Blood Jester
First Post
Hey!
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D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
Blackjack
First Post
...and surprise.
Right now, we believe that we've done a decent job convincing our foes that we have no urge to budge and actually want to negotiate with their boss. As has Joshua points out, such a meeting doesn't favor us at all. The longer Mr. Boss has to get his pieces into position, the worse the fight will look for us.
That's why I (and, I think, at least some of the other PCs) want to catch them off-guard by busting out before Mr. Boss arrives, using the element of surprise to our advantage. Releasing the "War God" may add to that surprise. However, as Aravis notes, we don't really have a master plan yet...
Ashrum the Black
Explorer
ooooo
, many a campaign has ended on words such as this.That or the gnome shouting "Hey, watch this!"
-Ashrum
Kid Charlemagne
I am the Very Model of a Modern Moderator
"Wow! Look at that thing tear through those lizardmen!"
"It's like a lawnmower of DOOOOOOM!"
"Hey, the lizardman chief just side-stepped it..."
"No problem, it'll just turn itself around and stomp on him."
"Actually, it's still going the same direction..."
"...where's it going?"
"..."
"Looks like its headed for your house..."
Great, now I have a mental image of Piratecat in a damp nursing bra...curse you, Aravis!
Johnathan
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Richards, curse you.
Played last night! Write up forthcoming, wherein we see that lurkers suh-huck and leaders have their place, and that 5 lone people CAN make a difference.
Setting the stage for Sagiro's write-up:
My challenge in this game was that I had carefully calibrated the level of bad-guy-itude before the heroes insisted on the villains summoning their leader. Huh, okay. Sucks for them. I already knew what the "wargod" was and how it worked, and I knew the relative levels of caution vs. foolhardiness for the various bad guys. Whether the PCs were going to live or die really depended on how they played things; I would have been unsurprised if they chose bad tactics and ended in a TPK last night.
Instead, they were pretty darn clever, even with some awful rolls.
The PCs really didn't want to be trapped in the tower indefinitely, although the bad guys didn't know that. What the PCs didn't know was that the bad guys didn't really have the luxury of waiting the PCs out if our heroes just decided to hole up in the tower. Sure, the humans would starve in a month or so, but there was a lizardman army gathered now, and certain leaders of that army would have been very, very upset if the 400-500 weapons stored in that tower didn't show up. This created a dynamic where both sides had an interest in resolving the situation fairly quickly. The result wasn't what I expected.
(This will make more sense after Sagiro's write-up, but I wanted to get it down while the game was still fresh in my mind.)
Played last night! Write up forthcoming, wherein we see that lurkers suh-huck and leaders have their place, and that 5 lone people CAN make a difference.
Setting the stage for Sagiro's write-up:
My challenge in this game was that I had carefully calibrated the level of bad-guy-itude before the heroes insisted on the villains summoning their leader. Huh, okay. Sucks for them. I already knew what the "wargod" was and how it worked, and I knew the relative levels of caution vs. foolhardiness for the various bad guys. Whether the PCs were going to live or die really depended on how they played things; I would have been unsurprised if they chose bad tactics and ended in a TPK last night.
Instead, they were pretty darn clever, even with some awful rolls.
The PCs really didn't want to be trapped in the tower indefinitely, although the bad guys didn't know that. What the PCs didn't know was that the bad guys didn't really have the luxury of waiting the PCs out if our heroes just decided to hole up in the tower. Sure, the humans would starve in a month or so, but there was a lizardman army gathered now, and certain leaders of that army would have been very, very upset if the 400-500 weapons stored in that tower didn't show up. This created a dynamic where both sides had an interest in resolving the situation fairly quickly. The result wasn't what I expected.
(This will make more sense after Sagiro's write-up, but I wanted to get it down while the game was still fresh in my mind.)
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Rel
Liquid Awesome
And...GO!
carborundum
Adventurer
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
(My usual disclaimer about missing or incorrect details applies doubly this time, as I’m writing up the summary a day late. Thanks to Piratecat for providing a short summary to jog my memory.)
So, there we were, still holed up in a mostly-submerged tower, while a smaller-but-still-too-big-for-us army of lizards milled around outside. We had some ineffectual debate about what to do next (other than wait for the next boss to arrive). We searched the bodies from our last fight again, and found a few healing potions to replace the ones we'd already guzzled. Meanwhile the lizards half-heartedly threw a few javelins at the door – nothing dangerous. Strontium examined the War God-controlling amulet but couldn't figure out how it worked.
