D&D 4E Running player commentary on Sanzuo's 4e Dark Sun campaign

[Iron Sky]

Session 13

After a long night "resting" in the top of the Bodach Ziggurat, we fled the city, heading back towards Smarah. Not long after we left the city, we saw a figure in the distance that appeared to be composed of salt and silt with the features of Uralach the lich, who congratulated us on getting the scroll, warning us against betraying him, and promising additional rewards if we returned to him.

After a well-earned rest, pushing on with a skill challenge to get through the dangerous salt-crusts over boiling brine that lead out of Bodach... to natural 1s from Kyden and Eberk. Round 2 went better with everyone getting a total of 25 on Endurance/Nature/Athletics checks, just barely making it out without incident.

We arrived on the edge of the Stony Barrens when a strange rock ahead of us began to move and look in our direction, uncurling to reveal itself as a massive rock-skinned lizard. Eberk charged it only to meet its gaze as it scurried away from him, poisoning him so much he had a poisonous cloud oozing from his pores.

It interrupted Kyden's charge, knocking him down and skittering away, making strange calls that brought its mate into the fray. Jinn drew first blood charging it. It retaliated by blasting its poisonous ranged burst gaze attack on Jinn and Eberk while its mate blasted Kyden. All of us bloodied with 10 ongoing and we'd managed to land 1 attack...

Fortunately, two crits and two hits later, Jinn managed to bloody it with a Direct the Strike MBA from Kyden. It shifted away from Eberk, but he Blurred Stepped after it and killed it with an OA when it tried to use a Gaze attack.

We chased the other down, double moving to catch up to it (except for Jinn who used Second Wind + his ardent heal to get back up from 1hp), fortunately missing with twin Gaze (AP) attacks.

Since we'd figured out it got interrupt prone + shift attacks against anyone who moved adjacent, Eberk used 1PP Bulls Strength attacks to get reach, Jinn used his Greatspear, and Kyden attacked with Jinn to avoid getting next to it. Then Jinn dazed it to nerf the interrupts and we quickly closed and began tearing into it, finally taking it down only after all of us were bloodied again.

Two days later, we arrived back in Samarah. Five days later, our skiff landed back at Balic to sell our 215 lbs of Bodach loot (netting us 10,950gp and a psionic longspear), Eberk bought a few Tridents to replace the Craghammer he'd forgotten how to use, and we quickly headed to the gates before the someone more powerful than us noticed that we had several artifacts.

The stationed guards were suspicious of us trying to get out after the gates were closed, but Jinn dropped a 30 Diplomacy and 30 Bluff to convince the guards he was a son of Rhetaan Wavir and had urgent business elsewhere. They quickly let us out.

We traveled for a few hours before setting up camp, then rested, the next day arriving at the Wavir estate to find it burned out and sacked. We investigated carefully only to be challenged by a large axeman who pronounced himself Toraash and a pair of archers.

As Kyden rushed one of the archers, another two identical enemies with bright clothing and a feathered, beaked mask jumped out from behind a rock to hit Jinn. Jinn went for them, bloodying one with an AP as Eberk and the axeman went toe-to-toe, Eberk getting to test out his new spear push-and-prone routine.

The assassins kept on merging into each other, then splitting attack to ambush Jinn of different angles (allowing them to make Stealth checks). Kyden Critted to drop his archer while Jinn heal-tanked two assassins and the other archer. Kyden double-moved and AP'd to charge one of the assassins, the birdman? dying with a loud "SQUACK!"

The other assassin promptly ran away, only to be run down and run through by Jinn, who then chased down the archer and trapped him against the side of the stables. Thanks to being prone and some useful positioning of Eberk and Kyden, Toraash had the choice of not attacking or charging Eberk, drawing a readied Viper's Strike and an OA from Kyden. Instead, he ran away, whistling for his Kradlu.

The archer tried to surrender, but we didn't want him running away so Jinn knocked him out. Kyden bloodied Toraash, causing him to fly into a psychic berserker rage, dazing Kyden and Eberk. He was tough, surviving several rounds of us pounding on him, including a couple crits, eventually breaking his axe on Eberk's head then mounting up on his Kradlu and riding off, everyone missing with their OAs allowing him to escape.

Jinn burned 4 surges, Eberk 1, Kyden took no damage.

