You Don’t Have To Leave Wolfy Behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' Your Companions Level Up With You!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8475728" data-attributes="member: 508">We played another "Dreams of Erthe" session this afternoon.  The five PCs were brought before the magistrate for having cast spells within the city limits, something expressly forbidden.  Fortunately, a city structural engineer butted in before the sentencing and explained he'd been clearing out the ruins of a wizard's tower which mysteriously exploded a week ago and his workers refuse to go into the underground rooms since they found signs of devil worship and so on.  So the PCs get conscripted to help the structural engineer explore the dungeon level beneath the wizard's tower and ensure nothing down there is a danger to the city.  And best of all, they are free to cast spells as necessary to clear out the dangers in the underground level under the structural engineer's guidance.They managed to make it past the two dread guards okay, and then it seemed like a few of the players were on a mission to explore every available room as soon as possible, more or less releasing the monsters all at once so they'd have to fight them on all fronts (generally while cramped up in a 5-foot-wide passageway).  I was kind of surprised since that's not their normal habit, but for whatever reason that's how they went about it this time.  So while still fighting the dread guards, the elf sorcerer managed to find an evil obsidian sacrificial dagger that was really a polymorphed bearded devil; entered a room that triggered a wraith; and opened a bank of cells and left the door open so the iron cobra behind the door (that he hadn't noticed) was free to crawl out and attack the PCs in the corridors.  Then our human fighter/wizard opened the last obvious door in the complex, triggering a symbol of pain that affected everyone but him and the structural engineer (they were the only two to make their saves), then leave the door open so the invisible imp and the unnoticed ochre jelly could fly/crawl out and attack everyone - and the imp knew the command word that released the bearded devil from its form as an obsidian dagger.  We rolled once for initiative at the start of the session and then never left initiative until the entire adventure had been completed.The best part, in my mind, was when they noticed the structural engineer - who was bald when he was in the magistrate's office with them and when they entered the dungeon - now had a full head of hair.  We use initiative cards when we play and I had made up two for the structural engineer: one with him bald and one with a bunch of wavy hair Photoshopped in.  Towards the end of the adventure (after the bearded devil had been freed from his dagger form) I surreptitiously swapped cards for him, and then played dumb when the player whose PC was in the room with him thought he had been bald before.  I showed him the card and even flipped it over, where his name was clearly printed on the back.  It was only when the cleric/paladin entered the room and saw the engineer's head - and only his head - was emanating an aura of evil that they realized the fake hair had taken over the engineer.  They managed to take it out (with a swat to the head followed by a magic missile spell) and restored the structural engineer to his normal alignment.  And that's when I asked them if they remembered the name of the adventure, which I had told them at the beginning of the session."Hell to Pay," they said.  I just looked at them expectantly until the lights came on.  "Son of a bitch!" they griped.  "Hell Toupee!"I apologize for nothing.Johnathan</blockquote>

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