thedungeondelver
Adventurer
I posted this over on my forums but thought some of you folks would like to read all about it...
The party had been raiding Nosnra's steading off and on for a while yet and hadn't gained the dungeon area until last session. In "sneaking" in, they'd left a trail of four hill giant bodies.
So before last night's setting, I broke out the Dwarven Forge and built the large dungeon chamber and surrounding rooms and had everyone position their minis exactly where they would have been at the end of the previous session. As soon as everyone was sitting down and attending to the game, I went 'round the table and had everyone declare...
Nosnra, his sub-chief and four bodyguards came down the stairs. The dreadful keeper came out of his chamber with his carnivorous apes to investigate the noises. Nosnra's bodyguards charged in and engaged Colin the Ranger, Achu the cleric, Raithier the Cleric and Athlar the Fighter.
The two horrible apes charged at Dugan.
Teldyn the Thief/Magic-User was invisible as was Brendan the Magic-User.
As soon as Brendan cast lightning bolt at Nosnra and his sub-chief his invisibility was broken. Nosnra responded with a javelin of lightning, sizzling but not slaying Brendan.
The corner door opened and out rushed a group of twelve bugbears - a quick fireball by Teldyn softened them to the point where single blows were taking them down (all save three were in the radius or made their save). Two fire giants rushed in from the south and spelled the end for Dugan and Achu.
Raithier was brought to zero hits, and Athlar was dropped to -1 as they fought the press of giants and bugbears.
Still, the party managed to hang on. Brendan threw lightning bolts and magic missiles and eventually brought down the fire giants. Back-stabbing and using boots of striding and springing helped Teldyn take out the horrible keeper. All in all some good luck (the party won a key last-round initiative and the keeper didn't hit Colin a final blow), some outrageous and unexpected tactics (like Teldyn executing a charge against a giant to keep him off balance and away from the magic-user) and just a flat-out refusal to die helped the party carry the day.
Athlar was comatose for four turns. Once they'd healed Raithier with a potion he was able to administer as much spell based first aid as he could. They rested in the Keeper's quarters and amazingly no wandering monsters happened by*. They freed a few additional prisoners, including a mighty dwarf warrior (taken over by Kamal, who'd lost his cleric Achu in the fight). Then they discovered the treasure hoard(s) of Nosnra and looted those. They earned every scrap of treasure they found, too!
*=and it wasn't just based on die rolls...
...
What I mean by total gaming goodness was the absolute game synergy that was at the table. It was touch and go every step of the way, but things just...clicked. It's hard to describe. It's one of those things that you just know when it's happening. Every player played to the absolute top of their abilities and didn't hold anything back, didn't try to overthink, didn't do dumb stuff. The one tiny thing I would change if I could go back and do it is that the 2nd group of bugbears that came through - I had them make an immediate morale check when they saw the carnage. I think in retrospect given that both the magic-user and magic-user/thief had gone invisible again, and that there were only two obviously live characters left (the ranger and one of the fighters) they probably would have waded in. Now that would've been interesting - 30 some bugbears versus two badly injured fighter types alone! I'm not entirely sure what the magic-users had left in their respective bags o' tricks...
