[Adventure] The Broken Tower DM:Grimmjow Judge:TwoHeadsBarking

The group waits a moment, sure that the gong's ring will bring more goblins to be faced, but they never come. After the group relaxes enough to explore the room they find a trap door, The gong set on top of it. Any attempt to try and open it fails. The lock seems ancient with a special key to open it. As far as any hope goes for loot goes, the only thing that might be worth taking would be the cards or the dice the goblins were playing with, just in case you wanna gamble any loot away you might find later once you get back to the tavern.

Eldreth, elated at the fact that her first battle ended in complete victory with no losses to her team, looked around the battlefield at the bloody scene, and at each of her companions. For sure this was a motley crew of characters, with hidden talent that she never expected to see. Particularly on the parts of the pixie and of Kruor. She never expected the clunky construct to have the power he displayed, let alone the grace, speed, and outright brutal ferocity. He was certainly no normal animate (not that she had ever met a sentient construct before). Of course, having the curse of vampirism may have a lot to do with that. The odd thing (at least to her) is that Kruor didn't match the description of vampires from the few scary bedtime stories she'd heard. For one...Kruor wasn't ever alive (...or was he?) since he was a robot, and she had thought that vampires only came from the living turned undead. For another, he had needles for hands, not vampiric fangs, didn't have pale skin, and at least thusfar, didn't mesmerize others with just a glance, turn into a bat, wolf, or other creature, and didn't turn into a cloud of mist. Maybe he was just...part vampire? Was that even possible?

Shaking her head from the swirling thoughts of strange possibilities, Eldreth walked over to the hulking metal figure and placed her hand, gently, on his shoulder.

"That'll do, Kruor. That'll do."

Eldreth also looked over at the tiny pixie flapping his wings near the entrance of the tower. Raising her hammer to him in salute, a grin took her face from ear to ear. He was certainly no slump. Such power from one so small. He was, admittedly, kind of creepy what with his bulbous eyes and insectoid type of body, but the dwarf was beginning to realize that you really can't judge a book by its cover. In fact, looking around at all of her companions, she was rather impressed with the book-cover to truth ratio. They had a vampire masquerading as a robot, a martial arts master that looked like a strange harmless bug, a psionicly animated swarm of shards wielding the power of telekinesis (actually... that one is pretty spot on for book-cover judgements, heh), an extremely average-looking human female with the voice of an angel (and magic songs to boot!), and herself, which she thought was actually pretty typical for a dwarf, exception being that she was female. At least in her community, female soldiers were unheard of. She wasn't sure what dwarves in other parts of the world were like, though.

Walking over to the large cauldron on the west side of the tower, she kicked it with all of her might at the top, spilling its contents onto the floor.

"Let's jus' be makin' sure tha'nobody be doin' an'thin' w'this while we be goin' up stairs!"




[sblock=Eldreth Stats]
Eldreth Forgemark - Dwarf Knight 1
Passive Perception 10, Passive Insight 10
AC 20, Fort 17, Reflex 12, Will 10
HP 32/33, Bloodied 16, Surge Value 8, Surges 12/13
Speed 5, Initiative +0
Action Points: 1, Second Wind []
MBA - +8 vs AC, 1d10(b2)+7 damage RBA - +8 vs AC, Range: 5/10, 1d6+7 damage
At-Will Powers: Defender Aura, Battle Guardian , Defend the Line, Cleaving Assault
Encounter Powers: Power Strike [], Stone Panoply [], Dwarven Resilience [] [/sblock]
[sblock=Kruor Stats]
Kruor - Robot Vampire 3 (reskinned Warforged)
Passive Perception: 11, Passive Insight: 11
AC: 19, Fort: 15, Ref: 18, Will: 16
Initiative: +5; Speed: 6
HP: 37/37, Temp HP:
Bloodied: 18, Surge Value: 9, Surges left: 1/2
Powers:

Dark Beckoning
Taste of Life
Vampire Slam

Blood Drinker []
Warforged Resolve [ ]
Surprise Strike []
Burst of Speed []
Feral Assault []
Second Wind [ ]
Action Point [ ]

Swarm of Shadows [ ]
Cascading Strikes Ki Focus [ ] [/sblock]

Arshaka folds his large hand over his smaller hand holding his staff and resumes his position of restful vigilence. He doesn't bother moving from his location on the landing at the top of the stairs. He assumes that the group will be going upstairs soon, and therefore he has no need to move until then.

