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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9470379" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Unknown Lands continues.*45 minutes before game start, two players cancel.  We schedule these sessions two weeks in advance.  Very annoying, but we soldier on.*For the current adventure, I tried something new, and each encounter had two difficulty settings.  So I went with the easy versions for the group.  I'm left wondering if I should have or not.*The party faces a Froghemoth, which is a daunting challenge for three level 5's to be sure, but it's a Juvenile version with weaker stats.  The encounter also included some swarms of aquatic eels that function like pilotfish, happily munching on the Froghemoth's prey while not attacking it.  I only went with one such swarm for the encounter, a CR 1/2, and it was quickly dispatched.*The Froghemoth was a terrifying foe, with 15' reach, a hard to escape (well, sort of, as you'll soon see) grapple, and the ability to swallow whole with it's bite.*At first the encounter proved very tough, reducing the Warlock to 0 hit points, but in desperation the Cleric used Command to demand the creature to "vomit".*The Froghemoth didn't understand the Cleric's Command, but I let it work anyways, as they didn't have much other way to save the Warlock.  It spewed up the hapless Warlock, who was quickly healed and back in the fight.*Next up was our Witch (new character class from Deep Magic 2 by Kobold Press) who also got swallowed, but then asked how a fear spell she had would work, since it forced the target to dash on it's turn to flee.  I was stumped for a few minutes, but again, as she had no real way to deal 15 damage from inside the creature to escape, and it still had a lot of hit points, ruled it spit her up to flee.*Then the Cleric used a new spell (also from Tome of Magic 2), an improved version of Bane.  As the creature had no Charisma save to speak of (-3!), it was affected, and suddenly it not only couldn't land any hit on the party, due to high AC, reaction abilities, and a large to hit penalty, but it was rendered unable to make a save against Hold Person and I called the encounter there.*I keep looking at the spell, and while I think it's too good, I'm not sure nerfing it would accomplish a lot.  With a party of multiple spellcasters, synergy like this is a real problem, and I think we've already hit the Godzilla Threshold, where nothing added could really make things worse.  It's funny since I not long ago had felt that Magic Resistance was unfair to my party and took steps to defang the trait, now I'm seeing the flipside- when the party's spells work, encounters are basically over.  I think this deserves it's own thread however.*The party proceeded to ace the multiple Persuasion checks (despite two characters Poisoned from catching disease) to convince the Neo-Otyughs that nobody was threatening them, and they made off with bonus xp and their treasure- a psionic item that functions as a magical focus, adding +1 to the save DC's of spells with Int, Wis, and Cha saves (given the Froghemoth battle, I'm already regretting this, lol) and the benefits of the Telepathic Feat.  *They then proceed to turn in a few other side quests and spend some downtime.  With two hours left for the session, they decide to head back to the first dungeon to try and make progress on the main quest (they'd previously fled after very tough encounters with Duergar).The dungeon denizens they did encounter (Jermlaine) wanted nothing to do with them, and they soon entered a room that had once been a living chamber for the Wererats that had once infested the area.  All that remained was odd gray sand on the floor, and mixed in with the sand were bones, ruined furniture, and other assorted items.In the center of the chamber was a floating sphere seemingly made of liquid, which they soon determined was a rift in local space/time that led...somewhere.Nobody was willing to find out where.  There was a fight with elemental creatures made of sand, which formed around the bones of the wererats, making them appear to be skeletons encased in hard packed sand.The party realized these were definitely not undead.  The fight was rough because they were immune to fire and could create blinding, choking sandstorms (I know I said I learned that blinding the party was a bad idea, but to be fair, I'd set up this encounter months ago).  Then they learned the creatures were vulnerable to thunder, and the Cleric made short work of them with Shatter.*They next entered a wrecked sleeping chamber, with coins littering the floor.  They paused to loot, and the coins gathered into swarms of living coins!  Unlike the previous encounter, the "greed swarms" were vulnerable to fire, and they were basically wiped out by a fireball.  I'd designed the encounter for a pre-fireball party, so easy win for them, lol.*All in all, a good session.  We made a lot of progress, and it's surprising how less players actually made things go faster. Granted, I have some reservations about the future, as the party's spell combos are proving to be really nasty, and now the group will be lopsided, with three characters are over halfway to 6th level while the other two literally just hit level 5, but it's a lot better than some of the huge slugfests in previous sessions.</blockquote>

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