Ok, now the hangovers gone, and i'm slightly more awake...
Party consisted of:
An elf ranger, decent in melee, great with a bow, raptor animal companion
A dwarf fighter, new player
A dwarf mage (my wife)
An eladrin feylock (my son)
NPC'd human cleric
Missing:
Dragonborn paladin
Halfling Thief
They went in the west entrance, and guessed that the alcoves probably hid a trap. They found the switches, and deactivated 1 side, but my son set the other side off, though did manage to althletically jump out of the way.
They scouted out the rooms in the next few areas, and didn't distrub the vampire spawns coffins, but when they couldn't immediately see anything to fight, reckoned that the coffins might be important. The new player opened one, but, before the vampie could attack him, the ranger played an immediate interrupt powrr, and killed her. however, the party had put the strongest characters at the front, leaving the feylock and mage exposed at the back. Cue, the second vampie spawn flying across to attack the dwarf and missing. Initiative went to the ranger before anyone else, and her put two arrows into the second vampie spawn.
They sensibly didn't disturb the treasure and activate the skeletons, but mainly thats because they didn't have anyway to carry the treasure.
They decided to try an intimidate the Torturer, but every check from every one each round was failing. they knocked him down to 10 hp, without taking any damage themselves (crap rolling from me), and then I went them intimidate him. They questionned him, found out a bit about Kalarel, and locked him up...
Onto the big temple, and some decent stealth checks and positioning the raptor companion gave them the upper hand, or so they thought...
Ranger tried to take out one of the archers, and only managed to bloody him.
Given that they hand got this far without taking any damage, I decided to make some changes to kalarel. His decaying ray now hit a ranged burst 1, did less damage, but slowed the target, and his rod of ruin melee attack did 3d6+5 dmg...
kalarel summoned in skeletons each time they got destroyed (ended up summoning 3 sets of 2 skeletons, which I downgraded slightly), and balsting any bunches of characters with his ray, doing some decent damage to the fighter and cleric. Fighter got pulled toward, but not into the portal.
The animal companion, currently nicknamed Snickers, hit every round, doing pretty much its full d6+4 damage each round, out of the 17 hits it took to kill kalarel, the raptor accounted for 7 of them...
The ranger caused some oppurtunity attacks moving to get into melee, as did the fighter, and the fighter used the feyleaf vambraces to teleport into a flanking position, and by using his utlity stance power, and the addition of a cleric buff, gave him a +16 to hit, and he was still missing...
In melee, kalarel was lethal, hitting the ranger, fighter and cleric (twice) with his rod of ruin, knocking the cleric down to one hp...
Finally, the mage, with a 10 minimum damage on her magic missile (16 max) knocked the last 12 hp (rolling exactly the amount needed), and killed kalarel. Much back patting, comparing how many powers they had left, and the fighter charged off to kill the last archer who'd been attempting to put arrows into everyone and failed each round.
And then the avatar stepped through... I used the Servent of Baphomet (or something like that) mini, its a large, 4 square one, and everyones faces just dropped. It was above everyone in initiative, and smacked the cleric and the feylock for something like 15 damage each, putting the recently healed cleric back down to 3 hp.
Everbody took an attack at it, but only my son, with the only remaining daily, hit, and slid the avatar back through the portal.
By this point, it was gone midnight, so we calle dit a night. the group has 3 paths they can go down... but are aiming to head down into the torture tools room.
Comments:
minis are cool. I've spent about 100 pound from a variety of different sites, and got a very nice selection, and the look of satisfaction on the players faces as they lift another minion off the map is great.
map tiles... don't print them on glossy card, print them on matt, and cover them in clear sticky back plastic... i've now got really smudged glossy tiles, and some uncovered matt ones that have chicken drumstick fat and beer on them...
causing damage to the characters... minions are going down in the first round (bloody controllers...), so they aren't hitting, and once a players uses their second wind, i aren't hitting them at all...
rangers... with twin strike, elven accuracy, hunters quarry and decent dice rolling, the ranger is hitting probably 5 times in 6 attacks, over 3 rounds... he's thus dealing more damage and getting in more kills etc. he's progressing at about twice the rate of the others...
new players... first encounter he didn't get to attack, second encounter he was still getting used to the way powers work, by the third encounter, he was flanking, shifting etc like the best of them. I'm really impressed at how easy it is for somone to pick up 4ed
