BOZ
Creature Cataloguer
Campaign continued from this thread.
The PCs, all between 11th-14th level, made mincemeat of all the more-or-less ordinary giants in the Steading, and those with levels weren't much more of a challenge. That's OK; they were just the warmup. Just cannon fodder to make the PCs use up their spells and lose some hit points, to soften them up a bit.
In the group, going into the Steading, we had 1) Thog the Butcher, a CN Human with 14 levels split between 3.0 Ranger and Tempest (not quite sure what the breakdown was); 2) Kerrigan, a 13th level CG elven cleric of Olidamarra; 3) Brokk Blackbeard, my PC who is being played by Thog's player while I am taking over the campaign for another DM - he is a Dwarf Cleic 5/Paladin 7 of Moradin (he has since gained a level as well as have a few other PCs); 4) Austin Essex, a human fallen Paladin 2/Wizard 5, Spellsword 6 (he was on a quest to regain his paladinhood, lost due to several unwise dishonorable acts, and Heironeus charged him to fight bravely using none of his own magic and only the Merciful sword given to him by his god); 5) part of the corpse of a fallen comrade, Telnor Belmont, a mage who had died, and was then resurrected shortly before the group ventured into the Steading, left behind at their secure camp location for emergencies.
That was the "core" group who had been around the longest. Three had joined their group recently 6) Garon Bloodstain, an 11th level CN human rogue who was the replacement PC for Telnor; 7) Many, a LN human Monk 5/Rogue 6; 8) Cellulon of the All-Seeing Eye, a N Wizard 5/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 6, who was later determined by ENworld as a whole to be an illegal character and was then fixed. Of course, immediately thereafter Cellulon died due to the machinations of the previous DM which had come to fruition.
Three dwarves were added when the PCs reached the dwarf city right before venturing towards the city 9) Robair Blackbeard, an NPC who is a distant relative of Brokk, a 2nd level Ranger who was also a werebear; 10) Sturman, a LG Fighter 7/Dwarven Defender 5; and 11) Baldur, who I believe was a 12th-level monk.
When Cellulon died in the great hall, I decided to give the party 11) Farina, an orc Wizard 7/Cleric 7 of Meriadar, who agreed to help them with the giants, if they helped her free all the orc slaves.
Two sessions ago, the party of 10 split up (bad idea of course, yes). Some went into the chief's chambers to flush out some giants that had run in there, while the rest went into the main open area to kill some giants that had run in there. Those in the chief's chamber found a Greater Stone Golem which proved to be a nice challenge, since the Tempest is used to dealing critical hits again and again and taking out tougher foes that way. The other half of the party got a special treat with a Vampire Druid hill giant and his pet elder black pudding. Both of the monks got energy drained; Many got hit twice and Baldur got it once. Eventually Thog and the rest of the party beat the golem and helped rout the vampire (who turned gaseous and escaped) and the pudding as well as the druid's many pet swarm distractions.
In the following session, the party was cleaning up from the last battle when Chief Nosnra arrived (see previous link). Now he was pissed. When found the bodies of all the dead giants, he drank his potions of Jump, Displacement, Bear's Endurance, and Protection From good, gave his potion of Invisibility to his Cloud Giant chum (Nosnra wasn't interested in subtlety), let the clerics cast Bull's Strength on him, and then let his Rage do the rest of the work as he ran towards where the PCs were. this was the first encounter the PCs faced where any giants were actually prepared for them, and it was a doozy!
As the chief was raging and running, some other hill giants came in through the rear entrance at that moment, where some of the PCs were, to distract them. As I predicted, Thog, Kerrigan, and Austin engaged them instead of preparing for the worse threat. They made short work of those giants (though one of them killed Austin at the end), a mistake that was very costly to the rest of the party.
Nosnra came running up through the corridor towards his chambers. The cloud giant and three stone giants came up through the Main Hall, the door of which had been blocked by a Wall of Iron cast by Cellulon. The Bull's Strengthened cloud giant pounded through the wall in no time, leaving the party confounded by something they could not see (and were never able to identify), and the stone giants burst through. Nosnra engaged Robair first and killed him in the second round. I warned the players not to take him on one-on-one, but did they listen? Many bit the dust next, when, since he was already badly damaged from the vampire, a single attack of opportunity from Nosnra took him below -10 hp.