The battle over, we searched the place looking for survivors - or whatever the people who didn't survive didn't need anymore, questioning the archer we captured, remembering that there was a basement that was probably intact, and digging it out: successful Perception, Intimidate, Athletics, and History checks, 1 failed Athletics check.

We managed to find a sack of "gold" and some clawed boots from the bird men that helped anchor Eberk into the ground better so he could punt people further with his attacks (mechanically: Rushing Cleats), while Jinn learned that the men worked for Praetor Darian Heraxis and were left behind after the Praetor sacked the place to kill or capture anyone who came.

After digging through the debris for an hour, we made it down into the cellar, narrowly avoiding being murdered by Rock as we stepped in, Shalara quickly telling us about the attack on the compound that came out of nowhere and the place was quickly razed, though Ermak was in Balic at the times.

After a discussion of what to do - go to the lich? Join the sorcerer-king of Balic? The same at Gulg? Look for another Veiled Alliance cell in Balic? Gulg? Elsewhere? - we decided to look for the Balic Veiled Alliance cell since it seemed to be the fastest options that would leave the least strings attached afterward.

The sooner we get the geas off of us and unload the Scroll of Bodach, the sooner we can begin working on our true goal: building a submersible airship and pirating the Sea of Silt!

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 14

Even smaller group tonight, no Jinn, though Arin the Changeling Athesian Minstrel Hexblade joined us via Skype(2 players on skype, 1 RL).

The two of us remaining arrived at Balic and figured out what to do, quickly ruling out going door-to-door saying "Hi! We were cursed by a lich to get this powerful artifact here and since we hate sorcerer-kings, we were wondering if you knew of any Veiled Alliance around here?"

Deciding going back to our flat was a bad idea, we decided we'd rent a place nearby where we could watch our old flat to see if it was being watched. Renting didn't work out (negotiating suddenly gets much less favorable when your social character isn't there) so we ended up buying the house across the street for 5000gp, plus another 100 to tidy up the place.

That done, we decided it was time for some R&R, heading off to a friendly neighborhood brothel where we met Arin paying his way with tales of the Green Age. We were ready to unload some of our wealth when a servant of Lord Iago entered, extending an invitation to dinner the following night with his master and our current night's entertainment on Iago and for Arin to come as the entertainment.

We agreed and complied, enjoying our evening on his tab. The next day, we stumbled back to our manor - our new minstrel friend in tow - and pretty much just lounged around all day hoping that the Veiled Alliance would find us since we had no idea how to find them.

That night, we headed off to Iago's estate, on the way Kyden giving one of his poisoned flasks of wine to Arin, offering him 200gp to poison Iago. Arin agreed and we entered the estate to find a private dinner waiting, Iago recognizing Kyden and inviting the group over with a welcoming smile and wave.

He offered to let bygones be bygones, telling us we were being followed around the city by agents for other factions and offering not only to help us find "a certain alliance" but to eliminate the bounties house Tomblador had put on our heads and put us under his not-inconsiderable protection. All we had to do was give up our association with house Wavir and maybe do some work for Tomblador.

This was actually sounding all well-and-good to Kyden (as he could just betray him later to be poetic about it) but Arin was already going ahead with his plan, convincing Iago that they should toast our friendly reunion with his special, rare brand of wine (Bluff 30), then faked drinking along with Iago as we all drank our toasts(Bluff 29), then, as Iago died gasping, he imitated Iago's death throws (using Changling tricks to even imitate the bluish lips and purple throat) and falling to the ground under the table in his death throes(Bluff 22).

Arin's player said "I didn't know it was fast-acting poison!"

His last Bluff good enough that Eberk and Kyden actually thought the brainless Minstrel actually drank his own poison. That threw all the suspicion and Kyden and Eberk, who leapt from the table and put their backs to a corner as the guards closed in.

The guards closed in and landed some heavy blows before being knocked back by several 2PP Bulls Strengths. Arin blasted the boss from under the table with an Eldritch Bolt then became invisible and slipped away. Kyden - true to form - got hit hard and was bloodied repeatedly while Arin dropped huge hits with attacks that were +11 vs Ref, d12s +11.

Eberk was crit by one of their greataxes right after being bloodied(23 damage) and was dropped, to be immediately brought back up by Fearless Rescue and dropped again by another 23 damage Crit. Arin continued to destroy them with massive 20-something damage hits while Kyden went down and both Eberk and Kyden bled out.