The floor in the center of this room is a sag gin ruin that looks dangerously unstable. To the west is a pile of broken stones and bones. In the southwest corner is a low wall covered in a faded tapestry. In the shadows of the southeast sorner stands a wooden platform of recent construction; it is nearly 10 feet tall. North of the platform, a spiral stair case proceeds up to the next level.

[sblock=perception 10]A flicker of red light in one of the skulls focuses on your from the pile of bones. [sblock=perception 15] Flitting shadows on the wooden platform above suggests movement. [sblock=perception 17] Arrowheads poke out at you from behind the tapestry-covered wall. [/sblock][/sblock][/sblock]

[sblock=combat]Welcome to second combat.

Average initiative is 14.6666666 or 14 on a die. If you roll 14 or higher go ahead and go

[sblock=room features] Wanna interact with all the different things in the room? The low four foot wall marked with a red line on the map take a 10 Athletics to climb over. The wooden platform takes a 20 to get up. have fun! [/sblock]

hey everyone one thing about life on this one. Make sure that you add the damage to the monsters in forms of x+x+x+ in this one. Its important for the encounter.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsYhVB6culUgdEtkV3h0MkpkZEl2dnkxNHp3SUFpMUE#gid=0 <-----link for combat[/sblock]

Pixie monk roll 1+6=7 means he failed the DC

Arshaka follows the others to the next room, where a quick scan picks out several enemies in hiding, their thoughts surging with bloodlust. The shardmind quickly sends a message to each of his companions telepathically so that their enemies don't know that the companions are aware of them, 'Beware! An ambush is here waiting for us and creatures are in hiding on all sides!'

Arshaka unleashes a torrent of psychic energy to attack their foes. Flexing his larger right hand in the direction of the 10 foot high platform and stabbing downward with his talon shaped crystilline fingers, he brings into existence telekinetic spikes which quiver in anticipation for a moment before slicing downwarnd into the flesh of the creatures hiding in the corner there. Pierced and stuck there, they will only damage themselves further if they attempt to flee the area of the attack.

Exerting himself further, Arshaka turns his large right hand over so that the palm is facing upward before raising it from his waist to the heigt of his head. As he does so, fire springs into existance in the corner on top of the platform and the flames and smoke totally obscure that corner from sight as the screams begin to rain down like cinders.

[sblock=Actions/Stat block]Start= Free Action communiction via telepathy to warn party
Minor=
Move= to H19
Standard= Telekinetic Anchor daily burst 1 in 10 squares. Targeting G25 to attack Goblin Hexer and Sharpshooter's #4 & 5. 1d20+6=20 result = 20 vs Fort 14 for Goblin Hexer. 1d20+6=14, 1d20+6=23 = 14 and 23 vs Fort 12 for Sharpshooters 4 & 5. All 3 hit! Damage = 3d6+7=17 for all 3 targets.
Free= Spend Action Point for another second attack
Standard #2= Burning Flux (augmented by 2 points) targeted at G25 to attack Hexer (Ref15) and SS #4-5 (Ref14). 1d20+6=16, 1d20+6=9, 1d20+6=21 Hit Hexer and SS #5! 2d6+5=16 Damage = 16 and any creature that enters the zone, starts its turn there, or starts its turn adjacent to it takes 4 (Wis mod) fire damage.
End=
[sblock=Arshaka Stat block]Arshaka- Male Shardmind Psion (Telekinetic) 3
Passive Perception: +22, Passive Insight: +20, Initiative: +1 AC: 17, Fort: 12, Reflex: 16, Will: 18 -- Speed: 6
HP: 20/20, Bloodied: 10, Surge Value: 5, Surges left: 6/6
Action Points: 0/1, Milestones: .5 Second Wind: not used
Basic Attack: +1 Staff of the Renewing Source: +1 vs AC / 1d8 damage (+1d6 on crit)
Ranged Basic Attack: Kinetic Trawl: +6 vs Ref / 1d8+7 force damage and pull target 1 square.