Then we heard a strange bubbling from somewhere outside the tower, followed by the faint sounds of a ritual. We figured that couldn't be good, and it wasn't -- the tower began to take on water as the level of the swamp started to rise!
That pretty much forced our hand, since we were now on a survival clock. We sent Toiva and Strontium down to the bottom of the tower to free the "War God," hoping that Stron could use the talisman to control it.
Then we heard a cultured woman's voice, speaking in Common. Is this the new boss? She asked us: “Did we want to settle this affair in a civilized manner, or a brutal one?"
It turns out she didn't really want our opinion, since when we asked what the brutal way was, she just went ahead and did it. An acid explosion (source unknown at the time) went off in the top floor of the tower,
burning (badly) and blinding Cobalt, Logan and Elijah. Something then stabbed Cobalt, bringing him near death.
At the same time, a huge black lizardy claw reached down from on top of the tower and tried to rip the door off! Fortunately it failed, and the door ended up slamming shut instead.
It turned out that we were under attack by two invisible devils. Devils! They turned visible after attacking, but their acid bursts and melee attacks were devastating, and their AC was formidable. Toiva left Strontium to help come help us, shifting into lizard form to confuse the devils.
Stron, meanwhile, pulled open the door to reveal the tower's large and by-now-mostly-flooded basement level. It was full of strange skeletons, but most notable was the large automaton (looking like a bulkier, less human-looking Warforged) that immediately whirred to life and headed for Stron. Stron held up the amulet. It kept coming.
"Stop!" said Stron. It stopped! So simple.
"Go to the top level of the tower and kill everything that doesn't look human," she commanded. And up it went. (Fortunately Toiva, who at the moment didn't look human, was on the second floor of the tower at the time.)
The War God came rumbling up and gave one of the devils a good bash. Both devils vanished; we figured they fled at the arrival of the automaton. So Stron issued a new order: "Go outside and kill the creature with the huge claw." It went out -- and was immediately grabbed by said claw and yanked up and out of sight! The sound of an epic battle started up on the roof. Go War God! By this time we had recovered from our blindness and had even done some small damage to the devils ourselves before they fled.
But, alas, the devils hadn't fled; they'd just turned invisible again. A grim fight ensued, featuring more acid and blindness. Toiva, at the tower entrance, was poisoned and slowed by a hail of darts from outside. But somehow, miraculously, with healing potions being chugged left and right and remaining action points spent, we killed the devils. Stron finished off the second one with a pair of Magic Missiles in one round.
A lizard man stuck his nose in the door. Elijah shouted over his shoulder: "Get the next War God!" The lizard fled, wide-eyed.
Eventually the sounds of the War God vs. Lizard Boss battle stopped, and the tower stopped shaking. Toiva opened the door again, called on Astral Speech to boost her diplomatic oomph, and said: “We’ve killed half your army. We’ve killed Sarothic. We’ve killed your demons. We’ve taken control of your War God. We would now like to discuss the terms of your surrender.”
The woman responded with some bravado: “You mean this War God?” Someone atop the tower hurled down the automaton’s head down. That gave us pause, but Toiva asked: “And how fares the creature it was fighting?”
“Fine,” said the woman, sounding less confident. (In fact, Toiva was certain she was lying through her teeth.) After more words were exchanged, the woman was clearly defeated and deflated.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Toiva, Paladin of Ika,”
“Well, Toiva, my name is [Piratecat, please fill in the name I’ve forgotten]. And you have made an enemy this day.”
And having said that, she and her remaining forces departed. After they were gone, some investigation of the area surrounding the tower showed that our War God had killed a small dragon (!) as well as a number of the surviving lizard men. All told, we had killed, or caused to be killed, about 70-80 of the enemy forces. Not a bad day’s work.
We used the boat-mending ritual from the halflings to fix the barges and our original boat, loaded up as many weapons as we could (along with the dragon’s head), and started poling home. En route we passed near (but not in sight of, thank goodness) a large force of lizardman warriors, weaponless, clearly waiting for someone to show up and arm them. Har har!
In was something like 4:00 A.M. when we arrived back in Floodford, utterly exhausted. Doc Caldwell was particularly distraught on the ride home, since the ongoing engagement had involved killing some humans who were in cahoots with the lizardmen. (In fact, we had their bodies with us at Doc’s insistence.) Killing monsters, not people, was what he had signed up for.
We made our report to Commander Pikeline, who, while perhaps somewhat impressed, ordered Elijah and Strontium back out to the tower (with a large accompanying force) to retrieve the rest of the weapons.
Tactical notes:
- Piratecat told us afterward that the War God was a Shield Guardian – a Level 14 Soldier according the MM. Good thing our party of level 2 PC’s didn’t have to fight it!