It was like something from a Quintin Tarantino movie: Arin was hired by some people to go poison someone for no known reason, did so, and everyone ended up dead but him. It being Athas, he shrugged, looted the bodies, then shapechanged into a guard and walked out of the place.

We called it a night and made new characters.

We ended up with Siltstorm, a Warforged(Silt Elemental) Elemental Priest Knight replacing Kyden: a silt elemental that found a robed skeleton in the desert and wrapped it in sand and bandages to assume humanoid form. Mechanically, it's a knight with a focus on slowing.

Replacing Eberk was Pakran Wriine, a Human Dune Trader Centered Breath Monk: a silt pirate just arriving in Balic. Mechanically, it's a balanced monk with AoEs, decent single-target attacks, great defenses and amazing mobility.

 

[Spatula]

Aw.

I love the reskinning of the warforged! Neat idea.

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 15

Usual trio tonight, though slightly different cast due to the deaths in the group. The attachments are the portraits of our characters: Siltstorm, Pakran, then Jinn. Siltstorm knows almost nothing about humans but is pretending he is one so I'm playing him a bit like Zoidberg from Futurama. Arin joined us an hour in or so.

Sample quotation: "Secrets? Vibrations that enter my skull holes will not continue through my tooth flaps!" I try not to have him talk to much 'cause it's pretty derailing.

We started with Humar Humis the Human(Siltstorm's common name, to fit in better with the meatskins) and Pakran meeting with Captain Rais, leader of a small pirate fleet and also secretly a member of the Veiled Alliance. We had just arrived at Balic and Rais sent us to find a certain Ermak somewhere in the city, currently going by Raan, taking Jinn to a certain warehouse in the city.

Raan/Ermak told us of the mysterious massacre at Patrician Iago's estate where supposedly everyone died. Raan asked us to find their friend Jinn Rajin, some minor lord from Tyr who owned some property by the Wavir compound.

Meanwhile, back at the estate we purchased, Arin showed up with Kyden's blade, Eberk's boots, and wearing fresh bloody bandages. While he was summarizing what happened to Kyden and Eberk, a group of city guards showed up and demanded that Jinn come in for questioning since two of his companions were found dead with Lord Iago.

Jinn delayed(32 Bluff, 30 Diplomacy) and sent Arin (disguised as a servant) to the Wavir compound across the street to get help. Humar and Pakran arrived at Jinn's estate to see the pile of guards at the door. Pakran decided it would be better to climb the wall into the estate. Humar and Pakran made it(no failures on Athletics, but Humar got a 9 Stealth), but Humar managed to alert the guards in the process. Rock awaited us on the balcony with her weapon drawn, questioning our motives.

Jinn went upstairs to investigate what was happening, telling the guards the house was under attack before slamming the door in the guard's face. Pakran let him know what was up and Jinn proposed that everyone start making noise like there was a battle going on upstairs. Humar got really into it: "Face destruction wooden portal! Hey, this sack was full of feathers!"

The guards pulled back, Arin in the midst of the guards in the back of the estate disguised as one of them and using his Wild Talent Thought Projection to let Jinn know they were about to assault the place, before disguising himself as a Sergeant and making a 40(!) Bluff check to convince all the guards to go help attack the front.

After being called by another Thought Projection, the group slipped out of the back of the estate and into the streets of Balic. We didn't get far before we ran headlong into a swarm of reinforcements and they immediately attacked.

We faced 2 Sergeants and 8 regular guards, Pakran initiating combat by leaping 9 squares and unleashing a Fallen Needle Blast 2, dropping 2 minions and injuring both the Sergeants. Pakran got Crit by a greataxe (shuddering IRL since that's how Eberk died).

After that, we took only minor damage, thanks in part to Siltstorm's Knight Aura locking them down, Pakran getting in the thick and using Bursts and Blasts, and Arin hammering the Sergeants with massive damage while Jinn did his usual temp-granting and healing. We definitely have a much more balanced group, combat only took 3 rounds and the only real damage we took was the crit.

At the end of the fight, after violating Siltstorm's Defense Aura a few times said "oh, that's right, he's a Fighter!"

Random note: Hexblades + Dark Sun work great. Weapon-breakage on a 1 and a weapon that's summoned from beyond as a minor action are highly compatible.