Since Sturman's player had not shown up for several sessions by this point, the party decided they did not want his character floating around when we had so many characters already. A new player had made a Conjurer using an Unearthed Arcana variant, and we decided that as punishment for messing with a demon lord, he was sent naked to the Material plane inside a warm body - Sturman's - and he grew to adult size within seconds, exploding out the front of Sturman's chest. When he regained his wits, the conjurer sent a swarm and then a fire elemental after Nosnra.
Baldur ran up to Nosnra next, and did not survive a full attack. Nosnra and the stone giants dealt with the fire elemental while the PCs made their hasty retreat. Brokk clipped one of Robair?s ears and Thog clipped off one of Austin's fingers to resurrect them later, but there was no time to preserve anyone else. Everyone ran to the other room while the elemental blocked their path, jumped inside a portable hole (leaving Garon to sneak and hide his own way out, which he did with no problem considering the giants' low Spot and Listen), and the remaining PC dimension door out.
I let them escape, but they will not escape Nosnra's wrath unless they leave the area completely.
their current plan is to flee back the dwarven city, grabbing Telnor along the way. Farina will stay in the area, as her goal does not involve fleeing. They are going to stay there long enough to prepare and have some more magic weapons and armor made with the loot they recovered from the Steading.
I'm not going to let them get away with that, now am I? given that the Steading was a 2-day walk from the dwarf city, it should not take more than 2 weeks for the giants to prepare an assault and go to the city. It is my plan for the chief to surround the city with giants from other compounds, challenge the party to fight, or he will order the giants to sack the city and burn it down. Also, I will create and place some giant-sympathetic dwarven assassins in the city to hit the most powerful remaining party members, i.e. Brokk, Kerrigan, and Thog. Nosnra will call in some favors from powerful drow, human, orc, etc spellcasters to provide support and buff him up even more.
Now that you have the backstory, what advice can you provide as this assault is planning? How should I equip the assassins, Nosnra, and his assistants and allies as they prepare to face the PCs? I'm not afraid to give these guys some magic items this time.
The PCs, all between 11th-14th level, made mincemeat of all the more-or-less ordinary giants in the Steading, and those with levels weren't much more of a challenge. That's OK; they were just the warmup. Just cannon fodder to make the PCs use up their spells and lose some hit points, to soften them up a bit.
In the group, going into the Steading, we had 1) Thog the Butcher, a CN Human with 14 levels split between 3.0 Ranger and Tempest (not quite sure what the breakdown was); 2) Kerrigan, a 13th level CG elven cleric of Olidamarra; 3) Brokk Blackbeard, my PC who is being played by Thog's player while I am taking over the campaign for another DM - he is a Dwarf Cleic 5/Paladin 7 of Moradin (he has since gained a level as well as have a few other PCs); 4) Austin Essex, a human fallen Paladin 2/Wizard 5, Spellsword 6 (he was on a quest to regain his paladinhood, lost due to several unwise dishonorable acts, and Heironeus charged him to fight bravely using none of his own magic and only the Merciful sword given to him by his god); 5) part of the corpse of a fallen comrade, Telnor Belmont, a mage who had died, and was then resurrected shortly before the group ventured into the Steading, left behind at their secure camp location for emergencies.
That was the "core" group who had been around the longest. Three had joined their group recently 6) Garon Bloodstain, an 11th level CN human rogue who was the replacement PC for Telnor; 7) Many, a LN human Monk 5/Rogue 6; 8) Cellulon of the All-Seeing Eye, a N Wizard 5/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 6, who was later determined by ENworld as a whole to be an illegal character and was then fixed. Of course, immediately thereafter Cellulon died due to the machinations of the previous DM which had come to fruition.
Three dwarves were added when the PCs reached the dwarf city right before venturing towards the city 9) Robair Blackbeard, an NPC who is a distant relative of Brokk, a 2nd level Ranger who was also a werebear; 10) Sturman, a LG Fighter 7/Dwarven Defender 5; and 11) Baldur, who I believe was a 12th-level monk.
