Episode 19

It was a large group at the Ubercroz residence this evening.  We had a total of 7 players for this iteration, the difficulty being that 2 of them were only going to be there that evening, so I had to figure out a way that would make things work while not ruining the fun for the rest of the group.  The good news is that when you have a group of players in their late 20's and early 30's it makes things easier, since no one gets too hung up on things.
These 2 were a couple, he was with us the week before and asked to bring his lady so that she could get to see how a game ran and so she could get some context if he ever started spouting inane gamer nonsense.  I think it worked out, now it did leave me with a few interesting challenges for the next week, since the party is closing in on the BBEG and I now have 7 PC's for what I had designed to be a 5 PC fight....

Episode 19:

The party spent some time preparing for their journey up to find the druid who was supposed to have a secret way in to Mal'Inia's fortress.  To find the way Oberron asked a guide named Moonflower Stardust (the girl) to guide them up to where the druid lived.  It very quickly became apparent to the party that you could move Moonflowers name around and come up with all kinds of interesting names: Starflower Moondust, Moonstar Flowerdust, Starflower Dustmoon, etc.  I think we as a group were more amused by that than she was... but maybe not.

So Stardust led the party up to the druids hut and on the way they were waylay-ed by a Quickwood- This was an encounter I thought would be real fun and it challenged the party because of how far away the monster can engage the group.  It continued to grapple and pull them in towards its slobbering maw while the archer types blasted away at a distance.  It didn't take long for the tree to fall, given its not that tough of a monster, but it was a fun fight regardless.

Afterwards they made it up to the druid who was about to explain how to get explain how to get into Mal'Inias lair (after some cajoling from the party) when they noticed a Quickling in the rafters and took off after it.  At this point I had a chase set up using the rules in the Game Mastery Guide.  At 8th level chases get a little difficult it seems.  The skill disparity between characters is so high that you either play towards the high skill characters and leave the others behind or you try and figure out to let everyone win somehow.

I decided to play to the latter- at a certain card in the chase sequence there was no way for a couple of the characters to bypass it, so I made a secret perception roll on that card that would let them use survival to run a shortcut so they might be able to cut the quickling off.  Well the way it worked out Typhus made the perception check and then the survival check easily and caught the quickling with no trouble (something I was a little worried about, but it was fine).  The the new silver dragon in the party caught up quickly and caught the little fey in a mouth grapple (which sounds much better than it is I think).  At this point one of Mal'Inia's main supporters, a 10th level fighter pure fey, was waiting to catch the PC's in an ambush with the quickling who was leading the party to him.  Well the ambush didn't go off well because the quickling got caught.  Then Typhus did a move and swing on Arbalest, the bad guy, and caught him with a critical.  Since I use the crit cards Typhus pulled "decapitation" which meant Arbalest Saves or dies.  Arbalest dies.

This was going to be a really good fight.

 I had planned on this being a much more bad ass fat than it ended up being.  Somehow I was not upset, it was just what happened.  It seemed real great in a lot of ways, I had wanted the party to get an advantage if they caught that quickling and they caught him.  It worked out really well.  It made Typhus feel like a bad ass and the rest of the party felt good because they got to move on in the game with a clean victory.

They then headed back to the druid, Shalinia, who explained that they would need to travel through a myconid and troll infested cave to get to an underground waterway.  At this waterway they would need to polymorph into a diminutive creature and swim for some distance to get into a pool in Mal'Inias courtyard.

Taking this information back to Oberron they planned their next move.  On the parties signal Oberron would lead his forces to attack while the party slipped in the back.  Once inside the good Dark Fey would provide a distraction so the party could get in and put Mal'Inia's heart into a cold iron box.

The cave of Wonders! (or maybe just trolls and things)

The party slipped into the cave and ran into a few trolls... and talked their way out of the fight.  I was really hesitant to let this one go.  It seems like it would be very hard to talk a troll into not wanting to eat you.  They made the roll so I did not want to discredit that.  The thing was it seemed really strange that these trolls who had been waiting to eat whatever came into their cave did not eat the party.  I don't know, it was probably fine it just seemed a little strange.... to make it easier they used the bards fascinate and suggestion skill- which I was fine with, the diplomacy just seemed strange.  After talking their way past the trolls they dove into the waterway and popped out in the courtyard of Mal'Inia.

In the courtyard an evil Neiad with a couple of water elemental servants fought the party.  Finally a good fight!  She was back in the water, so the group had to swim or fight at a distance... or enlarge.  This would have been a better fight against 5 players, but 7 was still fun.  It went pretty quickly but the party had fun and it made for a nice closeout on the night.  Now this week I have another new player showing up who wants to play his own character, which I am fine with... I just have to figure out how to make it work...

I use to many ellipsis.

Until next time!

-Ubercroz