[KK]Game 2: When Compost Attacks! (Encounter 2 pending)

[Victim]

The group of heroes (and possibly others) is nearing the heart of the Lost Swamp (so called because of the ancient city lost as the swamp appeared, not because someone has misplaced the swamp). It's been rough journey in a hostile environment. You've had to deal with the uncomfortable wetness, lack of maps, stirge swarms, magical crocodiles, etc while dodging patrols and reinforcements. The group has managed to make this far without being detected - your best estimates have you within a day of reaching your goal. . But it looks like you'll have to fight the rest of the way...

You see a number of plant monsters in your path, along a pair of attractive eladrin women who are attempting to hide. Erdric's keen senses detect another humanoid lurking in the weeds off to the side in ambush. The terrain is uneven and forested, with disgusting, slimey water collecting in lower areas while the hills remain merely muddy.

"Turn back intruders, lest you incur the wrath of the Mothers and the Master," one of the eladrin women calls, in a cheerful tone at odds with the threatening words.

Encounter 1: Kill All Enemies. Roll for initiative!

[sblock=Initiative]Remember that Torment provides a +4 bonus to initiative because of his feat. IIRC, PC initiative bonuses are as follows:


Narbel: +10


Starwinds: +12
Glib: +12

Dalamar's Paladin: +11 (without any feat or item bonuses that may apply)

Tharos: Ini 36

Feygrove Choker: Ini: 26 Stealth: 24

Eladrin x2 Ini: 22 Stealth: 23


Shambling Mound Ini: 20

Battle Briar x2 Ini: 18

Erdric Ini: 17

Reed Ini: 17

Stormrage Shambler Ini: 13

Torment Ini: 12

[/sblock]


Map Key
[sblock]Brown: normal terrain
Bright Green squares: trees. You can't move through them. Can provide cover. I only noted the ground level footprint of the tree; let me know if you want to do some climbing around in the branches or something. I'm most likely inclined to be generous, if you have the skills to pull it off.
Olive Green: opaque water/muck, (mostly?) shallow. Difficult terrain without some waterwalk stuff or something.
Green Grass: foiliage/undergrowth. Difficult terrain. Provides concealment to creatures in/behind it.

If a square has water in it on a diagonal, then you can ignore the water.

For movement directions and so forth, North is arbitrarily declared to be the top of the map, as usual.

Yellowed areas are part of the Battlebriar's Aura. They are difficult terrain and PCs starting their turns inside the aura take 5 damage.[/sblock]


Monster Knowledge:[sblock]
Nature= 27
Battle Briar: This a creature of bark and thorns.[sblock]Large natural animate (plant
Grasping Thorns aura: damage and difficult terrain nearby
Threatening Reach
Claw: Reach 2, pull 1, damage
Thorn Burst: close burst attack with slow[/sblock]

Shambling Mound:
This a lump of decomposing plant matter with a few vines stuck in that somehow moves.[sblock]Large natural animate (plant)
Tendril: physical damage with reach.
Enveloping Attack: 2 attacks, and can eat you if both hit (save ends).
Lightning Affinity: heal when damaged by lightning[/sblock]

Stormrage Shambler:
Like an ordinary shambling mound, but visibly charged with lightning. This is the Shambling Mound with the Red border.[sblock]Large natural animate (plant)
Lightning Aura: damage to nearby creatures
Tendrils: impact+lightning damage on hit. More when bloodied. Reach 2.
Double Attack: make two tendril attacks
Lightning Blast: Encounter: lighting damage in blast
Lightning Affinity: Heals 10 when hit by lightning[/sblock]

Arcana=27
Feygrove Choker: a humanoid with extra long arms[sblock]Medium fey humanoid
Tentacle Claw: Reach 3, damage, grab
Choke: choke grabbed targets
Body Shield: attacks can hit grabbed victim, not versus grabbed targets
Chameleon Hide: can gain concealment when not grabbing
Vine Fetter: vines ensnare enemies[/sblock]

Dryad. [sblock]Tree Stride. Teleport 8 from plant to plant
Deceptive Veil: disguise as human, elf or eladrin
Claw: does more damage when only 1 enemy is nearby[/sblock]