- The Devils were something called “Abashai” according to Piratecat, but I can’t find them in the MM. The dragon was a Black Dragon, probably of Young age.
- This was the first fight where I really, really thought a TPK was a strong possibility. The damage the devils were dishing out was gruesome, we spent many rounds blinded, and they had an AC that we rated to hit less than half the time. We managed to beat them, but only by burning through pretty much all of our remaining healing potions, all taking second winds, and blowing many Action Points. By the time Strontium killed the last one (Magic Missile, Action Point, Magic Missile), we were tapped out.
- Logan was blind for the entire fight against the Devils. He missed five out of six saving throws; the one he made was an “extra” granted from Toiva’s Divine Mettle power.
- On reflection, I don’t think any PC rolled a natural 20 the entire night. Several “1’s,” though.
- Skills used this game: Arcana, Bluff, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Heal, History, Insight, Perception, Religion, Stealth
- Invisibility is a nice power for bad guys to have. We collectively took many attacks where we had to guess the squares the devils were in, and suffer the -5 Total Concealment penalty even if we guessed right. Not many of those wild swings managed to hit.
- Combat is still exciting and fast-paced.
- Logan’s player pointed out something after the game: there are some rogue powers with “save ends” effects that would be better if they were just “until the end of your next turn.” Take the Crimson Edge power (Level 9 Daily from the PH). On a hit, the target grants combat advantage to you (save ends). But because the target will go before you, there’s a 55% chance that by the time the rogue’s turn comes around again, he won’t be getting that vital CA. In fact, in that kind of case, the expected number of turns with combat advantage will be higher with a “until the end of your next turn” power than with a “save ends” power.
- We came out of the whole thing with some more magical loot, including a +1 Vengeful Dagger and a Master’s Wand of Magic Missile. Also, Doc Caldwell’s Grey Guard Amulet (already a generic +1 neck-slot item) gained the “Chirurgeon” power that lets an ally get a healing surge back.
So, there we were, still holed up in a mostly-submerged tower, while a smaller-but-still-too-big-for-us army of lizards milled around outside. We had some ineffectual debate about what to do next (other than wait for the next boss to arrive). We searched the bodies from our last fight again, and found a few healing potions to replace the ones we'd already guzzled. Meanwhile the lizards half-heartedly threw a few javelins at the door – nothing dangerous. Strontium examined the War God-controlling amulet but couldn't figure out how it worked.
Then we heard a strange bubbling from somewhere outside the tower, followed by the faint sounds of a ritual. We figured that couldn't be good, and it wasn't -- the tower began to take on water as the level of the swamp started to rise!
That pretty much forced our hand, since we were now on a survival clock. We sent Toiva and Strontium down to the bottom of the tower to free the "War God," hoping that Stron could use the talisman to control it.
Then we heard a cultured woman's voice, speaking in Common. Is this the new boss? She asked us: “Did we want to settle this affair in a civilized manner, or a brutal one?"
It turns out she didn't really want our opinion, since when we asked what the brutal way was, she just went ahead and did it. An acid explosion (source unknown at the time) went off in the top floor of the tower,
burning (badly) and blinding Cobalt, Logan and Elijah. Something then stabbed Cobalt, bringing him near death.
At the same time, a huge black lizardy claw reached down from on top of the tower and tried to rip the door off! Fortunately it failed, and the door ended up slamming shut instead.
It turned out that we were under attack by two invisible devils. Devils! They turned visible after attacking, but their acid bursts and melee attacks were devastating, and their AC was formidable. Toiva left Strontium to help come help us, shifting into lizard form to confuse the devils.
Stron, meanwhile, pulled open the door to reveal the tower's large and by-now-mostly-flooded basement level. It was full of strange skeletons, but most notable was the large automaton (looking like a bulkier, less human-looking Warforged) that immediately whirred to life and headed for Stron. Stron held up the amulet. It kept coming.
"Stop!" said Stron. It stopped! So simple.
"Go to the top level of the tower and kill everything that doesn't look human," she commanded. And up it went. (Fortunately Toiva, who at the moment didn't look human, was on the second floor of the tower at the time.)
The War God came rumbling up and gave one of the devils a good bash. Both devils vanished; we figured they fled at the arrival of the automaton. So Stron issued a new order: "Go outside and kill the creature with the huge claw." It went out -- and was immediately grabbed by said claw and yanked up and out of sight! The sound of an epic battle started up on the roof. Go War God! By this time we had recovered from our blindness and had even done some small damage to the devils ourselves before they fled.
