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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ForceUser" data-source="post: 1705911" data-attributes="member: 2785">For your enjoyment and gushing pleasure, feel free to pick my account apart line by line, criticize and spew forth black hatred for fighters.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ------------------Our party consisted of the following:Nim, Hammer of Khazerag, dwarven fighter 4/cleric 7. Weapon of choice: a +2 adamantine dwarven thrower warhammer called Seethur’s Doom.Louri the Mystic, dwarven wizard 10Weapon of choice: purified fireballs, lightning bolts, that sort of thing. Ulf, Son of Slagfid, dwarven barbarian 1/fighter 9 (this is my character)Weapon of choice: a +3 falchion.Blaine Firstborn, human cleric 1/ranger 11Weapon of choice: a +2 mighty composite longbow +3Brulon the Noble, human paladin 10Weapon of choice: a +2 longswordAlian the NPC tag-along, human cloistered cleric 7Weapon of choice: expeditious retreat, dimension door, any spell to help him flee.“Roscoe” (don’t ask), Psion 9 of indeterminate raceWeapon of choice: walls of ectoplasm, large astral constructs, things that go boom.My character, Ulf Slagfidsson of Clan Arazun, had recently died in a surprise attack by devils. They caught us in the middle of the night with a scry & fry tactic, and unarmored, Ulf fell quickly to a marauding barbed devil and his bearded devil goons, cut off from his clerics by several inconveniently placed walls of ice.After killing or chasing away the devils, the party scooped up Ulf’s carcass and took him to the Horm Telemar, the Forge Priests of Moradin, for revivification. Instead of charging gold for the service, the priests offered a deal: “Kill a band of pillaging fire giants that have cut us off from the northern clans, and we’ll raise your buddy.” “Sure,” the others said. Ulf, therefore, awoke with a mission he was happy to fulfill. After all, not ten years ago he’d helped fight an invading army of fire giants and their drow allies to a standstill at the Bridge of Tharuk Dur right here in the dwarven capitol. Off we went along the northern trade route, and soon enough we came to a crossroads in the mountains with a flammen gine encampment on a hilltop up ahead. We waited until nightfall, and then stealthily Blaine dispatched an ettin watchman, and the rest of us made our way to the top for a surprise nighttime attack. We heard those worked pretty well.Luck was with us; we got so close to the fire giants before they noticed us that they had no time to don their half-plate armor before the battle was joined. All but one sentry had to make due with their leader’s mage armor and blur spells before being hustled into the fight. Yep, the fire giant leader was some sort of arcane spell caster. He had this groovy wand of 8d6 fireballs and everything. One of the giants opened their hellhound kennel while Blaine peppered him with arrows, and off we went. On the way, Ulf activates his bracers of shielding, which grace him with shield three times per day. Verses the giants, his AC is now a 30. ROUND ONE: Now the great thing about Blaine is he hates giants. A lot. He drilled one of the unarmored gine this round, and having already been wounded by Blaine in the previous rounds I didn’t bother to mention because they weren’t relevant to the meat of this encounter, the fire giant fell dead. Score one for us. Scott, our DM, removed one of the six fire giant minis I have from the Giants of Legend set. Wait. Six fire giants and a fire giant wizard? Crap. Meanwhile, “Roscoe” dropped a wall of ectoplasm in front of us and told the rest of us to hustle toward the line for cover from falling lava rocks. We did, but Louri cast fly on himself first. He’s like that. The hellhounds, fresh from the kennel, spread out and ran for us. Sensing that he had an opportunity to do some ride-by attacking, Brulon summoned his holy steed, Ageos. ROUND TWO: Now at the wall of goo, Ulf peers out from behind it and sees three or four giants plus a pack of hounds heading toward us. Fortunately, “Roscoe” sees it too and drops a second wall of goo on our left flank, denying the dogs an opportunity to swarm at us from that direction. Neat. Huddled up near the mouth of the now “V”-shaped pair of walls, party members proceed to do some more buffing while Blaine fires a few more arrows into another soft target. Louri now makes himself invisible, and Brulon blesses his longsword in that special way only paladins can. Noticing that the dogs are now only a few feet away, Ulf bursts into a Whirling Frenzy (a rage variant from Unearthed Arcana that is similar to flurry of blows), steps out from behind the barrier, power attacks for 4 and kills two hellhounds in a single cleaving blow. His AC is now a 32, and he has an extra attack per round at his highest attack bonus, -2 for all attacks. His attacks are now +15/+15/+10 and 2d4+23 damage. He threatens a crit on a 15 or greater.ROUND THREE: “Roscoe” starts summoning a large astral construct from behind the wall. Blaine continues to loose arrows at unarmored giants closing in. Brulon rides by a third hellhound, landing a critical hit that slays it, while Nim, Alian and Louri delay, waiting for the giants to come to them. They grumble at Ulf to get back behind the wall. Before he can do anything, though, the closest giant charges. It is unarmored and wielding a huge greatsword. It lands a mighty blow in the vicinity of 29 damage, minus 3 for Ulf’s adamantine dwarven plate. I love Ulf’s armor. Now it’s Ulf’s turn. Winding up like a batter, he 5-foot adjusts toward the unarmored giant and power attacks three times for 30, 26, and 56 (a crit). Since Ulf has a feat from the Book of Exalted Deeds called Resounding Blow, the giant has to make a DC 16 Will save or cower in fear for a whole round. The DM rolls a turkey, and the giant cowers. Cool! Meanwhile, the party hears a bunch of invisible size 40s clomp-clomp-clomp