Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aegeri" data-source="post: 5500970" data-attributes="member: 78116">Dark Sun: The Builder's CryBefore starting, it's worth noting that the party has changed a bit since the original 5.Alek - Human Noble Adept Ardent (Leader)Eshara - Human Gladiator Battlemind (Defender)Initiate - Tiefling Elemental Priest Mage|Pyromancer (Controller)Ka'Cha - Thri-Kreen Wasteland Nomad Monk (Striker) Zephan - Human Athasian Minstrel Executioner|Assassin (Striker)Continuing on from last session, I had to make most of this unplanned to fit with my PCs plan. So presenting some of the information as to what was going on was more difficult than I had anticipated. Particularly in making it clear to the PCs what their skills and other checks were actually accomplishing. To make things more clear, I presented an overall "map" of the local area where the ssurrans were hiding out.<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/LocalAreaMap.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> This map shows the relative positions of the ssurrans and the PCs. Essentially showing the PCs where they were and what encounters they were avoiding. In this case, stealth successfully avoided the first ssurran patrol encounter entirely and got them an entire surprise round on the second group. This wasn't a bad deal at all and made things pretty clear what their checks/ideas were doing mechanically.After passing by a patrol unnoticed and with some murder to go with it, the PCs came across a deep pit in the sand where the ssurrans had unceremoniously thrown the bodies of those they killed. The creatures numerous beasts were then let loose to feed as they wish upon the corpses. Here they noticed that one man was still alive - albeit crippled - and the ssurrans were having their Jhakar run the man down like sport. This didn't sit with the parties pyromancer, Initiate in particular and the PCs having successfully infiltrated without being seen, jumped the ssurrans at the pit with a surprise round. This did have the effect of making the subsequent defenders at the cave entrance aware of intruders - but the PCs could gain valuable information about what they were heading into from the man (a decent choice). <img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/Surprise1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> The start of the encounter saw the PCs face off against a new enemy - a ssurran beastmaster. This canny ssurran directs his beasts making them far more deadly - giving them all +5 damage and allowing them to easily escape area/burst attacks. Makes him a prime target to kill as quickly as possible!The PCs started the combat by getting mixed up with the Jhakar and other creatures, with again everything turning into another "rugby scrum". The ability of the monsters to scatter, due to the beastmasters interrupt avoiding the more damaging burst powers of the pyromancer. This also made them somewhat more mobile and protected the level 1 Jhakar particularly well.Eventually the overwhelming presence of the beastmaster's damage aura, sniping by the kanks on the rocks and the sheer number of Jhakar attacks dropped both Alek and Initiate! A smart use of one of the parties healing fruits saw Alek up on his feet and then he rapidly restored the situation.<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/Surprise2.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Alek and Initiate were both dropped by the sheer weight of the Jhakar's attacks. Particularly because Jhakar can do extremely heavy damage if they happen to get CA against a target.I really have to say that in a difficult encounter the deep healing resources the ardent has with a power like energizing strike really counts for a lot. Especially as the surge healing is a mere 2 PP, if kept around it can be quite effective even into higher levels. A solid advantage for the ardent.In any event while the PCs were clearing out the rest of the ssurrans and finally killed the beastmaster - initiate was downed by a final suicidal kank charge (mostly so the PCs wouldn't have a hard time killing it). Here came one of the funniest incidents I've ever seen in 4E - caused somewhat by a quirk in how I like to run encounters. Essentially initiate was down with ongoing damage remaining on him and requiring to make death saves. Even with no monsters remaining, I don't end the combat and require the PCs to stabilize/heal the dying character. There was considerable debate among the players as to using a healing fruit on initiate or going with heal checks.Now the heal check DC is *not* intimidating by any means, yet on the first round of this the remaining two PCs couldn't make either check: Rolling an 8 and a 9 respectively (DC 10 to have initiate use his second wind). The fallen pyromancer managed to fail his death save and the second round saw further hilarious heal check related failures. Two further rolls of 8 and 9 - so close but not quite - saw one player ready an action to force feed a healing fruit to him just in case. Thankfully Alek finally remembered something about anatomy and stopped the bleeding - getting initiate to spend his second wind just before his next turn.The hilarity of the sheer fail in this situation is not to be underestimated.<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/Surprise4.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Initiate actually failed a death save and was about to get require a second death save as the PCs used heal checks - though one readied an action to use a healing fruit immediately before his turn just in case.With the man saved, he told the PCs what he knew about the ssurrans and what they had been doing. Most importantly, he alluded that the ssurrans had something to do with making the sun shine even hotter than normal and they were performing some kind of ritual. Worse, this ritual uses powerful defiling magic and required copious numbers of living sacrifices. The ssurrans follow their leader, the shaman who the PCs saw adorning himself with the skulls of the dead apparently is behind the ritual. Additionally, he gives the PCs whatever ceramic he took from the corpses of the dead. Plus a vial of liquid that can be coated on the body to make a protective tattoo giving some fire resistance.The final encounter of the day saw the PCs assault the last guardians before their actual targets at the cavern entrance. Here two large pits of flame were before the entrance itself. Unlike most terrain features, this was actually considerably more useful to the PCs than the ssurrans. This is because both initiate and the recently tattoo'ed Zephan had a degree of fire resistance - allowing them to hide within to avoid the melee attacks of the ssurrans. This was particularly good for initiate, who was rather drained of surges by this point.Additionally this encounter introduced the first of a recurring creature in the game - Sunwarped monsters. Sunwarped monsters can have a wonderful array of mutations and abilities, so I built a simple 'skeleton' for these creatures and then added powers/abilites as I felt like. This means the PCs never quite know what an individual sunwarped monster will do until they engage it - making them especially dangerous.<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/FireFun1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> The opening of the encounter, with the two pits of fire and the sunwarped abominations being unleashed from their shackles to assault the PCs.This encounters most notable feature is that I rolled terribly for the majority of it, ensuring the relatively low level monsters had literally as difficult a time as possible. At the same time, the PCs rapidly honed in and beat the snot out of the beastmaster, ensuring his effect on the encounter was minimal. Overall despite having been wounded in the previous battle considerably, the PCs passed this one losing a relatively small amount of HP.<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/FireFun2.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Zephan and Initiate hide in the flames for protection, though one of the sunwarped monsters similarly didn't fear fire that much. Overall this helped preserve the most 'soft' members of the parties surges considerably.Of course, once again low level monsters with hardly any HP decided right at the end to overachieve. Right before the final blows of the combat, both of the remaining Jhakar decided to have a good chunk of the Battlemind - who hasn't had a good dirt nap in a while (since getting the Scars of Bloodsand and Toughness). One Jhakar slammed into her with considerable effort on its bite, rolling near max damage and with CA doing 20 points! OUCH! The other Jhakar then came to the party with a brutal critical hit, dragging Eshara down into the sand and knocking her unconscious.Of course neither Jhakar lasted much longer than that, but the sheer hilarity of these monsters not hitting anything almost all encounter and then brutally downing the defender on their respective final turns was comedic.<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/FireFun3.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> That's some effort there chums, except it was about 3 turns too late. Sometimes monsters are just slackers. Clearly the beatings are not improving morale sufficiently.With the remaining defenders dead, all that stood between the PCs and their quarry was whatever lurked within the cave... waiting for them.</blockquote>

Verification