But, alas, the devils hadn't fled; they'd just turned invisible again. A grim fight ensued, featuring more acid and blindness. Toiva, at the tower entrance, was poisoned and slowed by a hail of darts from outside. But somehow, miraculously, with healing potions being chugged left and right and remaining action points spent, we killed the devils. Stron finished off the second one with a pair of Magic Missiles in one round.
A lizard man stuck his nose in the door. Elijah shouted over his shoulder: "Get the next War God!" The lizard fled, wide-eyed.
Eventually the sounds of the War God vs. Lizard Boss battle stopped, and the tower stopped shaking. Toiva opened the door again, called on Astral Speech to boost her diplomatic oomph, and said: “We’ve killed half your army. We’ve killed Sarothic. We’ve killed your demons. We’ve taken control of your War God. We would now like to discuss the terms of your surrender.”
The woman responded with some bravado: “You mean this War God?” Someone atop the tower hurled down the automaton’s head down. That gave us pause, but Toiva asked: “And how fares the creature it was fighting?”
“Fine,” said the woman, sounding less confident. (In fact, Toiva was certain she was lying through her teeth.) After more words were exchanged, the woman was clearly defeated and deflated.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Toiva, Paladin of Ika,”
“Well, Toiva, my name is [Piratecat, please fill in the name I’ve forgotten]. And you have made an enemy this day.”
And having said that, she and her remaining forces departed. After they were gone, some investigation of the area surrounding the tower showed that our War God had killed a small dragon (!) as well as a number of the surviving lizard men. All told, we had killed, or caused to be killed, about 70-80 of the enemy forces. Not a bad day’s work.
We used the boat-mending ritual from the halflings to fix the barges and our original boat, loaded up as many weapons as we could (along with the dragon’s head), and started poling home. En route we passed near (but not in sight of, thank goodness) a large force of lizardman warriors, weaponless, clearly waiting for someone to show up and arm them. Har har!
In was something like 4:00 A.M. when we arrived back in Floodford, utterly exhausted. Doc Caldwell was particularly distraught on the ride home, since the ongoing engagement had involved killing some humans who were in cahoots with the lizardmen. (In fact, we had their bodies with us at Doc’s insistence.) Killing monsters, not people, was what he had signed up for.
We made our report to Commander Pikeline, who, while perhaps somewhat impressed, ordered Elijah and Strontium back out to the tower (with a large accompanying force) to retrieve the rest of the weapons.
Tactical notes:
- Piratecat told us afterward that the War God was a Shield Guardian – a Level 14 Soldier according the MM. Good thing our party of level 2 PC’s didn’t have to fight it!
- The Devils were something called “Abashai” according to Piratecat, but I can’t find them in the MM. The dragon was a Black Dragon, probably of Young age.
- This was the first fight where I really, really thought a TPK was a strong possibility. The damage the devils were dishing out was gruesome, we spent many rounds blinded, and they had an AC that we rated to hit less than half the time. We managed to beat them, but only by burning through pretty much all of our remaining healing potions, all taking second winds, and blowing many Action Points. By the time Strontium killed the last one (Magic Missile, Action Point, Magic Missile), we were tapped out.
- Logan was blind for the entire fight against the Devils. He missed five out of six saving throws; the one he made was an “extra” granted from Toiva’s Divine Mettle power.
- On reflection, I don’t think any PC rolled a natural 20 the entire night. Several “1’s,” though.
- Skills used this game: Arcana, Bluff, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Heal, History, Insight, Perception, Religion, Stealth
- Invisibility is a nice power for bad guys to have. We collectively took many attacks where we had to guess the squares the devils were in, and suffer the -5 Total Concealment penalty even if we guessed right. Not many of those wild swings managed to hit.
- Combat is still exciting and fast-paced.
- Logan’s player pointed out something after the game: there are some rogue powers with “save ends” effects that would be better if they were just “until the end of your next turn.” Take the Crimson Edge power (Level 9 Daily from the PH). On a hit, the target grants combat advantage to you (save ends). But because the target will go before you, there’s a 55% chance that by the time the rogue’s turn comes around again, he won’t be getting that vital CA. In fact, in that kind of case, the expected number of turns with combat advantage will be higher with a “until the end of your next turn” power than with a “save ends” power.
- We came out of the whole thing with some more magical loot, including a +1 Vengeful Dagger and a Master’s Wand of Magic Missile. Also, Doc Caldwell’s Grey Guard Amulet (already a generic +1 neck-slot item) gained the “Chirurgeon” power that lets an ally get a healing surge back.
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