We quickly headed to the warehouse where we met Ermak who examined the scroll, lens, and urn we took from Bodach, giving us some downtime to get to know each other. Siltstorm took a dust-bath (his version of survival days - he needs just the right sands to keep his form maintained) to strange looks from the others and proceeded to profess his humanity in as many ways as he could think of to avoid suspicion that he might not be human.

Meanwhile, Ermak found out the ritual required a large amount of concentrated magic and he'd need a magical artifact to power it. One ex-Kyden +1 Learning Fullblade later, he had a handful of residuum that he used to break the Geas on Jinn, though he told Jinn that there was an astral link still between Jinn and Uralek the Lich.

He then proposed we assassinate Praetor Hiraxis. Arin proposed that instead they kill him and replace him with Arin disguised as him, revealing his changling talents by altering his appearance to an almost perfect image of Heraxis(Bluff 36), which everyone took to be amazing Athasian Minstrel tricks.

The next day the group began gathering info to infiltrate and imitate Hiraxis, rolling several 30+ Streetwise, Diplomacy, and Bluff checks between Arin and Jinn.

Pakran helped his boss cheat another pirate out of shipping lane rights(who gets to attack each one) for information, Jinn infiltrated Heraxis' house disguised as a slave, and Arin wandered the streets gathering information.

After that, we called it a night.

 

[Spatula]

So the current group is:

Jinn, Half-Elf Ardent (Noble Adept)
Siltstorm, Silt Elemental [warforged] Knight (Elemental Priest)
Pakran, Human Monk (Dune Trader)
Arin, Changeling Hexblade (Athasian Minstrel)

? What level is everyone?

The attachments are the portraits of our characters: Siltstorm, Pakran, then Jinn.

The attachment is missing.

 

[Iron Sky]

I attached the portraits above.

Everyone is level 4.

And it looks like, for now, that's where we're going to stay. Sanzuo is experiencing 4e burnout and wants to get back to our Rogue Trader game we played for a few months last year (or talk us into making Deathwatch characters).

Its possible we'll come back to this, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

So, this probably concludes one group's experience with 4e Dark Sun. Hope you enjoyed it or at least found it useful!

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

That's a disappointment to hear. I'm running a Dark Sun game too, and was using this thread for inspiration.

 

[Iron Sky]

I talked to Sanzuo today and he said we might play a few more sessions to wrap this game up, but it will be ending fairly shortly. So, I was wrong about it being over, but it is ending.

 

[Iron Sky]

Session 16

We weren't planning on playing today because most of the group is off doing things (like watching the Superbowl). However, Jinn's player, Sanzuo, and I were gathered around and trying to figure out what pickup game to play (Dark Heresy? Board games? Something homebrew?).

Jinn's player and I wanted to play some form of 4e so Sanzuo said as long as we're playing 4e, we might as well play Dark Sun.

We started with Jinn discovering that he had been found out and they were planning on imprisoning him. We still wanted to replace the Praetor with Arin so Jinn made a final Streetwise check and found a slave in the Praetor's Hiraxis' house that would show us the underground way into Praetorium where the Praetors all live. All we had to do was buy the slave's family freedom or kill the slavemaster Haraad who owned them.

You'll never guess which one we picked.

Jinn's 35 Bluff passed him off as a slave trader and we headed to Haraad's abode. We formed a plan - Jinn saying he wanted to make a bulk order of slaves for a large new villa, flash some serious coinage, and get the slavemaster someplace private to negotiate - and it worked!

After handing over 500gp as a "down payment", he agreed and went to meet us at the Dune Trader tavern after closing bell at the markets.

That evening, Jinn approached Haraad and, there being far too many witnesses around to do anything foolish, made some pretense at being interested in buying slaves, then headed outside, Sandstorm in tow as his "guard".

New plan: hide in an alley on the way to his house(Streetwise 25 to find one), hold an insulting conversation about him to draw him into it(Diplomacy 35, Bluff 28), then murder him and his guards. After that, we'd take his dead body to the compound, shout at the guards that he'd been injured, kill them when they let us in, free his slaves, loot the place, and set it on fire if we needed a distraction to escape.

Once he was in the alley, he saw us and stopped, requiring an additional Bluff 32 to insult him enough to bring him into the alley. We quickly found out he had hired thugs trailing us as well, that stepped in the other side of the alley.

