NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. 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="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9162748" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Delving further into the Scarlet Citadel (and letting the DM know, in no uncertain terms, that our characters hate puzzles and riddles), we spent a lot of time slowly exploring a new area, apparently infested with two communities of Derro (trying to explain to people what a Derro is who have never heard of the Shaver Mystery is quite frustrating- the other party members latched onto "insane half-dwarves with bad hair", lol).The Derro were apparently under the thumb of a demon summoner, and after dealing with them, they agreed to let us help them get rid of her.  Our attempt to use any kind of subterfuge failed- it turns out that, in my group, the people with good Persuasion are terrible at communication, lol, and everyone expects my sarcastic know-it-all Wizard to talk to people.So combat ensued with neither side having a real advantage.  We had to deal with the summoner, some kind of plague-infested minions, a pair of bearded devils and a barbed devil.Pretty quickly, we realized we were failing the DPS check to handle this combat.  Terrible rolls from the Cleric meant Spirit Guardians was only inflicting paper cuts, the Ranger is still reduced to using magical daggers to bypass the ever-present resistance to non-magical weapons, and the Monk kept having to reduce their damage output to heal.The Bard had snagged a Mace of Disruption, which we thought would swing the tide of battle against the fiends, but they kept missing, and when they finally hit...nothing happened!  "It's cursed!", the DM chuckled.I hit the summoner with Confusion in the first round (and breathed a sigh of relief that she lacked Counterspell).  This prevented her from using any of her reaction abilities (I have no idea what they were, but the DM kept griping about it).My subclass gives me an option to have two concentration spells going by letting my familiar hold one, so on the next turn, I threw out Slow.  Even with magic resistance, I got two of the fiends, and the summoner failed her save against Confusion again.The DM announced one of the minions was going to Help the summoner with her save, and I knew I had to get them apart- a little forced movement prevented that, and she actually failed the save a third time!At this point, one of the devils decided that I had to go, so for the rest of the combat, I was reduced to mostly running behind cover and taking the Dodge action until I recalled I had a potion of invisibility- using that, I pointed out to the DM that using the Healer Feat wasn't something that could break invisibility, so I became a healing duct-tape dispenser until all the enemies had finally saved from my spells.The summoner never actually got a turn where she could act, and this was what allowed us to succeed in the end.  Bruised, battered, and nearly spent on resources, we now have to see if the Derro will turn on us, or hold up their end of the bargain (I give it about a 50/50).I just hope the summoner has a spellbook laying around somewhere, I'm almost level 7 and I could use a few new toys!NOTE: Our DM remains casual about resting, which is the only reason we're getting through this- this adventure really seems intended for optimized parties who always make the best tactical decisions, and we, generally, aren't that group, lol.</blockquote>

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