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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9346355" data-attributes="member: 508">In tonight's "Ghourmand Vale" session, the PCs:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Paid to have my petrified sorcerer returned to flesh.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Queried an NPC bard friend about what to expect in the chamber we'd unearthed (and in which we fought a beholder the previous session), specifically asking him:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Is that magical metal statue likely to be an iron golem or some type of inevitable, and what strategies would be best (or best to avoid) in fighting it?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What creatures are likely to be able to grant wishes, besides genies?  (Since it sounds like whatever's behind the brass double doors can cast a wish spell.)</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The bard suggested it sounded like an iron golem, told us to avoid fire spells and that electrical damage would slow it; the chamber sounded like it houses the glabrezu "Scalptor the Devil-Cutter," who can grant wishes to mortals</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">We returned to the chamber the following day (a 6-hour ride), got into position, cast prep spells, and got ready to attack, only to have the DM talk a player into going somewhere other than where she was going to go, which specifically triggered the iron golem into activity (more on this at the end)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Had the druid and the shield guardian use rusting grasp spells to whittle the iron golem's hp down, while the archer shot adamantine arrows at it and the sorcerer slowed it with a lightning bolt spell</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Had the halfling rogue (spider climbing on the ceiling above it, while under the effects of a greater invisibility spell) entangle it first with a rope of entanglement around the ankles (the AT-AT counter-maneuver) and then with a web spell from her cloak of arachnidia</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Finally took it out with the shield guardian making the final blow</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Figured out how to open the brass double doors (the paladin cut through the magic ropes sealing the doors shut - a holy weapon was needed), to reveal the glabrezu on a pedestal in the chamber beyond, being released from its heavy binding chains once the seal was broken</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Caught the glabrezu in a wall of thorns, then had the paladin confirmed-crit it not once but twice (with a smite evil attack in each case!), the sorcerer cast cone of cold at it, and the shield guardian smack it around, all while the PCs were hasted</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Killed it before it could exit the wall of thorns or summon reinforcements</li> </ul>And that was the whole adventure: destroy an iron golem, then open a door, then kill a glabrezu.  Not much to it at all.  What we found to be particularly galling, however, was the following:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">At the end of the previous session, we had emailed the DM with our list of questions for our bard friend the day after, so he could get back to us before the next session (tonight's).  He never bothered to reply, so we just got his answers at the start of this session.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">He had the bard only answer the original questions and not allow any follow-on questions.  So he failed to mention the iron golem had a poison gas breath weapon, and even though our description of the sealed door was enough for him to determine not only that it was a glabrezu behind the door, but the specific one - Scalptor, trapped since the days when Iuz and Iggwilv strode across the Oerth - he didn't give us any tips on fighting that type of demon.  Why?  Because our email didn't ask those specific questions (had the DM have answered the original email, we'd have had follow-on questions), and our "friendly" bard apparently thought we didn't need any warnings along those lines.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">As for the AT-AT counter-maneuver, we had decided we'd all get into position to attack the iron golem, then the halfling would move up to 20 feet in front of the (not yet animated) iron golem, and her tossing the rope of entanglement at its feet would be the combat initiator - we were fairly certain that would count as "attacking" the golem, which would likely cause it to fight back.  (She'd command the rope to wind around its ankles, the D&D combat equivalent of tying someone's shoelaces together.)  Then Dan said, "You know, according to the rules, you can attack any part of the golem with the magic rope from any position, so you could have her be on the ceiling (spider climbing) of the 30-foot tall room and drop the rope down on top of it; that way, it would still attack the golem's ankles if that's what you told it to do, and it couldn't reach you on the ceiling to retaliate."  The player, his wife, bought the logic and decided that's what she would do instead.  The golem was taking up four squares on the map along the second and third rows from the back wall (the wall where the double doors to the glabrezu stood), and although the halfling approached the golem from the front (while on the ceiling), Dan immediately said that by crossing into the second row from the back wall, she activated the golem.  Well, if she was going to be directly above the golem, there would only be a 50/50 chance that she'd have advanced to the second to last row, as the third to last row would still be "above it" - but no, he maneuvered her into automatically activating the iron golem.</li> </ul>So not much in the way of an adventure - fight this, then fight this - with some DM antagonism on the rise again, but we still managed to kill the two monsters, and the massive black chains that had been imprisoning the glabrezu turned out to be solid gold underneath the layer of black, so we earned 10,000 gp out of the deal.Johnathan</blockquote>

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