Piratecat's Updated Story Hour! (update 4/03 and 4/06)

[Sagiro]

Sure the dim door was a suicide move, but the Royals are no stranger to death. He can always be raised later.

Or maybe he wasn't a Royal at all but a dominated townsperson, and someone else cast the door on him. Puts a new light on Velendo's judgement doesn't it?

Two things to consider:

1) You cannot cast teleport or dimension door on someone else. It affects yourself, and you can take others with you if you want. And since Velendo had true seeing cast, he would have seen any invisible casters who were also there. And to counter the argument that the enemy might have been given a magic item and been ordered to use it,

2) the guy looked and moved like a high-level adventuring type. He arrived, dropped immediately into a fighting stance, and looked like trouble. After 16 levels of adventuring, Velendo can tell the difference in body language between a dominated peasant and a high-level adversary. And as if that weren't enough, the divine true seeing lets one tell alignments at a glance... and the guy was eeeeeeevil.

-Sagiro

 

[Tremere]

Anti-magic

If the Anti-magic shield is playing havoc with the Defender's weapons, wouldn't it also do the same for the bad guys' armor and protection devices?

The anti-magic did negate their own armor/protections, but they were stading in 3x3 formation lobbing missiles or stabbing out at us.
Very difficult to counter, particularly when 2/3 to 3/4 of your abilities are negated by the Shell.

As for the D-door man carrying presents: he had no armor or obvious weapons, yet dropped into a very competent fighting stance...

 

[Blackjack]

*Say, a trident's a piercing weapon, and piercing weapons can't normally be used to strike at other weapons. Probably a special ability of the trident.

Don't worry about the trident for too long. Malachite despises this evil thing, and periodically takes it out of his pouch to mock it. (Before removing its shaft entirely, Malachite carved "I LOVE AEOS" into the wood.) The trident is not long for this world.

 

[Piratecat]

Back from Texas! My work went really well, but the coolest thing was that I got a chance to hang out with “~D” of Talon Comics and buy out half his stock of gaming books. Consider this my gratuitous plug for him; if you need gaming stuff mail order, he’s absolutely the guy to get it from. Sorry I didn’t post before I left, but the server was hiccupping when I tried, and I was already late leaving for the airport.

So where were we?

The sea elf fighter swings his weapon at Malachite, and Shara leaps at her chance. Her telekinesis seizes his wrist; he tries to resist, but is inexorably flung forwards out of the anti-magic field. Both Malachite and Mara slash at him as he flies past them towards the seagulls.

The air elemental that Nolin had just summoned as support for Tao can’t reach the seagulls in time, so Nolin reaches inside himself and calls on the power of the phoenix. As he does so, a flaming pillar of holy energy slams down like a juggernaut, badly frying both polymorphed rust monsters and the sea elf. TomTom follows this up with a greater biocurrent arcing from one creature to the next, and both seagulls transform back into rust monsters as the energy kills them. The sea elf isn’t looking especially good either, bleeding and smoking as he struggles against the telekinetic force. Malachite and Mara both turn on him, and he drops into the shallow water, dead once again. Whether he goes to the elven or the lizardfolk heaven, no one is sure.

Unfortunately, Nolin was summoning when he should have been worrying about the green slime eating into his chest. He takes six points of constitution damage, ensuring that his next action will be setting his entire body on fire in an attempt to burn away the slime.

TomTom uses his hasted action to dimension slide to the other side of the field, right next to Tao and Nolin’s summoned elemental. Tao has a moment of surprise as she tries to figure out if the invisible creature next to her is her friend or not, but the mental link helps immensely, and she hammers her sword into the kobold. He screams, and spins to try and defend himself. The halfling and minotaur turn as well, but Tao gets six attacks with her weapons, and the kobold isn’t well armored. The results is messy, and the tide of battle turns.

As the halfling and the bullywug both drop, Nolin begins to taunt the half-orc barbarian. Nolin’s voice is rough due to the constitution damage, but he calls the half-orc every name in the book, inventing amazingly inventive insults about his parentage and just-killed mate. Frothing with anger, the barbarian snaps and charges out of the anti-magic field at Nolin. Unfortunately, he takes three steps – and vanishes completely. The Defenders are mystified.

On her way to attacking the sea elf wizard, Tao steps forward and grabs the older woman in an iron grip. With a casual twist of her body, Tao flings the woman behind her, directly into the vaporous arms of Nolin's air elemental. Tao then steps forward and attacks the sea elf wizard, blades cutting above and below the baby he is carrying. Within seconds she kills the elf and leaves the baby unharmed, almost cutting the wizard in two despite non-magical weapons.

Trapped by the air elemental, the older woman watches her companion cut down, and she finally decides enough is enough, what with five members of her group dead or missing. Ignoring the elemental as best she can, she musters her concentration and casts a spell. She - and the baby strapped to her chest - vanish completely.

