seankreynolds
Adventurer
Rereading the 3E Ptolus book (2006) has brought up a lot of old memories from when I was a player Monte's home game of Ptolus (this is back when we were still working on 3E design, 1999–2000). This is probably my favorite memory from that campaign.
Our group (the Runewardens, see page 577) had pushed our way into Mahdoth's Asylum (a place to keep insane spellcasters off the streets) and all hell had broken loose. We ended up in a big free-for all battle against the asylum staff (which included an ocular tyrant, a beholder-like creature, as an anti-magic cone is really handy for shutting down enemy casters) and a few spellcasters that we had accidentally or intentionally freed.
My character, Shurrin, was fighting a summoned monster, and I had my back to the ocular tyrant. The tyrant focusing all of its intention on Erik Mona's paladin of Lothian, Zophas, who was having to make three saving throws every round to not die from the tyrant's save-or-die effects (petrification, disintegrate, and death). Zophas had a really high Cha stat, so his save bonuses were great, but with three big saves every round eventually his luck was going to run out, so he called for help.
Keep in mind that Shurrin was in no way a minmaxed character—starting with a swashbuckler theme, I took levels in fighter and rogue, and eventually added a little cleric as well. And my main weapon was a keen rapier (back in 3.0, keen stacked with the Improved Critical feat), so I was a critting machine ... but my crits were just x2 on a 1d6+1 attack, so my damage output never was that great. By comparison, Zophas used a holy greatsword, and since most of our enemies were evil, he got that +2d6 damage on most things we fought. His damage per round was HUGE. (The difference between these two characters is what led me to write my "keen & Imp Crit should stack" article when 3.5 came out and made them not stack, because even with the higher crit range I couldn't keep up.)
As I was the only person close enough to respond to Zophas' call for help, I turned around and stabbed at the tyrant with my rapier. Rolled a critical threat (not too hard, my threat range was 12–20). Rolled to confirm… and confirmed with another critical threat. Rolled to confirm the second threat… and confirmed that, which mean it was an instant-kill (Monte was using the variant rule for this in the DMG.)
So basically Shurrin was fighting a summoned monster with his back turned to a beholderish thing, heard his friend call for help, turned around, stabbed the tyrant dead in one hit, then went back to fighting the summoned monster. (In the entire length of the campaign, which ended around level 16, I only managed to do that instant-kill TWICE.)
I had a strong sense of satisfaction from that, as Zophas was pretty arrogant and was from an ultraconservative branch of the Lothianite faith that taught that all other gods (including mine, the goddess of laughter) were actually demons. So the moment the "demon-worshipping heretic" saved Zophas' life by killing the monster that was going to destroy him the moment he failed a save was pretty damn nice.
(Secondmost favorite memory: Shurrin had a crush on Tellith Herdsman of the Ghostly Minstrel (the inn/pub/restaurant that caters to adventures). But she absolutely refused to be courted by adventurers because she knows they die too often and she didn't want to marry someone who was likely to leave her a widow. After the campaign ended and Shurrin retired from adventuring, Monte told me that he and Tellith eventually got married. )
(Thirdmost favorite memory: Either talking to Raguel, or what happened in the Jewels of Parnaith after one of Ghul's undead creatures killed Shurrin…)
For those of you who have run or played in Ptolus, what's your favorite campaign memory?
Our group (the Runewardens, see page 577) had pushed our way into Mahdoth's Asylum (a place to keep insane spellcasters off the streets) and all hell had broken loose. We ended up in a big free-for all battle against the asylum staff (which included an ocular tyrant, a beholder-like creature, as an anti-magic cone is really handy for shutting down enemy casters) and a few spellcasters that we had accidentally or intentionally freed.
My character, Shurrin, was fighting a summoned monster, and I had my back to the ocular tyrant. The tyrant focusing all of its intention on Erik Mona's paladin of Lothian, Zophas, who was having to make three saving throws every round to not die from the tyrant's save-or-die effects (petrification, disintegrate, and death). Zophas had a really high Cha stat, so his save bonuses were great, but with three big saves every round eventually his luck was going to run out, so he called for help.
Keep in mind that Shurrin was in no way a minmaxed character—starting with a swashbuckler theme, I took levels in fighter and rogue, and eventually added a little cleric as well. And my main weapon was a keen rapier (back in 3.0, keen stacked with the Improved Critical feat), so I was a critting machine ... but my crits were just x2 on a 1d6+1 attack, so my damage output never was that great. By comparison, Zophas used a holy greatsword, and since most of our enemies were evil, he got that +2d6 damage on most things we fought. His damage per round was HUGE. (The difference between these two characters is what led me to write my "keen & Imp Crit should stack" article when 3.5 came out and made them not stack, because even with the higher crit range I couldn't keep up.)
As I was the only person close enough to respond to Zophas' call for help, I turned around and stabbed at the tyrant with my rapier. Rolled a critical threat (not too hard, my threat range was 12–20). Rolled to confirm… and confirmed with another critical threat. Rolled to confirm the second threat… and confirmed that, which mean it was an instant-kill (Monte was using the variant rule for this in the DMG.)
So basically Shurrin was fighting a summoned monster with his back turned to a beholderish thing, heard his friend call for help, turned around, stabbed the tyrant dead in one hit, then went back to fighting the summoned monster. (In the entire length of the campaign, which ended around level 16, I only managed to do that instant-kill TWICE.)
I had a strong sense of satisfaction from that, as Zophas was pretty arrogant and was from an ultraconservative branch of the Lothianite faith that taught that all other gods (including mine, the goddess of laughter) were actually demons. So the moment the "demon-worshipping heretic" saved Zophas' life by killing the monster that was going to destroy him the moment he failed a save was pretty damn nice.
(Secondmost favorite memory: Shurrin had a crush on Tellith Herdsman of the Ghostly Minstrel (the inn/pub/restaurant that caters to adventures). But she absolutely refused to be courted by adventurers because she knows they die too often and she didn't want to marry someone who was likely to leave her a widow. After the campaign ended and Shurrin retired from adventuring, Monte told me that he and Tellith eventually got married.
)(Thirdmost favorite memory: Either talking to Raguel, or what happened in the Jewels of Parnaith after one of Ghul's undead creatures killed Shurrin…)
For those of you who have run or played in Ptolus, what's your favorite campaign memory?
