Keep on the Shadowfell - Session 9

Potential spoilers for Keep on the Shadowfell herein.

A summary of our 9th and final session exploring the Keep on the Shadowfell. In attendance:

* me - DM
* Kevin - half-elf paladin
* Dave - tiefling warlock
* Ed - human cleric
* Bob - human fighter
* Murph - eladrin wizard

Kevin has drill for the naval reserve this weekend so he wants the session to end by 11:45pm. This gives him a chance to get some sleep before heading up to Maine in the morning. By my reckoning, these last three encounters should flow from one to the next pretty quickly. I'm not sure if it's DM burnout (did I mention I usually burn out fairly quickly) or my growing dissatisfaction with the adventure, but I really want to finish this module up tonight. I push for a start closer to 7pm instead of our usual 8pm one.

I had read over the encounters several times during the week. There's a sidebar telling you to play Kalarel as EE-VIL during the final battle. Do things like taunt the players, tell them how they'll never win, generally be contemptuous of their abilities. I've never been a fan of these types of villains. All of can think of is Jeremy Irons' Profion is the first D&D movie (I admit, I like this movie precisely for this cheesiness but I don't like it in my games). As I've mentioned before, running an NPC is my DM kryptonite. I really wish more adventures would give me better advice than, make him EE-VIL. All I want is 4 information points about an NPC:

1. Appearance
2. Distinguishing mannerisms
3. What does he or she know
4. Motivations

I think the module did a decent job covering these bases (with the exception of motivations) for the townsfolk. I was pretty disappointed with a lack of that type of information for Kalarel, the BBEG (as well as the under-priest of Orcus). I get plenty about their tactics but not much about the why. Oh, except for the 'they're fanatical or underestimate the PCs and will fight to the death' motivations. [I guess I really should start putting these together myself.] This pretty much moves the adventure into the 'do not like' category. I'll admit this may have some influence on how I run this session.


With 5 people in attendance, I don't have to adjust the encounters. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how things play out.

Bob's fighter opens the door. In the room beyond there is a set of stairs leading down on the eastern wall. The middle of the room contains a huge column (for lack of a better term) which is at least 15 feet long on each side. The flickering torchlight also reveals some zombies are in the room. The fighter yells "zombies" and enters the room, sword drawn. Murph has his wizard run into the room right after the fighter. The guys yell "no" while I yell "he took his hand of the mini, it's too late!" (I kill me). We then take a few minutes to explain to Murph that he's a wizard. He's supposed to attack the bad guys behind the protective wall of the defender types. It's interesting that Murph generally wants to play a spell slinger but always has them act like a fighter. Anyway, Murph's wizard delays his actions until the paladin and cleric can move into the room and do their things. He's then able to move into the room behind the defenders and start lobbing spells. The zombies are mostly minions with one or two standard zombies. There's also a clay scout (a homunculus) and a ghoul. The ghoul was a bit disappointing. It pretty much only has melee attacks. It waits until the zombies attack and surround the party. Then it waits for openings to attack. The ghoul has a nasty bite attack but it relies on the victim being immobilized (or stunned or uncouncious) or it can't use it. This means it essentially needs two rounds to use this attack. A first attack with its claw which does damage and immobilizes the victim. Then it can followup with the bite. The clay scout does have a ranged attack (mind blast) that deals damage plus dazes the character. It had taken a few shots (all misses) before it saw which way the battle was going and decided to flee down the stair. This battle was pretty much a cakewalk for the heroes. The terrain of the room with the 'column' in the middle, allowed the PCs to choke these access points, limiting the baddies that can get at them.