Siltstorm charged off to tackle Haraad and his guards while Jinn blasted the three thugs with Burning Spray. They were minions and so were technically dead, but had an ability that let them not die until the end of their next turn(we'd fought similar minions before).

Then Haraad dominated Siltstorm. Fortunately, Siltstorm was too far away to get to Jinn, so Haraad just had him drop his weapon and wander out of his protective sandstorm (Spirit of Athas Theme power).

Jinn, meanwhile, was facing Haraad and one of his bodyguards on his own, finishing one off with a 2PP Energizing Strike and healing himself out of bloodied for the second time. Siltstorm, meanwhile, dismissed his Spirit of Athas to scour the flesh off the other bodyguard(with a little psychic bump from Jinn's Adept's Surge) and engaged Haraad, who promptly hit him for 22 damage and Siltstorm managed to miss with attack, AP, attack.

Jinn avenged him with his Battleborn Acuity doing 22 damage and buffing us, then APing to drop a 2PP Impetuous Ruin for 17 more damage and a daze.

A round later Harad was finally bloodied and dominated Siltstorm again. Fortunately, Haraad was slowed by Siltstorm's Defend the Line Stance and wasn't able to get far. Once the domination on Siltstorm ended, Haraad began pleading for his life. Jinn's player was indecisive about what to do and began attacking to subdue.

Siltstorm managed to miss (getting his 4th AC 23 of the fight when the guy had AC 24) and Haraad cut Siltstorm's head off and he fell apart into his constituent sand and bones. Jinn followed by getting his own AC 23 miss.

Final round, Jinn and Haraad both at 4hp. Jinn rolls... and... AC 29!

As a side note, the Warforged Resilience racial property (never roll below 10 on death saves) made for a cool concept with Siltstorm - kill him, he falls apart into the sands and eventually rolls a 20 and rises again. The only way to kill him is to dismantle him entirely.

Anyway, part 1 of the plan complete, on to part 2. We took Haraad to his estate, made sure he was unconscious, untied him in an alley, then carried him to his villa. They let us carry him in - our story being we'd saved him and expected a reward, just so they wouldn't be suspicious(Bluff 29).

Immediately inside were three guards. One was sent off to fetch a surgeon, the other stayed to guard the gate, and the last had us follow him as we carried Haraad to his chambers. Another joined us on the way and we ambushed them once we had them in the chambers.

We did a quick combat, not even drawing up a map, with Jinn and Siltstorm mowing them enemy down without even losing a hp, though one did live long enough to raise an alarm. We finished off Haraad and looting the room quickly, finding Haraad's longsword to be of Lifedrinking +1 before the guards came - 6 of them.

We braced ourselves at the door where they could only come at us one at a time. They got hammered trying to shift past Siltstorm, but surrounded us, quickly going down after Jinn hit everyone(including Siltstorm) with Burning Spray and we focused on one at a time, dropping about 1 a round. They only managed to hit Knight's 24 AC twice so he never even went bloodied, but the 6th guard ran off to get the city guards.

We ran down the last guard: opposed Athletics skill challenge, rolling against each other, whoever rolls highest gets a success, whoever gets 4 successes first wins. It came down to 3 successes for the group, 3 for the guard when we got the 4th with Silstorm's 28, catching him just as he was trying to lift the bar on the gate. He surrendered without a fight and we had him take us to the estate treasury.

There we found a bit over one-thousand gold(his "petty cash"). Then we discussed what to do with all the slaves we suddenly owned - free them? Sell them? Make them the crew of our future Zeppelin Silt-submarines?

In the end, we waited until morning, disguised ourselves as Haraad's guards, closed the place up, and took all the slaves off to House Wavir. There Jinn gave a note to the guard written to Ritan Wavir to get him to meet with us, gave the slaves to him as servants, gave up our estate across the street since we couldn't go back since Praetor Hiraxis was watching it constantly, then headed to our hideout with the family of the slave that started this whole shindig.

On the way, Jinn bought a War Kradlu so he could charge around on the back of a big raptor stabbing things with his spear.

With that we called it a night and a level.

Jinn picked up the Dragonmark of Handling feat so his Kradlu will have 10 speed in addition to all the other Mounted Combat benefits.

Siltstorm ditched Pass Forward since he's never used it and got Inspiring Fortitude(Second Wind gives 14 THP to every ally in 5).

 

[Spatula]

Nevermind! But thanks for the write-up!