The rest of the Dockside Royals panic. The minotaur and the doppelganger both rush forward to where the minotaur went and likewise disappear, taking the third baby with them. The rat psion is already dead, killed by Kiri and Shara, and the Defenders realize that the only creatures left alive are their allies. “Where did they disappear to?” asks Malachite.

Shara thinks to the group, “Be careful where you stand! There must be a teleport circle inscribed under the water there, perhaps meant as a trap for us. We’re water walking, so we didn’t set it off.”

“A teleport circle? Isn’t that a little… powerful?” asks Velendo, but Shara just shrugs. Velendo continues, “We’ve got to follow them, now! Otherwise they’ll just try this again.” Quickly healing those who need it most, Velendo and the others look down at the unremarkable patch of watery ground.

Tao takes off her slippers of water walking. “Well, lets hope they don’t have a trap set!” she says, and takes a step forward… and disappears. Still linked to the group mentally, her first thought is, “Glub.. auggh.. underwater! Can’t breath!”

To be continued….

Tomorrow! A guest player, a deadly underwater trap, giant grappled lobster-things, and the amazing iron missile!

 

[Rel]

Another drawback to the "strap on a baby" strategy just occurred to me. In addition to it being an express elevator to hell after you die, wouldn't that screaming kid cause a Concentration check when spellcasting?

I've got a kid and when I'm holding her and she's screaming, I can barely work the buttons on the microwave to reheat my coffee (FYI, you never again get to enjoy an entire cup of coffee before it gets cold once you have children) much less perform any arcane rituals that require words, precise movements and material components.

Besides, how long do you have to stand around with three screaming babies strapped to you while you wait for the Defenders to show up. I mean, those guys could take hours or days running around Eversink with their silly roleplaying before they showed up for the fight. Trust me, more than about an hour of that screaming and you'll be begging for the Defenders to put you out of your misery.

DISCLAMIER: I love my daughter very much. Especially when she isn't screaming like a banshee.

 

[KidCthulhu]

Re: ... I don't trust babies

my question is "Where the heck did they get those babies?!" I mean, someone would probably report it if their baby got swiped by a pirate, wouldn't they? Wouldn't the guard at least have heard of it by that time? There aren't many places you can hide with a screaming infant, that's why mothers never play hide-and-go-seek

We thought this too. But poverty does funny things to people, and the Dockside Royals are very powerful and very rich. And Eversink is not a nice place.

 

[Piratecat]

One by one, the Defenders get ready to hold their breath and sit down in the watery circle. *Fwssh!* Each of them vanishes one by one. Mara borrows Velendo’s necklace of iron body first, turning herself to unbreathing metal. Velendo waits nervously in the tunnels; he doesn’t want everyone to be trapped underwater with no means of escape, so he refuses to go through the magical teleportal until he knows the group is relatively safe. Velendo fidgets, and then summons a water elemental, sending it through the teleportal to help the Defenders after first instructing it to find pockets of air and lead the party to them.

Other than Velendo, only Kiri stays behind, taking the extra baby and making sure that all valuables and interesting clues are stripped from the bodies.

The rest of the Defenders are holding their breath in cold, dark water. They find themselves at the bottom of a large flooded stone chamber. It is totally dark, with one obvious door (locked) on the north wall, and no obvious inhabitants. Tao uses her small magical hammer to burst the obvious door open, and the water elemental rushes down the hallway it conceals, accompanied by an arcane eye conjured by Agar. About this time someone remembers that they found potions of water breathing and a necklace of water breathing on several of the Dockside Royals, and they use them with embarrassed grins on their faces. Luckily, they remember before anyone drowns! Upon the assurance that people can breath, Velendo joins the rest of the group.

The water elemental still hasn’t detected air, and Agar’s eye shows that the long winding corridor seems to be a trap; it doesn’t lead to any exit, just to a grinning sculpture on a wall, near several dead and floating corpses.

Still holding his breath, Nolin can't sing or play his instrument... but he uses the time effectively by drumming on the stone wall. The noise echoes beautifully through the water, inspiring greatness as the primal beat throbs and reverberates.

Meanwhile, Tao has discovered two secret doors. She thought she had seen some bubbles by one of them, so she tries to open it, and fails – setting off an ineffectual glyph in the process. Malachite and Mara also try to open it, but Malachite can’t get any kind of leverage while swimming, and Mara’s iron body is slowed somewhat by the water. Agar checks the other secret door, setting off another glyph, and concludes that it is nothing but a false door.