When Cellulon died in the great hall, I decided to give the party 11) Farina, an orc Wizard 7/Cleric 7 of Meriadar, who agreed to help them with the giants, if they helped her free all the orc slaves.
Two sessions ago, the party of 10 split up (bad idea of course, yes). Some went into the chief's chambers to flush out some giants that had run in there, while the rest went into the main open area to kill some giants that had run in there. Those in the chief's chamber found a Greater Stone Golem which proved to be a nice challenge, since the Tempest is used to dealing critical hits again and again and taking out tougher foes that way. The other half of the party got a special treat with a Vampire Druid hill giant and his pet elder black pudding. Both of the monks got energy drained; Many got hit twice and Baldur got it once. Eventually Thog and the rest of the party beat the golem and helped rout the vampire (who turned gaseous and escaped) and the pudding as well as the druid's many pet swarm distractions.
In the following session, the party was cleaning up from the last battle when Chief Nosnra arrived (see previous link). Now he was pissed. When found the bodies of all the dead giants, he drank his potions of Jump, Displacement, Bear's Endurance, and Protection From good, gave his potion of Invisibility to his Cloud Giant chum (Nosnra wasn't interested in subtlety), let the clerics cast Bull's Strength on him, and then let his Rage do the rest of the work as he ran towards where the PCs were. this was the first encounter the PCs faced where any giants were actually prepared for them, and it was a doozy!
As the chief was raging and running, some other hill giants came in through the rear entrance at that moment, where some of the PCs were, to distract them. As I predicted, Thog, Kerrigan, and Austin engaged them instead of preparing for the worse threat. They made short work of those giants (though one of them killed Austin at the end), a mistake that was very costly to the rest of the party.
Nosnra came running up through the corridor towards his chambers. The cloud giant and three stone giants came up through the Main Hall, the door of which had been blocked by a Wall of Iron cast by Cellulon. The Bull's Strengthened cloud giant pounded through the wall in no time, leaving the party confounded by something they could not see (and were never able to identify), and the stone giants burst through. Nosnra engaged Robair first and killed him in the second round. I warned the players not to take him on one-on-one, but did they listen?
Many bit the dust next, when, since he was already badly damaged from the vampire, a single attack of opportunity from Nosnra took him below -10 hp.Since Sturman's player had not shown up for several sessions by this point, the party decided they did not want his character floating around when we had so many characters already. A new player had made a Conjurer using an Unearthed Arcana variant, and we decided that as punishment for messing with a demon lord, he was sent naked to the Material plane inside a warm body - Sturman's - and he grew to adult size within seconds, exploding out the front of Sturman's chest. When he regained his wits, the conjurer sent a swarm and then a fire elemental after Nosnra.
Baldur ran up to Nosnra next, and did not survive a full attack. Nosnra and the stone giants dealt with the fire elemental while the PCs made their hasty retreat. Brokk clipped one of Robair?s ears and Thog clipped off one of Austin's fingers to resurrect them later, but there was no time to preserve anyone else. Everyone ran to the other room while the elemental blocked their path, jumped inside a portable hole (leaving Garon to sneak and hide his own way out, which he did with no problem considering the giants' low Spot and Listen), and the remaining PC dimension door out.
I let them escape, but they will not escape Nosnra's wrath unless they leave the area completely.
their current plan is to flee back the dwarven city, grabbing Telnor along the way. Farina will stay in the area, as her goal does not involve fleeing. They are going to stay there long enough to prepare and have some more magic weapons and armor made with the loot they recovered from the Steading.I'm not going to let them get away with that, now am I?
given that the Steading was a 2-day walk from the dwarf city, it should not take more than 2 weeks for the giants to prepare an assault and go to the city. It is my plan for the chief to surround the city with giants from other compounds, challenge the party to fight, or he will order the giants to sack the city and burn it down. Also, I will create and place some giant-sympathetic dwarven assassins in the city to hit the most powerful remaining party members, i.e. Brokk, Kerrigan, and Thog. Nosnra will call in some favors from powerful drow, human, orc, etc spellcasters to provide support and buff him up even more.Now that you have the backstory, what advice can you provide as this assault is planning? How should I equip the assassins, Nosnra, and his assistants and allies as they prepare to face the PCs? I'm not afraid to give these guys some magic items this time.
