most everything I was wanting to happen the party has been doing. Which is nice. This was a very big week in regards to the over all story line of the adventure. It was actually an opportunity for there to be very big changes in the game and I was not exactly sure where things were going to go. Lots of fun to be had when you don't know what is about to happen. Very exciting.
EPISODE 22:
The party took time to finish up their preparations. It turned out that Tyhpus sword, Crissus, became sentient this last time that it was enchanted... as it turns out Crissus has belonged to the Paladin order of Tyr for centuries and it views itself as a defender of the faithful. I have decided to make a random chance for any item that receives an enchantment to become sentient. The idea is the process of making a magic item is somewhat.... volatile, and sometimes they wake up.
So the party took their new gear and headed into the blustery winds of mid December towards the Sunlight Keep. On their way south they ran into some of their old friends, Leanna the assassin and Athis the Graveknight. Those 2 were very interested in making the party dead. It was a tough fight, and it once again brought Urz to the edge of death. Once Athis fell Leanna tried to bargain for her life. She offered to trade freedom for secrets. I only about 25% expected that this was going to get the party to bite. Instead the took her down, bound her up, questioned her and killed her. I cannot entirely blame them- I did what I could to get her out of there but ultimately the party was just too interested in seeing her die for her crimes. She has been a foil to the group for some time and it was good for them to get some closure there.
From the clues she left they managed to put together that Belfast was completing a ritual that night to open up the seal that was holding back Nagaste-Tor. If Nagaste-Tor was unleashed than every person in Osht would die, more than 150,000 people. So they slipped past the Black Guard encampment, hurried into the secret tunnel and then ran into a few cultists at the bottom of the tunnel. These cultists were really causing some confusion for the group. They knew now that not all of the cultists were bad and yet here they were killing paladins of Tyr and trying to raise the most horrific scourge that the world had seen back into the open. This was really the effect I was hoping for, because things were about to be cleared up shortly. The cultists that they fought were also the exact same difficulty as the cultists they fought at the beginning of the game, a couple of level 2 guys, and a few level 1's. I thought it would be fun for them to see how far they had come.
Once they got downstairs they saw that Belfast was finishing up the ritual. And now he had a chance to provide a little exposition. Belfast informs the party that he became aware of rifts between Proveria and after researching what was happening and communing with Nergal realized that there was a Demon Lord that was trying to tear his way into their reality. He tried to find ways to stop it and with more study determined the only thing strong enough to stop the Demon Lord was the Arch-Lich Nagaste-Tor. He used Athis's money and resources as the Count of Pastan and then asked him for the ultimate sacrifice, become an evil undead monster to help save the world. And now Belfast is prepared to sacrifice the entire country so that the rest of the world will be saved from the demon invasion.
At this point the party had a decision to make, do they stand back and let Belfast kill 150,000 people that night and potentially the entire country to stop the Demon Lord, or do they stop Belfast and find a new way to prevent this Demon Lord from entering their world.
They chose to stop Belfast and save Osht. Another tough fight. This is the inherent problem with difficult encounters- they can be extremely volatile. Belfast had a few spells that boiled down to save or die- destruction and disintegrate. I hit 2 people in the party with those and they both saved, and still took a ton of damage. The whole fight took about 5, maybe 6 rounds. I would love for a boss fight like this to take 9, 10, or 11 rounds, but the nature of them is such that the party just cannot stand the damage output. The only reason that its a problem is that a Big Bad Evil Guy that has been built up from the start of the game ought to have, I don't know, something more.
That being said, Belfast was slain. The party arose victorious from the depths, freed the paladins who had been captured below and convinced the remaining Black Guard that they should follow Chara (the Black Guard priestess who helped them defeat a demon earlier). With that the adventure was basically over, they headed back up to Wisthaven and needed to find out what happened to Ismana.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
EPISODE 22:
The party took time to finish up their preparations. It turned out that Tyhpus sword, Crissus, became sentient this last time that it was enchanted... as it turns out Crissus has belonged to the Paladin order of Tyr for centuries and it views itself as a defender of the faithful. I have decided to make a random chance for any item that receives an enchantment to become sentient. The idea is the process of making a magic item is somewhat.... volatile, and sometimes they wake up.
So the party took their new gear and headed into the blustery winds of mid December towards the Sunlight Keep. On their way south they ran into some of their old friends, Leanna the assassin and Athis the Graveknight. Those 2 were very interested in making the party dead. It was a tough fight, and it once again brought Urz to the edge of death. Once Athis fell Leanna tried to bargain for her life. She offered to trade freedom for secrets. I only about 25% expected that this was going to get the party to bite. Instead the took her down, bound her up, questioned her and killed her. I cannot entirely blame them- I did what I could to get her out of there but ultimately the party was just too interested in seeing her die for her crimes. She has been a foil to the group for some time and it was good for them to get some closure there.
From the clues she left they managed to put together that Belfast was completing a ritual that night to open up the seal that was holding back Nagaste-Tor. If Nagaste-Tor was unleashed than every person in Osht would die, more than 150,000 people. So they slipped past the Black Guard encampment, hurried into the secret tunnel and then ran into a few cultists at the bottom of the tunnel. These cultists were really causing some confusion for the group. They knew now that not all of the cultists were bad and yet here they were killing paladins of Tyr and trying to raise the most horrific scourge that the world had seen back into the open. This was really the effect I was hoping for, because things were about to be cleared up shortly. The cultists that they fought were also the exact same difficulty as the cultists they fought at the beginning of the game, a couple of level 2 guys, and a few level 1's. I thought it would be fun for them to see how far they had come.
Once they got downstairs they saw that Belfast was finishing up the ritual. And now he had a chance to provide a little exposition. Belfast informs the party that he became aware of rifts between Proveria and after researching what was happening and communing with Nergal realized that there was a Demon Lord that was trying to tear his way into their reality. He tried to find ways to stop it and with more study determined the only thing strong enough to stop the Demon Lord was the Arch-Lich Nagaste-Tor. He used Athis's money and resources as the Count of Pastan and then asked him for the ultimate sacrifice, become an evil undead monster to help save the world. And now Belfast is prepared to sacrifice the entire country so that the rest of the world will be saved from the demon invasion.
At this point the party had a decision to make, do they stand back and let Belfast kill 150,000 people that night and potentially the entire country to stop the Demon Lord, or do they stop Belfast and find a new way to prevent this Demon Lord from entering their world.
They chose to stop Belfast and save Osht. Another tough fight. This is the inherent problem with difficult encounters- they can be extremely volatile. Belfast had a few spells that boiled down to save or die- destruction and disintegrate. I hit 2 people in the party with those and they both saved, and still took a ton of damage. The whole fight took about 5, maybe 6 rounds. I would love for a boss fight like this to take 9, 10, or 11 rounds, but the nature of them is such that the party just cannot stand the damage output. The only reason that its a problem is that a Big Bad Evil Guy that has been built up from the start of the game ought to have, I don't know, something more.
That being said, Belfast was slain. The party arose victorious from the depths, freed the paladins who had been captured below and convinced the remaining Black Guard that they should follow Chara (the Black Guard priestess who helped them defeat a demon earlier). With that the adventure was basically over, they headed back up to Wisthaven and needed to find out what happened to Ismana.
Until Next Time!
-Ubercroz
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