TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

Another decent enough week of dungeoncrawling with 5/7 present. The two kobolds headed in opposite directions to explore the second level of the temple, with the winged one heading east and the sniper heading west. East was lots of empty rooms, but west was the eyes of the deep, using their illusion powers to simulate a whole phalanx of Kuo-toa warriors blocking their way. The sniper stayed stealthy and warned the others, who sent the orc charging at them. (as the only one with a swim speed, letting him actually get around at a decent pace) After a single round of smashing illusions he made his will save and figured out they were all dying in a suspiciously identical way. He alerted the others, but they were busy trying to catch up with their much slower movement rates. The sniper was still blinking around the periphery of the fight and soon spotted the eye of the deep hiding behind a corner controlling the illusion. He wounded it with one zap, and the orc finished it off with another charge. Once the rest of the PC's had caught up, they once again wound up splitting up again. Most of them headed south, since that was the direction the compass was indicating, but the winged kobold headed north just to make sure there was no trouble coming from that direction. This turned out to be not such a great move for him as there was indeed another eye of the deep heading in from that direction. Not willing to fight it on his own, this turned into several tense rounds pitting his stealth skills against its spot and listen, making the hides but failing enough move silently rolls that it kept moving suspiciously towards him. Eventually, he managed to roll a natural 20 and wedge himself in a crack in the ceiling, at which point he stayed still until it passed underneath him and he could attack it from behind as it started blasting the rest of the group. Once again it was up to the orc to deliver the bulk of the damage and then keep it down until the priestess could deal the coup de grace with her acidic whip.

Once combat had ended again, most of the group stayed in the big central corridor while the binder and sniper once again headed in different directions to fill in the map. The binder realised she could make better progress by detaching her shadow and sending it out to explore, since that isn't subject to environmental penalties. She headed to the west while the sniper checked the east. West was lots of empty rooms, but east was the secret door leading to the tunnel down, which was guarded by the morkoth and it's vodyanoi minions. Fortunately, he both spotted it easily and resisted the hypnotic patterns, pulling back to draw the first vodyanoi out where the whole group could finish it off. Once the binder returned from checking the other side, they sent her in to explore the hypnotic tunnels, since her blindfold meant she was in no danger of being charmed and eaten. She soon beat up the remaining two, eliminating the hypnotic effect and they finished the monsters off with the acid whip again, looted the treasure and headed down to level three, which seemed like the right point to call it a night. Still two more levels to go, but whether they'll find the way down to the final floor quickly and reach the big boss next session or spend ages wandering around the mostly empty third one remains to be seen.

Everyone was present this time. They started their exploration of level 3 in similar fashion to the previous two. The winged kobold explored the mausoleums of area 16 (now thoroughly ransacked by the hungry fungus people) while the binder sent her shadow forward into area 17. It was quickly zapped by the collective lightning bolt powers of the kuo-toa whips on the other side, but that was no great loss and at least the PC's knew where the enemy was now. Time for the orc to take point and charge into the fray before they recharged their zapping powers. A few martial maneuvers later they were downed and easy prey for the priestesses acidic whip. The next wave of defences after the ramp met a similar fate. They then reached the big 4 way junction, which once again made things more interesting as they decided to split the party. The kobolds and barbarian went down the south passage, while the priestess and binder wandered east. This as usual turned out to be a bad idea, as the girls wandered straight into the giant octopus lair in area 20. (cue inevitable hentai references) The binder had a high enough AC that only natural 20's could hit her, so even 8 attacks per round wasn't doing much, but the priestess did actually get grappled and took a decent amount of damage before they managed to shred them into calimari. Meanwhile the guys opened up the door to room 18, where more kuo-toa were guarding the shaft down to level 4. The orc did most of the heavy hitting as usual, then they backed off once the monsters were downed and the sniper finished them off with an electric blast. They then had to spend several rounds finding the girls and telling them that the main plot was this-a-way, once again slowed down by the underwater movement penalties before they could get to the final level.

Level 4 continued in a similar fashion, two more waves of kuo-toa defences that at this point it was obvious were merely stalling for time, even the choke point of area 23 failing to do more than get a couple of lightning bolts off before they were destroyed by charging orc and the others piggybacking on him to make up for their slower movement rates. I had hopes that the kraken that was the original boss of this adventure would last a little longer, as it does at least have 310 hp in 3e. But no, the orc had the right martial maneuver ready to unleash a full attacks worth of triple damage strikes that downed it in a single round. But no amount of twinkery can deny the whims of the DM, so it was still able to gasp out a dramatic "you're too late", and they could see the portal open behind it with tentacles even longer than a kraken's emerging from the rip in space. Perfect time for a cliffhanger ending. Lets see if the Scarlet Lord survives any longer with not only 408 hp, but also 20/+4 damage reduction and actually gets to use the other tricks up its many sleeves.

All but one were present again. The orc grabbed the binder and they charged into the melee as Xhagevoxhab pulled itself out of the gate. Both attacked, but the orc was only doing mild damage after the DR was taken into account and the binder wasn't penetrating at all. Meanwhile the priestess started reading out the ritual to reseal the gates. The drow & githyanki pulled out a bunch of summons, surrounding it with huge sharks and water elementals. This at least meant they were soaking up most of the tentacle attacks, but the scarlet lord still managed to one-shot the drow in the third round. Meanwhile the sniper once again snuck invisibly round the edges of the room, teleported away with part of the chains to spoil the binding ritual (for reasons related to his character's true allegiance) then teleported back again. He then told them that the ritual would be useless against it, but lied about the reason why. (rolling excellently on his bluff check so even though the other players knew something was up, their characters did not. Several more rounds passed in which the PC's hit it with everything they had, but most of their spells fizzled against its spell resistance, apart from one to reduce Xhagevoxhab's dexterity, which did at least make it even easier to plink away at. But the summoned minions were losing HP far faster than it and it was becoming obvious that once they were gone, the group would have a very bad time of things. So the orc scooted back through the tunnel to the rest of the group, carrying the binder and the body of the fallen drow along the way. Once everyone was within touch range, the githyanki activated his Plane Shift power, saving everyone except the cowering Plugoo who had run away from the group. (and will be converted next time they see him) Now they're in a random location on the astral plane, and need to heal up, get their bearings, get back to familiar terrain and figure out how to fight the scarlet lord from a more advantageous position. In the meantime, I can set another important plot thread in motion. Muahahaha.