Not really a question (though tips or advice are welcome), just a story I wanted to share from my table from last session.
(Behold my player's custom-commissioned illustration).
^ This is Kida, elven monk/seeker and Vekeshi Mystic. She hates the Clergy (note her brooch: a hook jabbed through a skull), but wanted to save Linia from the moment she set eyes on her in the Crypta Hereticarum. However, the party was totally powerless to do anything about it during their side-trek there during Chapter 4. Moreover, the party managed to finish the adventure without the Obscurati ever finding out they had been spied upon, and though Kida wished to return to the island immediately, both Delft and her co-workers forbid it, as it was likely to retroactively blow their cover ("Oh, someone from the RHC is going to Odiem? We just sent a bunch of tourists to die there. Odd coincidence...").
After Chapter 6, Kida went so far as to assemble a large list of magic items using her stipend, and managed to finally convince the RHC that it was safe to return. Getting there was easy, of course, and the party knew well by now to hit the shore early in the day and get out before nightfall, to avoid the massive swarm of zombies. They didn't even need to worry about the Lead-to-Gold curse, either, since that only takes effect upon leaving the first room, where Linia is imprisoned.
I described her as being chained to the floor originally (not sure why I deviated from the adventure text there, but I did), six golden chains with golden hooks, pierced through her wings and all four limbs. Most items they used against the chains had no effect, but there were two solutions I simply couldn't rule out. First was dust of disenchantment, which allows an attack roll against a DC determined by the item's level; they rolled well enough to dispel an item of level 24 or below, and I simply couldn't imagine the chain was better than a 20 (especially since Chapter 9 mentions "an ancient ban that held back the powers of mortals," which is what initially prevents the party from ascending to 21st level). Once it was made temporarily nonmagic, the striker of the group crushed it with a specially-requested craghammer of the titans and did 70 points of damage with an encounter power. Yeah, it broke.
Lacking more dust, they next used Sechim-brand stone eater to try to melt the "bone-crete" floor that the chains were set in, which would've been harder (but not impossible for this group) if I'd said the chains were installed in the ceiling, like I should've. Since the floors in the Vault are susceptible to normal wear and tear (Room 9 is a mess, in particular), they're clearly not magically enforced, and so the party was easily able to pry out the eyebolts of the chains from the eaten-away floor. From that point, I allowed oil of etherealness to let the hooks simply fall off her, mostly out of mercy, but I had one last idea in store, since Kida's player had been informing me of the plan for this sidequest for some time now.
The adventures never give the details for what, if any, alarms or traps might activate if either Linia or Ashima were freed, though such wards would be dispelled by Chapter 11, when the books assume the players will be back and be able to free Linia. I thought to myself, "If I were a corrupt Clergy priest, what kind of nasty surprise would I leave for someone who could free the angel that might expose me for the bastard I truly am?" And I had an awfully good idea.
Linia looked overjoyed as she was freed, and overcame her mental trauma long enough to ask hopefully of Kida: "...and the seventh?" For the Clergy had forged a seventh chain and hook, and buried it in her flesh. If she was ever freed, it would snag around her heart, and turn her into a vengeful weapon to be used against the Vault's intruders.
Ashima's voice carried across the room. "Two chains the Clergy forged for Ashima's manipulative hands. Two chains they forged for her cowardly legs. Two chains they hooked into her back so she might feel the eternal sting of the betrayals she wrought, and a final seventh chain they hooked into her blasphemous lips, for the Clergy feared Ashima's lips above any other part of her. So it is with this winged one, though it is not her lips they feared... but her heart."
The fight started with the party in a mild panic. Linia's (only slightly modified by me) stats in 4e were a full 13 levels above them, and the most accurate among the party only had a maybe 15% chance to hit her with any given attack. She, however, could hit them for a full third of their hitpoints without even trying, but she wasn't a solo or even an elite, so she could only do this to one person per round. They wisely used a few anti-domination effects from their arsenal, but I had decided beforehand none of those would do more than temporarily halt the spell. Qiyet, the party's martial scientist, somehow managed to hit with surgical precision, after asking if she could use the power to specifically strike the scar I had mentioned on Linia's chest. Clunk. And so they found it.
