It's been quite a while since I posted a session update for my 4e campaign. A couple of our players have been buying/selling/renovating houses, which sucks up weekends, and there's been travel and work and other distractions too, so we've had trouble making quorum. And with the campaign at its climax, we've adopted a policy of only playing when all six of us can get together - other sessions we've been playing Burning Wheel.
So anyway, as I posted 5 months ago, the PCs had sealed the Abyss at the 66th layer (the Demonweb Pits), and had teleported through a backdoor to Orcus's throne room on Thantos, taking a detour via the Raven Queen to get a few power ups.
Since then we've played four 4e sessions. It took roughly two sessions to resolve the fight against Orcus, and another two to resolve the escape from his throne room.
With the Raven Queen, I gave the players each a choice of one of three potions - healing, temp hp or regeneration. In the end all chose regen except the demigod, who has an epic destiny feature that gives him regen, and who doesn't get the benefit of temp hp from Cloak of Courage, and who therefore chose temp hp instead. The debates around this didn't make me miss the buff-laden play of past Rolemaster campaigns - I'm glad our campaign hasn't featured many potions or similar buff effects.
The backdoor to the throne room went via a small chapel to Orcus, where they searched the altar and found a Violet Solitairs before going up the stairs into the secret antechamber hidden inside (as it turned out) the stairs up to the gallery in Orcus's throne room. They all chugged their potions, the dwarven fighter forced the door open with his Eternal Defender +10 STR bonus power, and then the battle was on.
The opposition was rather fierce. As well as Orcus himself (33rd level solo, with stats posted on the thread I linked to above), there was:
That's a level 37 encounter for 5 PCs of level 29. They were on full strength, which was generally a good thing except it locked off milestone options for rings, and the paladin's Meliorating Armour was not powered up.
The throne-room itself I designed by combining elements of the old Bloodstone module H4 with the map of the Raven Queen's palace from one of the WotC epic modules. In the four corners were four supporting bone pillars arching up to the roof, which dealt 30 necrotic to enemies coming near them and immobilised. The gloom lich was in a cloud of bone powder standing on defiled ground, giving it a buff on recharge rounds as well as some concealment. And Orcus's mighty throne was on bloodstone, for maximum crittage.
I won't try and give a blow-by-blow of the battle, mostly cause I don't remember it all but also it would be too much typing! It started out with an attempt to focus-fire on Harthoon, who was causing a lot of grief early, but then the targetting got split up as the paladin and invoker found themselves engaged with Orcus while the drow sorcerer tried to deal with the marilith and balor. And the AoEing dwarf fighter was standing in the middle of a field of demons trying to take them all on.
As should be the case in a 4e battle, the PCs came pretty close to being taken down, as Orcus's wand reduced the invoker to 0 hp, and the paladin (? maybe - I remember I tried to get the invoker, for a balrog-vs-Gandalf moment, but I'm not sure I succeeded) was ensnared by the balrog's whip, and the dwarf was immobilised by the tendrils of the blackheart demon. But at the end of the first session it seemed fairly clear that the tide would turn: though every PC (I think) was bloodied, the cleric-ranger had stunned Orcus and was about to unleash a big healing effect. And the invoker was ready to drop his domination onto Orcus. (Using the Eye of Vecna to get a +10 power up to the attack roll.)
Orcus was defeated by the invoker: Compel Obedience (AoE domination) plus Forced Submission (save ends domination) stopped him using his attacks against the PCs, and Eye of the Sun (a high level conjuration daily, in the fiction channelling Pelor's radiant power) finished him off (a kill-steal from the paladin of the Raven Queen).
Once Orcus went down - and his huge aura of auto-damage with him - the mopping up still took quite a while but there was that growing sense of inevitability that 4e players and GMs will be familiar with. Harthoon was taken down, although not before using his Disdain ability to teleport the paladin into immobilisation by one of the bone pillars. The remaining demons were killed, the invoker took control of the Sphere of Annihilation, and in the end the last enemy standing - the gloomlich - was killed by the dwarven fighter, using the reach of his polearm to avoid having to enter the cloud of bonedust.
The third session began with the PCs at 30th level, and with the players debating (mostly in character) what to do next, and how to escape. There was a long discussion about whether and how to destroy the Wand of Orcus. In the end the invoker merged his Eye of the Sun with the Sphere of Annihilation - turning it into a mixture of a black hole and Pelor's sun in Hestavar (it now does 6d12 radiant followed by OG 40) - and ran it over the Wand.