Briar Witch Dryad
[sblock] Thorn boon: nearby allied plants do more damage in melee
Curse of Thorns: enemies moving or being moved nearby take damage per square
Tree Stride: teleport from plant to plant
Briar Cage: a thrown thorn that hits a creature does damage and goes into an entangling mass of thorns
Claw: does some sucky damage in melee
Thorny Body: it hurts to grab a creature made of briars, stupid
Deceptive Veil: but sometimes it looks cute and not made of thorns. [/sblock][/sblock]

 

[covaithe]

Tharos, moving with surprising alacrity for such an unathletic man, hurls a bolt of magical force at the stormrage shambler. "Ware the creature lurking to the east," his sonorous voice immediately launches into full lecture mode. Fortunately, the demands of combat will keep it short... this time. "It is a feygrove choker, and its arms will reach some distance to grab and choke its enemies. It is said that they can interpose the body of a grabbed victim between themselves and an injurious attack, subjecting the victim to the consequent damage. Their coloring makes them hard to see, and they can ensnare foes with nearby vitaceae. Those are vines, for those of you unable to speak a civilised tongue. These perambulent flora are beyond even my considerable experience."

[sblock=ooc]Initiative 36 Come on, Tharos, save those natural 20s for the big damage spells, would you?
Standard: magic missile, Int vs. Reflex, hits reflex 33 for 17 damage.
Arcana and Nature checks: 30 and 24, respectively. I've assumed that Erdric pointed out the choker so that Tharos can see it and make the arcana check. I'll edit if that's wrong.
Move and Minor: Extra lecturing. [/sblock]

 

[Walking Dad]

Reed Rowan, Feylock

[sblock=OOC]
Initiative (1d20+9=13)
even with the +4 only a 17

I will wait before posting...
[sblock=Mini stat block]
Reed Rowan
Perception: 17 Insight: 22 Normal Vision
AC 25 Fortitude 21 Reflex 23 Will 25
Hit Points: 96 / 96 Bloodied: 48
Temporary Hit Points: 0
Action Points: 1 Second Wind: 1
Healing Surge: 24 Surges per day: 8 / 8

I slash out my used powers on the CS.

[/sblock][/sblock]

 

[Redclaw]

Erdric, busy studying the surrounding swampland, and the shadow-cloaked creature in the undergrowth, fails to react to the threat of violence. His mind races with the knowledge he has accumulated about the plantlife that he sees moving to attack.

[sblock=OOC] Init 17, Nature 36, Arcana 9.
At least he knows what the plant creatures are... [/sblock]

 

[renau1g]

[sblock=OOC]
Init (1d20+11=12)
Well... I hope that Torment wastes his 1's on Init

*Same as WD I'll hold off posting until it's my turn
[/sblock]

[sblock=stats]
96/96 HP, 1/1 AP, 11/11 Surges
AC 25, F 25, R 22, W 24
[/sblock]

[sblock=Powers Left]

Encounter:
Guarding Strike
Infernal Wrath
Shake it Off
Lion's Roar
Beat Them Into the Ground
Slash and Press

Daily:
Bastion of Defence
Stand the Fallen
Stand Tough
Tactical Shift
Knock Them Down

Item:
Encounter - Elven Battle Hide - Minor: +2 power bonus to speed until end of next turn

Daily - amulet of false life - Minor: Use when bloodied, gain temp hp. = 24
flaming spiked chain - +1d6 fire damage & ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends)
Keoghtoms Ointment - self or adjacent ally automatically end poison or disease or regain healing surge

[/sblock]

 

[Victim]

Tharos, moving with surprising alacrity for such an unathletic man, hurls a bolt of magical force at the stormrage shambler. "Ware the creature lurking to the east," his sonorous voice immediately launches into full lecture mode. Fortunately, the demands of combat will keep it short... this time. "It is a feygrove choker, and its arms will reach some distance to grab and choke its enemies. It is said that they can interpose the body of a grabbed victim between themselves and an injurious attack, subjecting the victim to the consequent damage. Their coloring makes them hard to see, and they can ensnare foes with nearby vitaceae. Those are vines, for those of you unable to speak a civilised tongue. These perambulent flora are beyond even my considerable experience."