Linia took wing, and suddenly things looked bleak--how the hell were they going to pull it out if they couldn't even get up to her? Kida could fly for brief periods, but she had no grapple powers and her strength sucked. Qiyet had the bright idea of just teleporting up to her and trying to grab, but even with her high strength, the lack of weapon bonus to her attack meant she could only hit on a 20. And then she rolled a freakin' 20! So now the martial scientist/ranger is hanging off the screeching angel, somehow keeping hold of a blood-slick gold chain hanging out of Linia's chest.
(Kickstarter-won illustration of Hugo, another PC)
^ Hugo, the wizard/artificer Technologist, throws her a rope, then starts hauling back on it, activating a pair of bracers of mental might to turn a Strength check into an Intelligence check, and miraculously beat the angel's massive Strength check by 1 point. Hugo pulls the rope. The rope pulls Qiyet. Qiyet keeps hold of the chain, and the chain exposes Linia's heart, which has a large gold hook snagged around it.
Hugo has her just two squares away from the door at the end of the room, hoping that the door's curse will disenchant the chain in the course of turning it to lead, but the bracers are spent and Linia's up next; the party's luck is stretched to its limit and there's no way they're leaving things to chance when they're this close. Hugo spends an action point, and uses a much-underestimated low-level daily power, charm of misplaced wrath. Even on a miss, the spell forces its victim to make a basic attack with Hugo's choice of target: the hook. Angelic hammer meets Clergy relic for massive damage, and the heroes go home triumphant, but wishing they could actually earn XP in this campaign.
So now Linia needs to rest up, of course, but she's pledged herself to her rescuers, eager to repay them in any way she can. She also more than likely knows about Triegenes' use (or lack thereof) of the Sacrament, but luckily my players seemed scared stupid of the ritual's power, and are actively avoiding asking her anything about it after learning that she's even heard of the thing. I know she won't be of any help during the latter part of Chapter 7 (angels don't have disembodied souls, and so cannot possess mortals via ritual magic like the PCs can), but further Chapters may be complicated by her hanging around as an ally. Guess I'll think of something?
Hell, I'm proud of my players - they were even short a party member that day and still pulled it off.
(Behold my player's custom-commissioned illustration).^ This is Kida, elven monk/seeker and Vekeshi Mystic. She hates the Clergy (note her brooch: a hook jabbed through a skull), but wanted to save Linia from the moment she set eyes on her in the Crypta Hereticarum. However, the party was totally powerless to do anything about it during their side-trek there during Chapter 4. Moreover, the party managed to finish the adventure without the Obscurati ever finding out they had been spied upon, and though Kida wished to return to the island immediately, both Delft and her co-workers forbid it, as it was likely to retroactively blow their cover ("Oh, someone from the RHC is going to Odiem? We just sent a bunch of tourists to die there. Odd coincidence...").
After Chapter 6, Kida went so far as to assemble a large list of magic items using her stipend, and managed to finally convince the RHC that it was safe to return. Getting there was easy, of course, and the party knew well by now to hit the shore early in the day and get out before nightfall, to avoid the massive swarm of zombies. They didn't even need to worry about the Lead-to-Gold curse, either, since that only takes effect upon leaving the first room, where Linia is imprisoned.
I described her as being chained to the floor originally (not sure why I deviated from the adventure text there, but I did), six golden chains with golden hooks, pierced through her wings and all four limbs. Most items they used against the chains had no effect, but there were two solutions I simply couldn't rule out. First was dust of disenchantment, which allows an attack roll against a DC determined by the item's level; they rolled well enough to dispel an item of level 24 or below, and I simply couldn't imagine the chain was better than a 20 (especially since Chapter 9 mentions "an ancient ban that held back the powers of mortals," which is what initially prevents the party from ascending to 21st level). Once it was made temporarily nonmagic, the striker of the group crushed it with a specially-requested craghammer of the titans and did 70 points of damage with an encounter power. Yeah, it broke.