As the PCs (except for the invoker, who was maintaining concentration on his Sphere) took a short rest, the throne room started to collapse. A falling bone pillar caused a rift in the Abyss, all the way down to the bottom, and collapsing of the roof revealed Glyphimhor's Chaos Barge that he had used to travel to Everlost from Lachrymosa.
Out of the rift flew a Gibbering Orb (27th level solo) and a Beholder Eye of Chaos (29th level elite), while lower down in the rift could be seen a great Kraken (29th levle solo), a Dreadnought (28th level solo) and a flight of 6 Zovvuts (27th level skirmishers) - a level 36 encounter.
This fight lacked the desparation and all-out character of the struggle against Orcus, but still had some amusing moments. The fighter got knocked into the rift (I think by the Beholder) and landed on the Dreadnought, which he solo-ed for a few rounds before stepping through the Astral Gate that the invoker/wizard conveniently opened for him. When the drow sorcerer/bard/epic primordial turned into a Huge Primordial he could hear the siren's call of the Heart of the Abyss coming from the rift, but sadly chose to ignore its promise of much power.
Once the PCs had finished off the orbs and the Kraken (which grabbed the barge but wasn't able to seriously damage it) - at which point we also move from the third to the fourth session - the Dreadnought and Zovvuts had made it up to the top of the rift. At which point there was quite a bit of knocking prone, and discussion of falling rates through Abyssal rifts - in the end the PCs boarded the barge and powered up its Anarch Spheres and with a successful skill challenge outran the Dreadnought.
They then travelled upwards through the Abyss for 41 days. The plan was to travel to Mal Arundak, on the 100th layer of the Abyss (the Barrens), because they knew there would be a teleport circle there that they could use to get out of the Abyss (given that it is impassable by ordinary means at the 66th layer). They also thought they might offer to evacuate the angels living there, given that the Abyss now seemed to be collapsing in on itself.
As they approached Mal Arundak they could see that it was no longer under siege from an army of demons. They also "heard" a telepathic communication from a Demon Queen, Oublivae, who offered to trade them two bits of information in exchange for their barge. The premise of her information swap was that all lost things end up in the Abyss, and in particular on her layer, and she could tell them where to find two lost things that they might seek - the city of Intikash (which was the homeland of Malstaph the wizard/invoker when he was in human rather than deva form), and the dead (mortal) body of the Raven Queen.
There was little interest in visiting Intikash from anyone but Malstaph, but after discussion it was agreed that securing the Raven Queen's body might be important. After all, they knew at least one being - a human hermit called Ezra (borrowed by me, back in Heroic Tier, from the LotFP module Death Frost Doom) - who could learn the name and history of a being from touching its dead body. (Oublivae herself was initially also urging the point that the Lattice of Heaven cannot be rebuilt until all broken things have been restored, but that didn't go down so well as a talking point because not even the invoker (who serves Erathis, among others) is that keen on restoring the Lattice of Heaven.)
The PCs were concerned, however, that if they relinquished the barge before travelling to the site then (i) travel might be challenging, and (ii) Oublivae, being a demon queen, might betray them somehow. They also weren't sure why exactly a demon queen would want a chaos barge. The session ended with the negotiations still up in the air.
Our next D&D session is likely to be in mid-October. In the meantime hopefully we will get in a bit more BW, or maybe some MHRP.
So anyway, as I posted 5 months ago, the PCs had sealed the Abyss at the 66th layer (the Demonweb Pits), and had teleported through a backdoor to Orcus's throne room on Thantos, taking a detour via the Raven Queen to get a few power ups.
Since then we've played four 4e sessions. It took roughly two sessions to resolve the fight against Orcus, and another two to resolve the escape from his throne room.
With the Raven Queen, I gave the players each a choice of one of three potions - healing, temp hp or regeneration. In the end all chose regen except the demigod, who has an epic destiny feature that gives him regen, and who doesn't get the benefit of temp hp from Cloak of Courage, and who therefore chose temp hp instead. The debates around this didn't make me miss the buff-laden play of past Rolemaster campaigns - I'm glad our campaign hasn't featured many potions or similar buff effects.
The backdoor to the throne room went via a small chapel to Orcus, where they searched the altar and found a Violet Solitairs before going up the stairs into the secret antechamber hidden inside (as it turned out) the stairs up to the gallery in Orcus's throne room. They all chugged their potions, the dwarven fighter forced the door open with his Eternal Defender +10 STR bonus power, and then the battle was on.
The opposition was rather fierce. As well as Orcus himself (33rd level solo, with stats posted on the thread I linked to above), there was:
*Harthoon, the lich castellan of everlost (30th level elite)
*Harthoon's lich underling, a 28th level artillery gloom lich (modelled of the half-even baleful thaumaturge in MM2);
*Another underling, a 28th level death cultist with a Talisman of the Sphere controlling a 29th level Sphere of Annihilation (opp attack on entering a square or being entered, +32 vs Fort for 6d12 and OG 40);
*A marillith (28th level elite);
*A blackheart demon (29th level elite, modelled on a Blackroott Treant from MV, and described as an undead demon somewhat resembling Ometh, the Raven Queen's now-dead servitor);
*Glyphimhor, the Balor governor of Lachrymosa, who was visiting Orcus to discuss what to do about the pending collapse of the Abyss, with its source of matter sealed off (29th level elite, with the Rust-red Geysers of Lachrymosa as a recharging minor action: belches a close blast 3 of foul-smelling vile gunk that creates a zone that last til EotEnc: DT, and any non-demon that ET in the zone tacks 15 acid and poison).
*Harthoon's lich underling, a 28th level artillery gloom lich (modelled of the half-even baleful thaumaturge in MM2);
*Another underling, a 28th level death cultist with a Talisman of the Sphere controlling a 29th level Sphere of Annihilation (opp attack on entering a square or being entered, +32 vs Fort for 6d12 and OG 40);
*A marillith (28th level elite);
*A blackheart demon (29th level elite, modelled on a Blackroott Treant from MV, and described as an undead demon somewhat resembling Ometh, the Raven Queen's now-dead servitor);
*Glyphimhor, the Balor governor of Lachrymosa, who was visiting Orcus to discuss what to do about the pending collapse of the Abyss, with its source of matter sealed off (29th level elite, with the Rust-red Geysers of Lachrymosa as a recharging minor action: belches a close blast 3 of foul-smelling vile gunk that creates a zone that last til EotEnc: DT, and any non-demon that ET in the zone tacks 15 acid and poison).
That's a level 37 encounter for 5 PCs of level 29. They were on full strength, which was generally a good thing except it locked off milestone options for rings, and the paladin's Meliorating Armour was not powered up.
The throne-room itself I designed by combining elements of the old Bloodstone module H4 with the map of the Raven Queen's palace from one of the WotC epic modules. In the four corners were four supporting bone pillars arching up to the roof, which dealt 30 necrotic to enemies coming near them and immobilised. The gloom lich was in a cloud of bone powder standing on defiled ground, giving it a buff on recharge rounds as well as some concealment. And Orcus's mighty throne was on bloodstone, for maximum crittage.
I won't try and give a blow-by-blow of the battle, mostly cause I don't remember it all but also it would be too much typing! It started out with an attempt to focus-fire on Harthoon, who was causing a lot of grief early, but then the targetting got split up as the paladin and invoker found themselves engaged with Orcus while the drow sorcerer tried to deal with the marilith and balor. And the AoEing dwarf fighter was standing in the middle of a field of demons trying to take them all on.
As should be the case in a 4e battle, the PCs came pretty close to being taken down, as Orcus's wand reduced the invoker to 0 hp, and the paladin (? maybe - I remember I tried to get the invoker, for a balrog-vs-Gandalf moment, but I'm not sure I succeeded) was ensnared by the balrog's whip, and the dwarf was immobilised by the tendrils of the blackheart demon. But at the end of the first session it seemed fairly clear that the tide would turn: though every PC (I think) was bloodied, the cleric-ranger had stunned Orcus and was about to unleash a big healing effect. And the invoker was ready to drop his domination onto Orcus. (Using the Eye of Vecna to get a +10 power up to the attack roll.)
Orcus was defeated by the invoker: Compel Obedience (AoE domination) plus Forced Submission (save ends domination) stopped him using his attacks against the PCs, and Eye of the Sun (a high level conjuration daily, in the fiction channelling Pelor's radiant power) finished him off (a kill-steal from the paladin of the Raven Queen).