The party has a chance for a short rest. The group just now realizes that they have not taken an extended rest since they started exploring the second floor. They decide now would be a good time to do so. Unfortunately, the clay scout had warned the underpriest of Orcus in the next room to the intruders presence. The heroes were just getting ready to settle down when the door at the bottom of the stairs burst open and two humans, weapons in hand, appear. I had checked the original encounter and saw no tactical advantage that would cause the bad guys to passively wait in the next room while the were those who could possibly spoil their plans were nearby. The human berserkers charge up the stairs while several vampire spawn (minions) come through the door. The guys eyes widen quite a bit when they they saw how much damage one of the berserkers does to Bob's fighter. As the heroes battle these foes, a dark creeper and the underpriest of Orcus enter the fray. The dark creeper is no match for the warlock's dark powers [I had dropped the allies provide cover house rule at the start of the session]. While the rest battle the bekserkers and spawn, the paladin challenges the underpriest. We're still having some issues about who marked who even with Dave breaking out some spare Risk pieces to help people keep track of these things. Of course, the markers get accidentally moved when people move minis. Not really helping the confusion. I'd say the markers worked best for Dave so he could keep track of what enemies his warlock cursed. I stopped using any marking powers monsters may have. Again, the party makes it though a battle with little damage.

At this point, it's 10:30pm and we have one encounter to go. I'm hell-bent on finishing this up tonight. We take a short break to get beverages and use the facilities.

I tell the guys that as they finish a short rest, a tremor shakes the keep and they get a feeling of terrible foreboding coming from below. They feel that if they don't take action now, it'll be too late. Most of the guys have spent their dailies but are down only a couple of surges. I tell them that the paladin and cleric start to glow and this glow jumps to the wizard and fighter. If they don't have an action point, they get one. They also get their daily powers back. This does not affect the number of healing surges they have left. This glow does not cover the warlock. Dave's character worships Asmodeus [pretty cool backstory] and the good deities were not going to aid him. I'm fairly certain he still had an action point.

The party heads down the stairs and into the room beyond. They find several alters covered with blood. This blood forms several small rivers that flow to the center of the room and down into a pit. The cleric peers into the pit and sees a huge chamber. In the chamber is a human chanting in front of a dark portal while standing in a magic circle. He also notices two skeletons that appear to be guarding this human. Blood-covered chains appear to be the only way down. I give the players two options. Make a DC15 athletics check to make it to the bottom of the chamber in one round or take two rounds and make it down safely without checks. The fighter makes it down in one round with the wizard hot on his heels. The cleric and warlock decide to go down safely. The paladin rolls his eyes at the wizard's boldness and flies (as in speedily) down the chain. The chanting human must be Kalarel, the person who sent the note they found. Kalarel is standing at the back end of the magic circle (he has taken up this advantageous position thanks to the clay scout's warning). The edge of the circle is about 20 feet in front of a dark portal (is that darkness moving?). The skeletons stand between Kalarel and the party at the front edge of the circle (front being closest to the chains). This circle grants Kalarel and any undead in it a bonus to defenses and, as long as they start their turn in it, they regain 5 hit points. The defenders move to attack Kalarel but are intercepted by the skeletons. Murph drops a flaming sphere in the exact center of the circle. He attacks and damages one of the skeletons with his party members taking some collateral damage.

The clay scout, that earlier escaped, steps out from behind a pillar on a dais and launches a ranged attack against the wizard. He hits. The wizard is now dazed. In the dazed state, Murph's wizard can only take one action. He chooses to maintain the flaming sphere. He fails his save. Murph would end up in the dazed state for quite a number of rounds. Each time he'd save, the clay golem would again hit him with his ranged attack. The roll would be high enough that his shield utility power could not block the hit. For his action, Murph would decide to maintain the sphere each time. This presented some problems for the rest of the group. The other heroes could not get into a position to attempt to move the undead and Kalarel out of the circle without taking fire damage from the sphere. At one point he did use his action point to cast magic missile while maintaining the sphere. I estimate, that outside of the action point attack, he did nothing but maintain the sphere for 5 - 10 rounds. Kevin said he counted seven. Of course, the round after he let the sphere dissipate, the clay scout missed and he made his save.