right up next to them behind the wall, and the fire giant wizard drops a fireball right in the middle of everybody. There’s screaming, there’s evading, there’s protection from fire spells soaking damage, and when the smoke clears nobody’s really hurt. Nim inserts and casts invisibility purge, and a pair of surprised-looking unarmored fire giants coalesce in the midst of the party. Joy. Louri, also within the range of Nim’s spell, materializes in the air, cursing the dwarven cleric. Life is tough. Alian, a fragile fellow with a 6 Con and around 25 hit points, casts fly on himself and continues to hide in the back of the group. ROUND FOUR: “Roscoe” plops his astral construct, a beefy thing with Improved Trip, down in front of himself as a bodyguard and begins another summoning, this time for a flying minion. The new guy isn’t living up to his reputation as an Oxygen thief. Brulon attacks a fire giant, scoring a minor hit. Blaine drills four arrows into the nearest giant for solid damage. Golden runes appear on Nim’s black hammer and glow brightly as he throws it, God-of-Thunder-style, at Blaine’s target, welcoming it to the fight with a maker’s mark to the forehead. Ouch. Outside the wall, Ulf faces a cowering fire giant and the lone remaining hellhound. Before he can finish the giant off, though, two more giants charge him. One is unarmored and one (the sentry) is armored, and both are blurred. One misses, one scores a hit in the 30-ish range, minus 3. Way in the back, Alian is monitoring Ulf’s status and wincing. Ulf yells “CLERIC!!!” and power attacks the cowering giant, finishing it off in one blow with another critical hit. Although he had considered withdrawing instead of attacking, he knew that if he did so he’d have incurred an attack of opportunity from each remaining giant. Committed, Ulf 5-foot steps adjacent to the hellhound and the unarmored newcomer. He kills the hellhound with his second attack, cleaves onto the giant and misses due to blur. Whee. He scores a single hit with his final attack for 27. Ulf is down about 60 hit points from a total of 102.Meanwhile, the fire giant wizard drops a second fireball amidst his fire-immune warriors. A clever tactic, but no more productive than the first fireball.Louri, noticing that Ulf is about to get smacked down by a pair of angry giants, casts slow on them. One slows down, the other doesn’t. Alian heals Brulon, who’s worse off than Ulf from thundering greatsword attacks.ROUND FIVE: “Roscoe’s” second astral construct appears in the air above the wall of goo, a large flyer. He commands it to attack the unarmored giant threatening Ulf, which it does. He commands the brute-construct guarding him to charge the nearest giant on his side of the wall, and it does, dropping the giant on its tookus with Improved Trip! For his own action, Roscoe steps out from behind the wall and lands a cold ray onto the fire giant wizard for around 30 damage. We’re beginning to like this guy. Blaine and Brulon finish off the prone giant, and Nim tosses his hammer again at the other guy while moving into melee range. The two giants attacking Ulf, one slowed and one not, attack him a total of four times. Because of his 32 AC and some bad DM rolls, only one hit lands, and for nearly minimum damage, but it still hurts. Luckily, Ulf isn’t quite staggered. Counting on imminent cleric intervention, Ulf full attacks the unarmored giant, hitting thrice for a grand total of 80-ish damage. Alian swoops in from behind, casts dimension door just outside the giant’s threatened area, then moves in and touches Ulf. Bing! They reappear within the safety of the walls. Alian says, “Hang on, I’ll heal you soon!” Nearly dead, Ulf curses his removal from combat. He’s only got two rounds left of whirling frenzy, and then he’s fatigued. The fire giant leader, demonstrating his cunning adaptability in the face of changing circumstances, tosses another fireball at the party. I bet he’s wondering why they don’t die! The unarmored fire giant outside the wall of goo, denied the opportunity to squash Ulf, delights upon realizing the little dwarf wizard is floating only 20 feet in the air, within charging distance. He charges, incurring an attack of opportunity from the flying construct, who smacks him for a measly 11 points of damage. But the Tripmasta construct had moved up last round, and also takes his attack of opportunity on the charging giant. He hits, he scores, he knocks the gine on his arse. Undeterred, the giant lashes out at the wizard anyway and hits! “I hit the wizard!” he bellows with satisfaction in the giant tongue. Sadly, these will be his last words. Aching, Louri adjusts and drops a purified lightning bolt on the pair of giants outside the walls. The half-naked fire giant explodes in a charged burst of gore, and his armored buddy takes it on the chin. ROUND SIX: “Roscoe” nails the wizard with another cold ray, causing him to rethink his choices in life, and there is much beating down of the remaining two giant warriors. The remaining giant inside the barrier dies, and the other one swoons from massive internal hemorrhaging. Brulon charges the giant wizard, scoring a respectable 18 points of damage (*snicker*). Ulf spends the round running back toward the fight, to the dismay of Alian. One round of whirling frenzy remains.ROUND SEVEN: Lots of people do cool stuff and the fire giant wizard is slain. In the final action of the encounter, Ulf 5-foot steps adjacent to the armored fire giant, grins a feral grin, and drops him with a 31-point attack. Shucks. I’d wanted to crit.---------------------Hmm. I guess I only spent two rounds toe-to-toe with giants. My bad. Anyway, the moral of the story is fighters need love from other classes, but deal massive damage and are a lot of fun because they deal massive damage. Seriously. Come on. You have to give me props for killing a fire giant giant in four hits at 10th level.</blockquote>

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