[sblock=ooc]Initiative 36 Come on, Tharos, save those natural 20s for the big damage spells, would you?
Standard: magic missile, Int vs. Reflex, hits reflex 33 for 17 damage.
Arcana and Nature checks: 30 and 24, respectively. I've assumed that Erdric pointed out the choker so that Tharos can see it and make the arcana check. I'll edit if that's wrong.
Move and Minor: Extra lecturing. [/sblock]

(The feygrove choker would have total concealment from you because of its stealth, but your knowledge can apply from the warning, description, etc. As long as someone sees a creature, I'm letting anyone's knowledge apply and people can target it without having to guess the square so we can worry less about who sees what.)

Tharos fires off unerring magic missiles in the middle of his lecture which blast several small craters into the electrified plant mass.

(Hit. Stormrage Shambler takes 17 damage.)

[sblock=Status/Initiative]
36: Tharos. Fine.
*Magic Missile on Stormrage.

26: Fey Grove Choker. Stealthed @24

22: Eladrin 1, 2. Stealthed @23

20: Shambling Mound

18: Battle Briar 1, 2

17: Erdric
17: Reed

13: Stormrage. -17 HP

12: Torment
[/sblock]

 

[Graf]

Rollie, dressed in his "disguise", an immense fluffy purple robe made of crushed velvet and some sort of animal fur, was adamantly against coming this way.

"Plants? What do they have? Hm? Dirt? The best thing they probably carry round is some sort of fancy plant dirt. You know, magical dirt of plentiful growing or something like that. Really... I know a nice inn, good wine, pleasant decor in the direction of Redgrave...

[d]--[/d]

Init: 33
Perception: (passive 26 so autosuccess)

Rollie nods as Tharos unleashes a blast of magical energy. Ah, our typical negotiating strategy.

"It is a feygrove choker, and its arms will reach some distance to grab and choke its enemies. It is said..

Yes, yes, I see it.

Rollie bolts off. Leaping across the muddy river [se se e e e 3e(jump)], he draws his dagger [minor] and moves to get a clear shot [deft strike move 2->se se] and launches his dagger at the feygrove choker* [AC33 DAM26].

[sblock=Deft strike]
last movement from deft strike [move 2->se se] will put me precisely five west of the feygrove; diagonally sw from the green box (a tree?)

Since the feygrove hasn't gone yet first strike gives me CA.
Regular damage 12, sneak 14 in case I'm wrong.[/sblock]

 

[Victim]

Glib dashes to one flank, jumping over the water, and hits the choker with a thrown dagger, which flies back to his hand. The monster hisses in pain.

[sblock=Status/Initiative]
36: Tharos. Fine.
*Magic Missile on Stormrage.

33: Glib. Fine.
*Deft Strike on choker

29: ??? Paladin

26: Fey Grove Choker. -26HP. Stealthed @24

22: Eladrin 1, 2. Stealthed @23

20: Shambling Mound

18: Battle Briar 1, 2

17: Erdric
17: Reed

14: Narbel

13: Starwinds

13: Stormrage. -17 HP

12: Torment

[/sblock]

I'll update the map after the paladin and the monsters go. Glib is adjacent to and SW of the middle south/bottom tree.

 

[Dalamar]

"My apologies to you lasses, but we've got business to do so we can't turn back," Xak answers the eladrin as he moves forward to stand between the large foliage and the rest of the group. He then imposes the will of Kord on the shambler, encouraging it to attack him.
[sblock=OoC]Move NE Nx4, then NEx3, N. Then Minor action to Divine Challenge the Shambler[/sblock]

 

[Evilhalfling]

Starwinds, Dragonborn Cleric

"Our quest is a holy one that draws us on. You would be wise not to stop us."
The great dragons blessings are with us"
[sblock]
move nex2, Ex3 cast bless
init:1d20+12=18
[/sblock]