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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9452906" data-attributes="member: 508">In last night's "Ghourmand Vale" session, the PCs:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Got a delivery at their new keep, several miles out of town: signed copies of a new book series about a group of heroes based on them, written by my human sorcerer's favorite author</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Had a wizard associate, Blorkane, show up at the keep saying he needed to buy back the cubic gate he'd sold to a dwarven miner several adventures ago (which we had taken custody of at the end of that adventure, worried that it led to the Abyss and the Nine Hells among other locations and wishing to keep it from the reach of anybody wanting to open portals to those domains); it turns out the gate was stolen property and the previous owner wanted it back</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Listened as Blorkane casually mentioned there were sheets of acidic rain and blasts of lightning striking the Dark and Light Club, their previous "headquarters" prior to moving into the keep</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Realized that sounded like a storm of vengeance spell, left Blorkane at their headquarters (with their stable hand) while they rushed into town on horseback/celestial pegasusback/atop a two-seater carpet of flying</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cast battle prep spells, saw the Dark and Light Club in rubble and burning ruins, and observed a human male step out from among the rubble and drop a cloth, which turned into a burning pile of dung and human bones (my sorcerer knows that trick: shrink item spell!)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Had the elf druid rush up on a hasted mount (the half-elf paladin's old warhorse, Law), only to find the human had mysteriously vanished (and the burning dung heap was the unholy symbol of Iuz)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Had the druid's timber wolf approach and encounter a different human stepping out of an alleyway; the wolf tried to bite him and was surprised when the man wasn't quite where he seemed to be (apparently scent was of no assistance)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Moved closer, surrounded the guy, only to have him turn into a Huge, dark-scaled dragon</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fought the dragon (who yelled he wanted his cubic gate returned - we thought it was likely a demon or devil who owned the gate, but it turned out to be a shadow blue dragon), only to find out he had evasion (and high enough saves that my sorcerer was completely ineffective, as was the druid up until the very end) and concealment (which nerfed all of the elf archer's abilities)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Basically had the half-elf paladin and the halfling rogue (under the effects of a greater invisibility) spell) cut the dragon down to size while the archer, sorcerer, and druid wasted spell after spell (and arrows) doing absolutely no damage at all</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Finally killed the dragon when the druid cast a wall of fire in the same spaces as it was, after it had been brought down to low enough hp that that was enough to take it out</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Noticed one toe-claw had been carved into a sort of key, and used that (once severed from his foot) to "fine-tune" the cubic gate to lead to his specific lair on the Plane of Shadows, instead of at some random location, and got a ton of treasure out of the deal</li> </ul>The DM admitted to having made several mistakes in running this adventure: first, he forgot we were 15th level PCs and set us up against a CR 19 dragon (old blue dragon = CR 18, shadow template he found online = +1 CR); he misinterpreted the sunbeam spell the druid had cast at it and told the player it was completely ineffective, when he meant it wasn't particularly susceptible to bright lights (not realizing on the Plane of Shadows, sunlight is in fact unnatural); the "man" dropping the shrink item cloth couldn't be seen immediately afterwards because he was just an illusion from the mislead spell (and how exactly do illusions carry and drop actual cloth items?).  And it was also a bit of a DM faux pas to wait until after the wolf had bitten the dragon-in-human-form, rolled a threat, confirmed a crit, rolled maximum damage, and then, when the player was about to roll for a trip attack, suddenly announce that wait a minute, there's a 50% chance that never happened (he had just remembered the shadow template gives him concealment), only to have all of that suddenly undone.  (My son and I, who have both run campaigns for this same group of players, each would have let the previous rolls stand and announce "I guess the wolf made it past the 50% miss chance this time" and pressed on.)  But oh, well - live and learn.(Of course, Law won't live and learn - he was slain by the dragon's line of lightning breath weapon in an attack on the paladin, celestial pegasus, and druid.  Good thing the elf archer has a horse she doesn't ride anymore since gaining her carpet of flying!)Johnathan</blockquote>

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