Forge of Fury (Warning, spoiler)

[darkbard]

I changed the treasure to a comparable cost item: the Badge of the Svirfneblin

what's a badge of the svirfneblin?

 

[Kershek]

what's a badge of the svirfneblin?

It's from Magic of Faerun. It gives you darkvision 60 ft when worn and also gives you blur and change self once per day. Plus, you get +10 to hide while in areas of stone. It's worth 17,480 gold.

 

[darkbard]

thanks kershek. i own MoF but i guess it just proves that the more game books you own, the more likely it is you'll not know half the contents of them.

 

[coyote6]

Come now my good, er... doggie? You've been around the boards here long enough to know that you can not drop a line like that and just leave the reading public 'hungry' for more! For shame. Now, if you have this already written-up in a Story Hour thread then please be so kind as to post a link for us?

Story hour? Nah, I just read 'em. I don't know that my group's overpowered (first D&D campaign in, oh, 15 years; I let 'em roll up stats, and they're kind of ridiculous) frolics in the fields of blood* (oh so much blood; you should've seen them defending the Forge of Fury) would be too entertaining. Plus, there's the whole I-am-lazy thing.

I'm pretty sure I've posted the story before, but I'll recap.

In the first encounter they had learned (the hard way) that the sorcerer's spells were useless against the critter, so neither she nor the cleric bothered taking any attack spells. They spent pretty much every spell they had on buffs, plus scrolls (some scribed just for this fight), drank potions, etc. They were all six invisible, most of 'em in mage armor (the sorcerer had several extra 1st level slots after her own mage armoring & shielding, so "just in case"), endure fire for the close combatants, a shield of faith for the cleric, etc. They also fashioned together (with Craft rolls & everything) a crude, lightweight footbridge, and made it invisible.

Then the two sneaky PCs used the footbridge to cross the water & sneak up on the roper; the other PCs got as close as they dared, and bombarded it with alchemist's fire (there's that trap on the topmost floor that could be drained for ~10 vials of the stuff, so they had lots of it). A couple of axe-wielding dwarves Readied actions to chop at incoming strands (they learned rescuing some grabbed friends that they could cut 'em off, with good rolls -- and bull's strength & a two-handed grip on the axes ). The sneaky ranger might've done some strand chopping, too; in any case, he played flanker so the rogue could toss in some sneak attacks.

They rolled pretty decently -- there was a critical hit or two, IIRC -- while I rolled . . . not so well.

In any case, with 2-4 people hurling alchemist's fire at it every round (ranged touch attack vs. AC 10! 1d6x2 damage each, plus 1d6x2 the next round!), people hacking away at its poor little strands (they'd already severed a couple in the first encounter), and the occasional sneak attack, the roper died frighteningly fast.

It had a hell of a choice -- either burn for the extra round for all those alchemist's fires, or spend full rounds making Reflex saves to put the fire out instead of attacking. I almost had it jump in the river -- but it died before it could.

All in all, it was partly luck, partly fairly buff characters, and partly good planning. They spent a hell of a lot of money killing it, though -- scrolls, potions, alchemist's fire, etc.

All to avenge poor Bertwaller, lowly 1st level NPC.

And incidentally turn the sorcerer into a veritable belt-fed magic missile machine gun, of course.