Sagiro's Story Hour: The FINAL Adventures of Abernathy's Company (FINISHED 7/3/14)

[Mathew_Freeman]

Full. Of. Awesome.

So, what spells did Zeg cast during that Time Stop, then? I can only assume he killed Ernie and Reanimated him, all during the spell. Ouch.

Excellent dialogue as usual, particularly Dranko ("Not helping!") and Zeg ("At least my organs for something interesting!").

Now the Company only have a few problems:
1) Undead Ernie
2) Morningstar is up to 500 miles away
3) Dranko is rotting

Is now the right time for the reinforcements to turn up? *evil grin*

 

[wedgeski]

lol... wow! What an awesome scrap! I love the use of the Status spell... one could think of all kinds of adjectives: perturbed, red-brown with a hint of green, a little tired but otherwise fine...

 

[Everett]

Dranko bluffs. “If we can take out Parthol Runecarver, we can take out you.”

They did?

Last I recall, he was still on the company's to-do list.

 

[Piratecat]

They did?

Last I recall, he was still on the company's to-do list.

That's why it was a bluff. Not an effective one, mind you.

It's so much fun to read this; I remember us shouting all those things as we were getting schooled by Zeg. Boy, was I frustrated when I dim-doored behind the wall of force with no way back and he simply left. Ernie's player wasn't there this session, which means that Sagiro turned him into undead when the player wasn't even present. There's more going on then meets the eye. I'll say for the record that me giving Sagiro a copy of the Book of Vile Darkness as a present was a STUPID STUPID THING I SHOULD NEVER HAVE DONE. Stupid. With extra stupid on top.

Ouch.

Sagiro, how'd I manage to get a full round of sneak attacks off on Zeg at the end? I don't think Dranko was flanking and I don't remember how I managed it.

Interesting, the 4e theory of "give the solo monster more than one action" is also really clear in this 3.5 fight. Zeg had quickened spells up the ying-yang and cast spells that summoned or created more allies (like turning Ernie undead or summoning the fist.) This was a great fight we felt lucky to win.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Nasty fight against the necromancer. Time stop is a lot of fun for the person casting it, and not so much fun for anyone opposed to him.

I do hope the PCs won't abandon their pursuit of Praska. Remember what happened the last time they left something undone -- viz. the Oasis Mage's Guild?

(Of course in reality, whatever the PCs decided to do or not do is already over with, but we won't find out about it for a while.)

Also, regarding Kibi's prophecy: one line stood out for me, namely It must be you who cracks the shell.

If you remember waaaaaay back to session 49, when the party was in Sand's Edge following up on the first prophecy of the Eyes of Moirel regarding the Ventifact Collosus, they ran afoul of some Utholites. One was captured and interrogated and revealed that...

The Utholites have their own versions of the two prophecies spoken by the Eyes of Moirel, and they clearly are following the “turtle must live” version.

Ventifact Collosus... turtle. Turtle... shell. This cannot be a coincidence.

The last phrase of Kibi's message says, Together we will cleanse Abernia. Hearkening back to the Eyes' prophecy, the purple eye said, HEED WELL MY WARNING. IF THE COLOSSUS IS KILLED BY THE WAR GOD’S CHILDREN, THOUSANDS WILL PERISH. ITS DEATH WILL HERALD THE COMING OF THE FIRE.

Cleanse Abernia... Thousands Will Perish / Coming of the Fire... sounds roughly equivalent to me.

Yup. Should've led the turtles win.

 

[Piratecat]

Yup. Should've led the turtles win.

Screw you, buddy! The future is written in water!

Minor spoiler: the resolution of Praska, however it turns out, is pretty much my favorite couple of sessions from the past few years. Sheer, brief panicked terror has a way of sticking in your memory.

 

[Sagiro]

To answer a couple of questions above:

- The combat is narrated accurately, round by round. Most of the Company have taken the quicken spell feat, which is why it seems like they're getting extra actions fairly often. I use a variant for metamagic feats wherein players can apply them spontaneously to spells 3 times per day.

Also, I use an Action Point system that, at the time of this game, allowed players to burn an Action Point for an extra standard action. I later decided that was too powerful.

- A related answer: Dranko used an Action Point to get an extra standard action, which he used to Bluff the necromancer Zeg. That allowed him to get a full round of attacks, one of which was a sneak attack. Mucho Damage!

 

[Everett]

How far is the Story Hour behind the game at this point? About 40 updates worth?

 

[Sagiro]

@Mathew_Freeman: I recall rolling poorly on Zeg's time stop -- I think he only cast two spells: the one that turned Ernie into an undead creature, and the one that summoned the bone construct. He may have also cast a buff on himself, but I don't recall.

@Everett: The run with Zeg was the 207th of the campaign. The game I'm running next week will be the 240th. So I'm 33 runs behind, and with the shorter evening runs we have these days (as opposed to the old 6-hour Sunday mini-marathons), I'm generally covering about one full run per update.

Looks like your guess is not far off.

 

[Everett]

Looks like your guess is not far off.

And the game is a year or less from ending?