Once Orcus went down - and his huge aura of auto-damage with him - the mopping up still took quite a while but there was that growing sense of inevitability that 4e players and GMs will be familiar with. Harthoon was taken down, although not before using his Disdain ability to teleport the paladin into immobilisation by one of the bone pillars. The remaining demons were killed, the invoker took control of the Sphere of Annihilation, and in the end the last enemy standing - the gloomlich - was killed by the dwarven fighter, using the reach of his polearm to avoid having to enter the cloud of bonedust.
The third session began with the PCs at 30th level, and with the players debating (mostly in character) what to do next, and how to escape. There was a long discussion about whether and how to destroy the Wand of Orcus. In the end the invoker merged his Eye of the Sun with the Sphere of Annihilation - turning it into a mixture of a black hole and Pelor's sun in Hestavar (it now does 6d12 radiant followed by OG 40) - and ran it over the Wand.
As the PCs (except for the invoker, who was maintaining concentration on his Sphere) took a short rest, the throne room started to collapse. A falling bone pillar caused a rift in the Abyss, all the way down to the bottom, and collapsing of the roof revealed Glyphimhor's Chaos Barge that he had used to travel to Everlost from Lachrymosa.
Out of the rift flew a Gibbering Orb (27th level solo) and a Beholder Eye of Chaos (29th level elite), while lower down in the rift could be seen a great Kraken (29th levle solo), a Dreadnought (28th level solo) and a flight of 6 Zovvuts (27th level skirmishers) - a level 36 encounter.
This fight lacked the desparation and all-out character of the struggle against Orcus, but still had some amusing moments. The fighter got knocked into the rift (I think by the Beholder) and landed on the Dreadnought, which he solo-ed for a few rounds before stepping through the Astral Gate that the invoker/wizard conveniently opened for him. When the drow sorcerer/bard/epic primordial turned into a Huge Primordial he could hear the siren's call of the Heart of the Abyss coming from the rift, but sadly chose to ignore its promise of much power.
Once the PCs had finished off the orbs and the Kraken (which grabbed the barge but wasn't able to seriously damage it) - at which point we also move from the third to the fourth session - the Dreadnought and Zovvuts had made it up to the top of the rift. At which point there was quite a bit of knocking prone, and discussion of falling rates through Abyssal rifts - in the end the PCs boarded the barge and powered up its Anarch Spheres and with a successful skill challenge outran the Dreadnought.
They then travelled upwards through the Abyss for 41 days. The plan was to travel to Mal Arundak, on the 100th layer of the Abyss (the Barrens), because they knew there would be a teleport circle there that they could use to get out of the Abyss (given that it is impassable by ordinary means at the 66th layer). They also thought they might offer to evacuate the angels living there, given that the Abyss now seemed to be collapsing in on itself.
As they approached Mal Arundak they could see that it was no longer under siege from an army of demons. They also "heard" a telepathic communication from a Demon Queen, Oublivae, who offered to trade them two bits of information in exchange for their barge. The premise of her information swap was that all lost things end up in the Abyss, and in particular on her layer, and she could tell them where to find two lost things that they might seek - the city of Intikash (which was the homeland of Malstaph the wizard/invoker when he was in human rather than deva form), and the dead (mortal) body of the Raven Queen.
There was little interest in visiting Intikash from anyone but Malstaph, but after discussion it was agreed that securing the Raven Queen's body might be important. After all, they knew at least one being - a human hermit called Ezra (borrowed by me, back in Heroic Tier, from the LotFP module Death Frost Doom) - who could learn the name and history of a being from touching its dead body. (Oublivae herself was initially also urging the point that the Lattice of Heaven cannot be rebuilt until all broken things have been restored, but that didn't go down so well as a talking point because not even the invoker (who serves Erathis, among others) is that keen on restoring the Lattice of Heaven.)
The PCs were concerned, however, that if they relinquished the barge before travelling to the site then (i) travel might be challenging, and (ii) Oublivae, being a demon queen, might betray them somehow. They also weren't sure why exactly a demon queen would want a chaos barge. The session ended with the negotiations still up in the air.
Our next D&D session is likely to be in mid-October. In the meantime hopefully we will get in a bit more BW, or maybe some MHRP.
