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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Demetrios1453" data-source="post: 9669012" data-attributes="member: 6801060">Curse of the Azure Bonds (Part 37): The Cave of the Beholder (Part 2)Rested up, and having escaped the chaos of the altar room, we begin to explore the cavern system to find the Dexam the beholder (who holds the Amulet of Lathander), as well as a way out of this labyrinth...We head up the corridor a bit...[ATTACH=full]406503[/ATTACH]That's never a good sign when you're underground!We continue towards the northeast.[ATTACH=full]406504[/ATTACH]Yikes! Meeting the beholder already? Although it's probably futile, we try to sneak past it.[ATTACH=full]406505[/ATTACH]One of D&D's most infamous "gotcha" encounters...We continue northeast.[ATTACH=full]406506[/ATTACH]Oh come on, of course we examine! The game pretty much never puts something like that out there and then goes "You find nothing."[ATTACH=full]406507[/ATTACH]Intriguing...[ATTACH=full]406508[/ATTACH]Having "Cast find trap" as an option is always worrying, but unlike the last time we had this issue, the game will let you get around doing so without causing catastrophe. We choose to pick up the bag.[ATTACH=full]406509[/ATTACH]Why Bant is doing this and not Buffy is really puzzling. I guess dwarves have some innate trap-finding in 1e? In any case, we attempt to remove the trap.[ATTACH=full]406510[/ATTACH]Again, strangely, it's Bant and not Buffy. Also, how was this bag trapped? Did the elf just carry it around trapped? Must have been terribly inconvenient (let alone dangerous) when out shopping and the like. Or did one of the beholder's minions place it here on the off chance an adventurer would stumble upon it? In any case, let's see what we've found...[ATTACH=full]406511[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]406512[/ATTACH]We're in the blank area to the northeast, but at least it gives us a pretty useful chart to find the way out, once we head back west.Before we can ponder if the elf or whoever trapped the bag just for an incomplete map, we do find other items of interest in the bag.[ATTACH=full]406513[/ATTACH]Some money...[ATTACH=full]406514[/ATTACH]And some items...[ATTACH=full]406515[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]406516[/ATTACH]A shield +2 is better than what Brother Baltor currently has, so we give it to him. It will give him a better AC than the other front-liners, but that's OK since he has fewer hit points than they do.But.. not as few as before! In addition to gaining a nice new shield, Brother Baltor can now level up![ATTACH=full]406517[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]406518[/ATTACH]Oh nice! He can now cast 5th-level spells! At first raise dead might seem nice, but with its permanent Constitution drain (1e didn't pull any punches) for anyone who it's cast on, it's, in the end, not as useful as it seems, especially when we can just go back to a previous save. We'll actually be memorizing flame strike and cure critical wounds and wait until he can cast resurrection.But... that's not all! Brother Baltor is actually able to level up in both classes![ATTACH=full]406519[/ATTACH]1e rangers were weird, and allowed the casting of magic-user spells. I'll just give him detect magic here. Honestly, other than magic missile and shield, none of these are are really all that useful at this level...With his new AC and extra HP, Brother Baltor is now cutting a fine figure among the melee group![ATTACH=full]406520[/ATTACH]Bant is irritatingly close to leveling as well, but the remaining XP balance should be taken care of here soon.We leave the room with the dead elf, and continue northeast. Almost as soon as we round the corner...[ATTACH=full]406522[/ATTACH]Oh no![ATTACH=full]406523[/ATTACH]Geesh, only four? That's a bit insulting at this level. We take care of them quickly, not even wasting spells on them. They don't even manage to damage a single member of the party.[ATTACH=full]406524[/ATTACH]And they give pitiful XP, not even enough to level Bant, as close as he is...[ATTACH=full]406525[/ATTACH]We continue around the next corner, and...[ATTACH=full]406526[/ATTACH]Well, this is much more interesting![ATTACH=full]406527[/ATTACH]Time for the artillery![ATTACH=full]406528[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]406529[/ATTACH]And Bragir follows up in the same way...[ATTACH=full]406530[/ATTACH]The result is a rapid clearing of enemies off the field of battle...[ATTACH=full]406531[/ATTACH]And we quickly take care of them.[ATTACH=full]406532[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]406533[/ATTACH]That XP is much better! Even if the loot unfortunately doesn't contain any upgrades...But, speaking of upgrades...[ATTACH=full]406535[/ATTACH]Time for Bant to level up![ATTACH=full]406536[/ATTACH]Unfortunately, we're beginning to reach levels where, instead of a character getting a normal hit dice, they only get set amounts of HP when leveling up (fighters and paladins +3, rangers, clerics, and thieves +2, and magic users +1), with no CON bonus as well. A few of my multi-class characters will still get their normal half hit-die for a level or two, but soon everyone will be getting these set amounts, with HP levels only creeping upward by small amounts. It wasn't until 3e that characters always got the full hit die no matter what level they were. In any case, as small as it is, any HP improvement is helpful.With not much more to see in this area in the northeast corner, we begin to backtrack to explore around further. As we head back down the corridor...[ATTACH=full]406537[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]406538[/ATTACH]That's a decent amount of clerics and magic users there! But Brin has an answer for that.[ATTACH=full]406539[/ATTACH]Even though she can't get all of them in her AoE, she still gets a big group.[ATTACH=full]406540[/ATTACH]Annoyingly, the one mage she wasn't able to get within her radius gets off a magic missile on Bragir, stopping him from casting this round. However, as the second round of combat begins, he moves around to get in position for a different spell...[ATTACH=full]406541[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]406542[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]406543[/ATTACH](By the way, Brin has a wand of lightning that she picked up in the Yulash, and I really need to remember that so she can use it effectively).With that, the battlefield has cleared out a bit...[ATTACH=full]406544[/ATTACH]And we take down the remaining enemy combatants until, annoyingly, they start to run away...[ATTACH=full]406545[/ATTACH]The one near the group goes down, but everyone else uses their bows to take out the one fleeing...[ATTACH=full]406546[/ATTACH]Some really nice XP for this fight...[ATTACH=full]406547[/ATTACH]Although there isn't much in the way of upgrades in the loot, we still pick some of it up just to sell later. Bracers are light and sell for a lot of cash, and darts are both light and stackable. And Bant gets some further magical quarrels for his crossbow.[ATTACH=full]406548[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]406549[/ATTACH]This was a random encounter (the other ones were set encounters). There are 4 random encounters in this zone, so once we clear them out, we'll be able to move around freely.We continue to head out of the northeast section...[ATTACH=full]406550[/ATTACH]That's weird. The map we found earlier clearly shows the way out is to the south.[SPOILER="Spoiler"] (Which is true. Going to the northwest corner takes you to a malfunctioning transporter that does damage when you go through it, which is why we won't be going there)[/SPOILER]We continue to wander around the north-central portion of the caverns...[ATTACH=full]406551[/ATTACH]Are they sill fighting it out in the altar room?[ATTACH=full]406552[/ATTACH]Hmm... That's a bit worrying.Eventually, after moving around a bit with nothing exciting happening...[ATTACH=full]406553[/ATTACH]And we'll pick back up there next time, when ogres attack!</blockquote>

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