TomTom joins Tao and manifests clairtangency. He sees the other side of the secret door in his mind’s eye, and uses the power of his thoughts to lift the iron bar holding the secret door closed. Pushing the door ajar, TomTom checks for more traps, and detects a glue-covered trapdoor, counterweighted to sink you farther underwater and hold you there until your air runs out. Everyone manages to avoid it, even the clumsy iron Mara, and the heroes file out into an underwater corridor. Using a clairvoyance, TomTom discovers that the tunnel that the trap covers leads farther down into the rock before opening up, and they file that fact away for future exploration.

At the end of the corridor the group can see a horrible insectoid, lobster-like monster… almost as if you crossed an Apparatus of Kwalish with a demonic scorpion. It is chained, and its chain doesn’t appear to be long enough to reach the group. Mara approaches it cautiously, and Nolin amuses himself by activating his ring of incontinence. The monster succumbs, and the water near it is filled with a cloud of foul-smelling ordure as it voids itself. Then Nolin finds out the hard way that it has an extremely long chain, and was just trying to draw them closer.

Whoops.

It swims madly for Nolin, claws snapping in anticipation. However, Mara stops it cold, grappling it around the tail and squeezing. It fights with her, freeing itself, only to be hit with magical attacks from Shara and Agar. Tao and Malachite swim forward to attack while Nolin moves back, and Mara manages to grapple the large beast once again. Its fearsome claws snap ineffectually at her iron body, sliding off the polished metal of her face, and Mara grins as she stabs it with a gutroot spear and then once again grapples it in place. As seaweed bursts from the creature's orifices (thanks to the gutroot spell on the spear), Tao swims through the blood-clouded water and invokes a prayer to Galanna against abominations that Should Not Be. The creature quivers and spasms, slain by the slay living, and everyone smiles with relief.

“Nolin? What were you thinking?” asks Velendo. “Why’d you use the ring to make it… to make it empty its…?” Velendo gestures uselessly, the effect partially lost underwater. Nolin can’t stop grinning, though. Nothing’s more fun than magical diarrhea, even in godless abominations.

The elemental helps people swim up a 40’ tall shaft, exiting out of a rock outcropping on the sea’s floor. Above their heads, a storm still rages, and they can see several ships at anchor in the murky water. TomTom is the first to reach the surface, and he sees the minotaur pulling himself up onto a nearby ship. Tao is next up, and she dives underwater and starts swimming for the ship. Everyone else uses their water walking to precariously pick their way across the rough seas.

Agar decides to take the initiative. Sending a prying eye ahead, he sees that the minotaur, the half-orc and the doppelganger are in the captain’s cabin, a cabin they have seen before while scrying for Brindle. They have with them two of the three babies, and the minotaur and half-orc are loudly arguing while the doppelganger stares deeply into a large gem. “Can’t have that!” decides Agar….

….and without any backup, he teleports into the cabin.

To be continued….

 

[KidCthulhu]

PC is right. Nolin gets more damn amusement from making bad guys poop themselves. tee-hee. That never gets old. And hey, he's not a front line fighter, so he seldom has to deal with the consequences.

What are the consequences of Nolin’s ring? I mean other than the obvious……release, what sort of disadvantage does it put on the victim? Seems like it would require at least some sort of Concentration check.

Well, for starters, you should be standing well back.

And it's best if you aren't really attached to your current shoes.

Oh, and nose plugs. Nose plugs are key.

Wait, did you mean game effects? Dunno. I leave that stuff up to Pkitty.

I just use it 'cuz it's funny.

 

[Sito Rotavele]

Sure when Nolin uses it, it's fun. But when the Torazian (ptuh!) Deathgranter (also ptuh!) uses it to split up the party and take them one-by-one...well, then it's not quite as funny.

That's how PCat used it originally Dawn. Dunno what the combat-whoopsie consequences are, but it certainly was a crafty way to split the party. There are some things even the Defenders don't do together.

Course that's the beauty of Nolin - what others deploy fiendishly, he uses for slapstick.

 

[Piratecat]

What would the effect of the ring be if the target creature had some unusual physiology? Say they had Iron Body or some such spell on them at the time?

Iron body negates all pshysiological effects. Thus, it'd negate the ring. It probably wouldn't work on undead or constructs, either.

Rules-wise, it necessitates a fortitude save at DC 15. Failure means messiness, with lost actions for several rounds, huge concentration checks, and big penalties to social skills like diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate. Success still causes urgency, but not quite as immediate, with combat and skill penalties as the target becomes... distracted. Lord help me if Nolin ever decides to use the thing at a formal social gathering!

Incidentally, if Agar seems more lively than normal, there's a reason! He was played this session by our old friend Mike Selinker from WotC. Mike (who authored the Marvel Superheroes SAGA game, the Dragon column "Mind Flayers," as well as a ton of other stuff) was in Boston for a puzzle convention. Similarly, Shara and Kiri's players were in town for the previous game.

Man, Agar's been played by some of the best! Wulf, DoctorB (who just started a story hour here), Mike....