While this was going on the cleric and warlock had made it down safely. They soon come under ranged attack from a wight. The foul undead is standing on a dais on the opposite side of the chamber from the clay scout. A ritual on the pillar allows the wight to add 5 squares to its ranged attacks. The warlock attempts to engage the wight. The cleric and paladin work against the skeletons and the fighter goes after Kalarel. The wight hits and immobilizes Dave with its grave bolt attack. The warlock is too far away to retaliate. This ends up being a situation similar to the predicament the wizard found himself in. At least Dave was able to help the rest of the party by attacking Kalarel and his undead guard. When he did get free and in range, the wight successfully used its horrific visage to push him back.

The fighter skirts the edge of the circle to get to Kalarel. He hits Kalarel with a mighty blow but is now standing between the circle and the dark portal. The fighter finds that there is indeed something moving in the darkness as several tentacles emerge and pummel him. Bob gets the feeling that it would be very bad to go through the portal.

In the meantime, the paladin and cleric have defeated one of the skeletons. Their shouts of triumph turn to dismay as some sort of beam emerges from the wight and hits the pile of bones. They reform into the skeleton witch resumes its attacks against them.

Bob realizes that if going through the portal would be very bad for him, it's probably very bad for Kalarel. He starts using his Tide of Iron power to attempt to move him out of the circle and into the portal. Unfortunately, Kalarel is able to move right back into the circle on his turn (it does prevent him from regaining 5 hit points each round). No one else can aid him as the flaming sphere is preventing them from getting into the appropriate position. The attacks from the Kalarel and his minions (not game term minions) start to wear the heroes down. Bob's fighter is first to fall. He soon fails his death saving throws (3 out of 4). He fell between the circle and portal. The tentacles grab the fighter's body and drag it through the portal. None too pleasant sounds emerge from the darkness.

The wizard falls next, quickly followed by the paladin. For all their sacrifices, the heroes have managed to only destroy one skeleton. The warlock manages to eldritch blast Kalarel and he falls. His body is quickly taken into the darkness. The cleric falls to one of the skeletons blows. The warlock manages to make it to the chains and climbs. He manages to make it to the top before the wight blasts him and he falls to his death.

T-P-K.

"At least we went out saving the world."



Kevin sends an email asking what we're running next and mentions ideas for characters for my next campaign. Here's my response (verbatim):

I figured you guys would prefer to not let me DM any more. If the group's still game, I'll run another campaign down the road (just need to work on my urge to kill fictional adventurers). I'd like to do a postmortem of the last campaign to find out the likes/dislikes were (aside from the deaths of your PC. You did go out saving the world.). Maybe during the PC build for play-testing the d20 conversion of [removed as I'm not sure if this can be public knowledge] that Dave plans on running.

I'm not sure if it was the adventure, but after running it and looking over the FRCG and FRPG, I'm a little torn between 3E and 4E. I think that 4E is still pretty complicated (especially marking, tracking conditions and such) and it feels a little half-assed. I know 3E has it's share of problems but I also liked a lot of what it had. I'll play/run whatever the group wants as I don't care enough to stop playing based on which system we use, but I'd like to discuss.

Of course, it doesn't help that there are many good adventures out for 4E. Dave lent me the first books of each of Paizo's adventure paths and there's one that looks pretty cool [they all do but I'm liking Second Darkness]. Unfortunately, it's 3.5. I wouldn't mind trying to run it testing the Paizo's Pathfinder RPG Beta rules. I can always try and convert to 4E if that's what people really want.

Essentially, all that rambling means I want to play a PC for a while. I should then be up for running something (I would like to take a campaign from level one to at least level 15).


I started reading the Pathfinder RPG beta rules and there's a lot to like in there (and some things not to like). Dave got sick and had to postpone his d20 (3E) playtest. Kevin decided to convert his Return to Khazad-dum campaign to 4E. I'm very much looking forward to it. I want a look at 4E from the other side of the screen.

[Kevin has given me permission to 'blog' about his campaign. I'll be posting those soon.]