Power Points: 2/4
Powers-
At-Will:
Force Punch
Kinetic Trawl
Burning Flux
Encounter:
Shard Swarm
Far Hand
Forceful Push
Intellect Forteress
Daily:
Telekinetic Anchor
Staff of Renewing Source - USED
Psyweave Cloak[/sblock][/sblock]

Everlin looks around at Arshaka's and spots the enemies surrounding them, but is too slow to take action before their opponent's launch their ambush.
[sblock="Perception 19, Initiative 12"]Rolls[/sblock]

Like Everlin, Eldreth was able to spot the red-glowing eyes, but could not react quickly enough to initiate combat before the next set of goblins and skeletons attacked. Eldreth just hoped she could get upstairs in time to keep Arshaka from being splintered into tiny fragments of crystal! (well... ones that could not reform into his current shape anyway)

"RESERVES AT FIFTY PERCENT; REPLENISHMENT NEEDED TO ENSURE OPTIMAL FUNCTIONS"

Kruor smelled...flesh from the floor above them. It was difficult to distinguish it from all of the blood pooling around his feet, but there is something slightly...tangy (perhaps...metalic?) about the smell of blood still in the body, being pumped through the air-breather's veins by that wonderfully delicious heart muscle. It's that tang that Kruor detected. With the assault Kuror had displayed against the Hobgoblin, Kruor was feeling a might peckish... and a new meal selection would solve that issue nicely! Rushing up the stairs, the mechanical monstrosity hits the landing just in time to witness Arshaka's psionic assault against the goblins in the south east corner. The majority of them are completely obscured from sight by the roaring flames. Kruor also saw a few animated skeletons just west of his current position, but if at all possible, those will be avoided, as they won't be providing a tasty meal...or would they? Looking down at his needle hand, he wondered if he could take in a skeletons liquid bone marrow... if they still had any. Perhaps he should break a few of their limbs to find out. Charging into the mass of skeletons, the vampire robot slams his metalic fist into the closest skeletons' skull. It easily fractures and then crumbles into powder as the necrotic energies animating it were released from its form. The bones fall to the ground in a heap. If Kruor could frown, he would, as he was now sure that the skeletons weren't providing him a meal, and wouldn't have for a long time.


[sblock=Eldreth Perception 14, Initiative 11]
Rolls[/sblock][sblock=Kruor Perception 19, Initiative 21]
Rolls[/sblock][sblock=Kruor Actions]
-- Minor: Kruor uses Burst of Speed; This gives him a +2 bonus to speed for the current turn. As well, until the start of his next turn, running does not cause Kruor to grant combat advantage or take penalties to attack rolls after running.
-- Move: Kruor uses the Run action to give himself a further +2 bonus to speed, increasing his speed for this turn to 10. He moves from D3 on the 1st floor, to H20 on the 2nd floor.
-- Standard: Kruor charges Skeleton 3, hitting reflex 25, killing the minion skeleton.
[/sblock]

[sblock=Eldreth's Stats]
Eldreth Forgemark - Dwarf Knight 1
Passive Perception 10, Passive Insight 10
AC 20, Fort 17, Reflex 12, Will 10
HP 32/33, Bloodied 16, Surge Value 8, Surges 12/13
Speed 5, Initiative +0
Action Points: 1, Second Wind []
MBA - +8 vs AC, 1d10(b2)+7 damage RBA - +8 vs AC, Range: 5/10, 1d6+7 damage
At-Will Powers: Defender Aura, Battle Guardian , Defend the Line, Cleaving Assault
Encounter Powers: Power Strike [], Stone Panoply [], Dwarven Resilience [][/sblock]

[sblock=Kruor's Stats]
Kruor - Robot Vampire 3 (reskinned Warforged)
Passive Perception: 11, Passive Insight: 11
AC: 19, Fort: 15, Ref: 18, Will: 16
Initiative: +5; Speed: 6
HP: 37/37, Temp HP:
Bloodied: 18, Surge Value: 9, Surges left: 1/2
Powers:

Dark Beckoning
Taste of Life
Vampire Slam

Blood Drinker []
Warforged Resolve []
Surprise Strike []
Burst of Speed [x]
Feral Assault []
Second Wind []
Action Point []

Swarm of Shadows [ ]
Cascading Strikes Ki Focus [ ]
[/sblock]

[sblock=Note to Grimmjow]
To alleviate issues of whether or not a surprise round will happen due to some spotting badguys and some not, and players posting their actions that will need to be retconned, etc, I generally recommend that the DM rolls initiative for the PCs for play-by-post games, and then just let those who are not surprised and who have beat the badguys init to take their turns. That way if there IS a surprise round, you can say so (to let us know of the limited actions we can take <aka, one standard, move, or minor> ), and you won't have to retcon anything.

In the current case, for example, we do not YET have a surprise round (because we don't know the inits/perceptions rolls for the others), but if one of us DOES fail the perception check, there should be a surprise round. Not a big deal if we skip the surprise round, though, as honestly, I find them to be a much bigger hassle than they're worth. [/sblock]