GrinningBuddha
First Post
Posted on Gleemax
*snip non-combat stuff*
The stairs descend into the subterranean depths of the keep until all natural light fades from sight. The stairs end at a hewn corridor littered with rubble. A dank smell pervades the area, a combination of stale air and fungi. Four sarcophagi sit in the room, evidence that once this room was a burial chamber of some sort. The lid of one sarcophagus appears shattered. At the back of the room rises an altar, now covered in cobwebs.
The PCs stride carefully forward, evaluating their options. No corridors head eastward, but there are paths north and south. Arbitrarily, Wilbur decides north. However, as Kriv nears the altar...
Dark forms move seamlessly out of the darkness, silent as death.
These shadowhunter bats weave in and out of the torchlight, striking the PCs on the fringe of the light. After a surprise round, combat begins.
Obstacles, like the coffins and statue, make navigating the room difficult for the groundbourne PCs. They focus on one or two of the bats at a time, usually the ones closest, but the mobility of the creatures works to the bats’ advantage so that no one bat is killed right away and instead they are all brought down a little at a time. Finally, Valenae manages to strike around one of the statues, cleaving one of the bats and knocking it from the air. Gerhart follows up by spraying fire upon both injured and uninjured bats, bringing them ever closer to death. And although it is Wilbur and Valenae that manage to deal mortal blows to the bats, without the support of Kriv flanking and Mal employing his warlord abilities to help keep people up and fighting, the battle might have gone ill. Still, the first room expends a good deal of resources, yet no one suffers too severely.
The PCs take some time to recover and explore the room, and they find several points of note. The coffins bear an inscription in dwarven, Here lie those who First Father, Sum’Dukat, gave honored deaths. May the dishonor of the elves feel their spirits’ vengeance for all time. With some skill checks, the PCs learn that Sum’Dukat is the father god of dwarves, and they figure out that these crypts must date back to the Elder Wars, the war between dwarf and elf fought two millennia ago. Dwarves call the conflict the War of Betrayal.
Kriv finds a helm upon one of the statue and despite Gerhart’s attempts at dissuasion, takes the item and puts it on. He hears a brief message, “May all elves freeze in Hell,” but nothing else. He then casually stows the helmet in his pack.
The PCs proceed into the room to the north where they’d been heading for before the fight. They enter the room to this scene:
The air in this room seems somehow cooler, as the breath of death itself was somehow breathed into the area. Four sarcophagi occupy the room, along with a few scattered bones and miscellaneous pieces of rubble. To the north are a pair of sealed doors, while to the south, a corridor continues. At the back of the chamber are two statues, each armed with stone spears.
As soon as they come to the center of the room, though, the lids slide of the coffins fly off, revealing a zombie in each. There eyes glint with deathly vengeance, seeking to slake not a hunger for flesh but a hunger for retribution. Initiative!
Combat goes smoother this time, for the PCs are better prepared and organized. However, a round into combat, the statues, previously thought to be just features of the room, begin hurtling spears into the midst of melee. Kriv turns his attention to the statues, moving to disable them. Meanwhile, the zombies focus their attention on Valenae, the elf. One of the zombies manages to grab her, and both deal significant damage with their jagged rotten nails, which dig at her flesh. The zombies are quickly dispatched though, and Kriv manages to take care of a statue just before it launches another spear.
Once combat subsides, Gerhart has the chance to inspect a pair of sealed metal doors, which exude an unnatural cold. The doors bear the inscription, “Only the worth may wield the Ruby Hammer,” in dwarven. No attempt is made to open the door, though the PCs do take a moment to look around the rest of the room, finding yet another inscription, “Vengeance be ours in death,” upon the sarcophagi. Once recovered, the PCs press forward to the south, the only route available to them given the sealed metal doors to the north.
The southern room is an intersection of ten-foot passages, adorned by several statues and flanked by small alcoves. Wilbur heads in first, leading the group, however he fails to notice the zombie slouched against the well and suffers an attack as he steps into the intersection. Combat begins as that zombie and another lurch forward. The battle is at first difficult because of the width of the narrow corridors. When two more adversaries appear down the corridor, battle grows more dangerous. A corruption corpse and deathlock wight lumber forward, using their powers to aid the zombies and harm the PCs.
For a round or two, battle hovers on a precarious edge when Wilbur is sent fleeing and the remaining PCs are dropped to dangerously low hp. However, the tide of battle turns when the two zombies are destroyed and the PCs focus their attention on the more significant threats. Valenae uses her abilities to inflict her divine powers on the enemy, while Gerhart employs the power of thunder to drive back the enemy. The situation is improved by Kriv, who scores a critical, and Wilbur (now returned to battle), who uses his abilities to drive back the enemy forces further. The battle concludes with Valenae smiting the corruption corpse into oblivion and Kriv launching a dagger into the deathlock wight’s head. Beaten and battered, the PCs emerge triumphant and discuss the prospects of continuing forward.
We stopped there for the night, though overall the encounters proved edifying. Combat still had not reached the pace I would like, but discussion of how to improve certain rules and abilities often slowed play. As a DM, I found running the monsters, even the mixed groups, remarkably easier than anything from 3E. Although my choices were fewer, I still felt that I had something interesting to do with a monster every round. More importantly, I didn’t have to study any of the monsters in depth before running them. A brief glance over the stat block right before combat began was usually enough (unless I needed clarification on a term I didn’t know). I anticipate that this process will only become smoother.
Also to impel combat, I rolled initiative for all the monsters in advance, regardless of which direction the PCs ended up taking. I also included their hp on the initiative notecard, so that aside from glances at my computer to see what the monster would do, I almost never had to refer to the stat blocks in the single monster-type encounters and only rarely in the larger encounter.
One of the advantages to playtesting with designers and developers (and Michele, who’s editing the PH), is that I can be assured whatever big problems arise will be addressed in some fashion. There still are a few big problems, although they are no longer ubiquitous. There are many smaller issues that need to be addressed, but my lingering concerns with the balance of power and playability of the characters have been more or less squelched. I am optimistic that things are “getting there.”
Last edited:
