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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack99" data-source="post: 5022940" data-attributes="member: 53135">After a bit of debating, the Swords of Drahar decided to heed the words of Lord Zarul and try to gain some faction with the Sultan of the City of Brass. Gnoguh wanted to kill some dragons, but he was outvoted and instead they headed out to find the Fortress of Shadow and Ice and the Githzerai rebel running things.Before leaving, they do invest 100.000 gp into healing potions. We had a whooping 3 cancellations this week. One Pet Shop Boys concert, one due to sickness and the last one had to work late due to an important deadline. It sucks, but it happens. Cleric, wizard and rogue were MIA; so the party was fighter, barbarian and warlock.The Swords asks around a bit, and find out where this place is located. They track down a captain with an elemental ship willing to take them their for some gold (10.000 gp) and head out. A couple of days later, they arrive. The rock of ice upon which the fort is supposed to be is hidden inside a permanent blizzard laying on the edge of a maelstrom of lava.I wanted to describe more of the Elemental Chaos, but the book hadn't arrived yet, so I was lacking some inspiration (curse you WotC for not making your print schedule after my campaign!). It's a cool place, but I am not sure I have the visual creativity to describe it.Arriving at the edge, the Swords bravely jump off and head towards the center, because "that must be where the bad guy is".A couple of hours later, the Swords are closing in on the fortress, when they are jumped by a few ShadowIce Archons. Even though surprised, the Swords make short work of the Archons.This is the best part about the wizard (and cleric for that matter) not being there. The impossibility of surprising a divine oracle is definitely on my top5 list over annoying player abilities/powers.Pressing on, they find a huge icebridge that leads to the fort. No enemies in sight and the Swords move over it cautiously. On the other side lies the fort, right on the edge to the nothingness of the Elemental Chaos. After a quick round of recon (still no enemies in sight), the Swords open the gate and are (yet again) surprised by an archon and two death giants. The Swords, except for Gnoguh (who was held by the ice magic of the archon), move in, and before they can do anything about it, the archon has raised a wall of ice and shadow, blocking Gnoguh. Fortunately, Gnoguh has little regard for pain, so grabbing his axe he started climbing the wall, despite the pain it inflicted.This was pretty cool. He climbed over a 30' tall wall that dealt 20 necrotic and cold damage per round. Once at the top, he attempts to make a jump-charge from that height. He needs a 17 on the acrobatics check, and he makes it.With Gnoguh back in the fight, the foes were quickly dispatched, although the Swords were by now beginning to miss Carric just a little bit.Surges really disappear quite a bit faster when you do not add 40 hps to them.This was a fun fight. In general there was a lot of acrobatic checks to perform wacky stuff  There were plenty of options with things place on different levels of height. I had also placed a lake which was very slippery, and the last archon positioned itself out in the middle to gain some advantage. Didn't do much good since Gnoguh still had Come and Get It leftOnce they were dead, the Swords took a quick breather and entered the unlocked fortress. Inside, they eventually got to a big room with a black pool and some stairs. On the stairs was a death giant telling them to bugger off, or they would die. They could still run, his master would not seek justice for what they had done so far. The Swords took that as a sign of weakness, and attacked. Out of the pool came a little surprise, a death TitanI tried testing a few things, with the many elites used tonight. Instead of giving them two attacks, I ramped up the damage of their main attacks. Around 50-60% extra damage. This is on top of the usual changes I made. This was in order to avoid too many rolls constantly. I also tweaked monsters to use less damage die. I realized that I spend too much time looking for that 4th or 5th d6 way too often. It seemed balanced enough.The Titan especially proved nasty, and the fight was very tense for a while, but eventually the Swords got the best of the death dudes.Moving on, they found a corridor full of 12 iceblocks, all but one containing an Efreet. The Githzerai was as noted earlier planning to use the souls of the Efreets to power up a portal to the Shadowfell and explode it, creating a rift which would infuse the Elemental Chaos with the necrotic energies of the Shadowfell. Or something. Either way, it never happened, because further in, the Swords found the so-called Temple, with the rebel Gith was working the portal and the magical pedestals that would serve as conduits for the efreets' souls. He and his death titan and archon, of course. The battle was long and brutal, with both Gork (finished battle with 1 hit points and 0 surges) and Truxas (bloodied and 0 surges) very very beaten up. There was some close calls (all 3 were below 0 at at least 1 point), but it all ended well. And they even found some loot.I was surprised at several things tonight. How well it went (I expected that they would die, with a n+0, n+1, n+2, n+4 combat in rapid succession and no healer). Speed was okay, obviously being 3 players make a world of difference, but I am hoping that next time, when we are more players, it will still be quicker due to the tweaks I do. Of course, there is a limit to how big a change a tweak can be. Only having 1 or 2 initiatives for all the monsters also helped, for sure.As a side note, I thought that Thief of Five Fates was the most annoying power ever, but my warlock player has found worse.[sblock=Thief of Five Fates]You bind your target’s fortunes to five ill-omened stars. Under their dire influence, all sorts of mischance and bad luck befall your enemy.Daily        Arcane, ImplementStandard Action      Ranged 10Target: One creatureAttack: Charisma vs. WillHit: Until the end of your next turn, whenever the target makes a saving throw or an attack roll, you roll a d20 without modifiers. If your result is higher than the target’s unmodified die roll, the target’s attack misses or the target’s saving throw fails.Sustain Minor: Make a Charisma vs. Will attack against the target. On a hit, the effect continues. On a miss, the effect ends.First published in Player's Handbook.[/sblock]Meet... [sblock=Wakeman's Invocation  Level 22 Utility]You employ a defensive technique developed by the scholar Strom Wakeman, who learned to use the power of Far Realm creatures without risking one’s sanity.Daily        Arcane, TeleportationMinor Action      PersonalEffect: Until the end of the encounter, you gain a +2 power bonus to all defenses against ranged attacks, and whenever an enemy hits you with a melee attack, you can teleport that creature 2 squares as an immediate interrupt.First published in Arcane Power.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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