Lacking more dust, they next used Sechim-brand stone eater to try to melt the "bone-crete" floor that the chains were set in, which would've been harder (but not impossible for this group) if I'd said the chains were installed in the ceiling, like I should've. Since the floors in the Vault are susceptible to normal wear and tear (Room 9 is a mess, in particular), they're clearly not magically enforced, and so the party was easily able to pry out the eyebolts of the chains from the eaten-away floor. From that point, I allowed oil of etherealness to let the hooks simply fall off her, mostly out of mercy, but I had one last idea in store, since Kida's player had been informing me of the plan for this sidequest for some time now.
The adventures never give the details for what, if any, alarms or traps might activate if either Linia or Ashima were freed, though such wards would be dispelled by Chapter 11, when the books assume the players will be back and be able to free Linia. I thought to myself, "If I were a corrupt Clergy priest, what kind of nasty surprise would I leave for someone who could free the angel that might expose me for the bastard I truly am?" And I had an awfully good idea.
Linia looked overjoyed as she was freed, and overcame her mental trauma long enough to ask hopefully of Kida: "...and the seventh?" For the Clergy had forged a seventh chain and hook, and buried it in her flesh. If she was ever freed, it would snag around her heart, and turn her into a vengeful weapon to be used against the Vault's intruders.
Ashima's voice carried across the room. "Two chains the Clergy forged for Ashima's manipulative hands. Two chains they forged for her cowardly legs. Two chains they hooked into her back so she might feel the eternal sting of the betrayals she wrought, and a final seventh chain they hooked into her blasphemous lips, for the Clergy feared Ashima's lips above any other part of her. So it is with this winged one, though it is not her lips they feared... but her heart."
The fight started with the party in a mild panic. Linia's (only slightly modified by me) stats in 4e were a full 13 levels above them, and the most accurate among the party only had a maybe 15% chance to hit her with any given attack. She, however, could hit them for a full third of their hitpoints without even trying, but she wasn't a solo or even an elite, so she could only do this to one person per round. They wisely used a few anti-domination effects from their arsenal, but I had decided beforehand none of those would do more than temporarily halt the spell. Qiyet, the party's martial scientist, somehow managed to hit with surgical precision, after asking if she could use the power to specifically strike the scar I had mentioned on Linia's chest. Clunk. And so they found it.
Linia took wing, and suddenly things looked bleak--how the hell were they going to pull it out if they couldn't even get up to her? Kida could fly for brief periods, but she had no grapple powers and her strength sucked. Qiyet had the bright idea of just teleporting up to her and trying to grab, but even with her high strength, the lack of weapon bonus to her attack meant she could only hit on a 20. And then she rolled a freakin' 20! So now the martial scientist/ranger is hanging off the screeching angel, somehow keeping hold of a blood-slick gold chain hanging out of Linia's chest.
(Kickstarter-won illustration of Hugo, another PC)^ Hugo, the wizard/artificer Technologist, throws her a rope, then starts hauling back on it, activating a pair of bracers of mental might to turn a Strength check into an Intelligence check, and miraculously beat the angel's massive Strength check by 1 point. Hugo pulls the rope. The rope pulls Qiyet. Qiyet keeps hold of the chain, and the chain exposes Linia's heart, which has a large gold hook snagged around it.
Hugo has her just two squares away from the door at the end of the room, hoping that the door's curse will disenchant the chain in the course of turning it to lead, but the bracers are spent and Linia's up next; the party's luck is stretched to its limit and there's no way they're leaving things to chance when they're this close. Hugo spends an action point, and uses a much-underestimated low-level daily power, charm of misplaced wrath. Even on a miss, the spell forces its victim to make a basic attack with Hugo's choice of target: the hook. Angelic hammer meets Clergy relic for massive damage, and the heroes go home triumphant, but wishing they could actually earn XP in this campaign.
So now Linia needs to rest up, of course, but she's pledged herself to her rescuers, eager to repay them in any way she can. She also more than likely knows about Triegenes' use (or lack thereof) of the Sacrament, but luckily my players seemed scared stupid of the ritual's power, and are actively avoiding asking her anything about it after learning that she's even heard of the thing. I know she won't be of any help during the latter part of Chapter 7 (angels don't have disembodied souls, and so cannot possess mortals via ritual magic like the PCs can), but further Chapters may be complicated by her hanging around as an ally. Guess I'll think of something?
Hell, I'm proud of my players - they were even short a party member that day and still pulled it off.
