Last night was session 4 of the campaign. We got off to a rocky start thanks to the triple threat of needing to print a couple character sheets, celebrating Riggs birthday and my daughter being extra demanding of attention. Oh and stobil (Zanne the Warlock's player) insisted that we have a fire in the ireplace downstairs where we game and...well let's just say it's been a few years since he's been in survival school in the Air Force. As a result we got rolling at least an hour later than usual. But hey, time spent with friends is never wasted.
Anyway, the PC's had rested in the "dragon shrine" of the Mist Demons and the only way out was a small door just barely big enough to pass the Dragonborn members of the party. They proceeded through it and up a cramped passageway on the other side that Eshik indicated had been dug by some kind of burrowing creature. It emptied into a room that was empty but for a few scattered bones that Astavian determined to be Mist Demon bones (of the variety they'd fought in the mines) and some traces of a weird, purplish dust on the floor. There were two exits from this room.
They explored one of them and it led to another room with a much bigger pile of bones in the corner that had the indented look of something sleeping on it but whatever that might have been was nowhere to be seen. The only other feature of the room was a magically locked door that defied their attempts to open it.
The tried the other direction and it quickly terminated in a scene of gore and destruction. There was a pile of rubble that looked recent to Eshik (Eshik used to be a stonecutter so he knows these things). Amid the rubble were the badly mangled remains of what appeared to be three diggers or miners. The bodies were decomposed to the point that Mialain guessed them to have been dead at least a week. However the good news was that 60 or so feet above them up a shaft some 10 feet wide they could see starlight.
Eshik (the most perceptive member of the group) spotted a side passage only 15 feet up and climbed up to that point and lowered a rope for the rest of the party. The passageway curved and ascended and they followed it. Just around the bend was a door in the side of the passage that they found was a cell holding a pathetic lot of prisoners. Astavian called them forth and one approached cautiously, speaking an unknown language before recoiling in utter terror at the Paladin.
Lord Harrix (still following along with the party and carrying his urn that is to be a gift from Emperor Vond to King Klo of Opkhar) indicated that the language was Opkharitic. He spoke with the prisoners who told him that "a dragon thing" had rampaged through the complex recently and sniffed at their door before moving on to presumably kill more of the inhabitants. The party broke through their cell door, gave them food and water (it had been approximately a week since they'd eaten). In so doing they made a grisly discovery that two of the prisoners had died and been partly eaten by the survivors. They also found a bag of that purplish dust hanging on the wall.
Continuing upwards the group found two other cells that had their doors smashed inwards and some evidence of bloodshed inside. Astavian found an ear that looked dark and leathery. The hallway finally terminated in what appeared to be the basement of a tower containing a ruined and smashed laboratory of sorts. A desk and table were destroyed and the scattered remains of some books lay mostly ruined in puddles around the room. They pieced together the contents of these and determined that there was a journal as well as a ritual book. But just as they were reading the barely legible remains of these, Eshik heard footsteps overhead and suddenly a group of five rather larger, more beastial Mist Demons leapt down into the room from above.
The fight was quick and brutal with the PC's unleashing many of their more powerful spells and abilities. But the Mist Demons gave as good as they got, lashing out with their claws and nearly dropping Eshik unconscious in the first round of battle. Both of the Dragonborn engulfed the enemy with their breath attacks and Astavian landed telling blows one after another (his luck had clearly returned in time for his birthday because he only missed one attack all night). Zanne unleashed a searing point blank Flames of Phlegethos which she stunted to include an extra foe. She took Opportunity Attacks, both of which landed but killed both Mist Demons in the process. The final one was quickly dispatched by Eshik and Astavian. Mialain spent most of the battle dishing out considerable quantites of healing thanks to her Beacon of Hope (she swapped out Divine Guardian for this) and Melora's Tide abilities.
Lord Harrix urged them to proceed upwards and "get out of this accursed hole!" and they climbed a ladder up to the main floor of the ruined tower. No sooner had they entered than another Mist Demon started at them through the main entrance to the tower. But, before he was upon them, a cloud of inky darkness seemed to engulf him from behind and a nearly deafening roar was heard coming from within. We called it a night there.
GM Comments:
I've been following along with some recent discussions here at ENWorld indicating that some feel that 4e's skill system isn't robust enough to support a "mystery investigation" type game. All I can say is that that's almost entirely what this session was and it seemed to work fine to me. The players were asking lots of insightful questions and in turn I had them make a great many skill rolls, which incrementally got them pieces of the puzzle. They seemed to have deduced a great deal by the end of the session.
I ran the investigation of the laboratory as a small Skill Challenge, which worked out nicely. As a result the players got a handout that I'd created which had a lot of snippets from the journal that filled in some blanks. Their successes (I think that only one failure was rolled during the whole Skill Challenge) also got them the contents of the Ritual Book, which is handy since Zanne also now has the Ritual Caster feat. The rituals were Magic Mouth, Arcane Lock, Magic Circle and Remove Affliction. Magic Mouth is the only one they can currently cast however due to their level.
In terms of house rules, Zanne's was the only Power Stunt this week but it was very effective. I was leery about allowing it to essentially double the effect of a Daily power but I required that she be adjacent to her foes to do it so I think the tradeoff was fair. And it was definitely a crowd pleaser.
The "Exploding d6 Skill Roll" thing seems to have been tremendously popular among the players. I'll let them speak for themselves but so far nobody appears to want to drop that.
They did hit a Milestone (which reminds me that I need to give everybody an extra Action Point at the start of next session) by virtue of finally making it back up out of the Mist for the first time in 4 days. Mialain's rituals to keep them supplied with Mist Milk to ward off its corrupting effects have been invaluable.
For next time we'll pick up right at our cliffhanger ending where they get to fight whatever the "dragon thing" is. Since everybody but Astavian spent their daily powers in the Mist Demon fight it should be...interesting.
Oh and speaking of the Mist Demon fight, I've been trying to keep track of how long combats last compared to their difficulty. This fight was of pretty "normal" difficulty. The Mist Demons were all Level 2 Skirmishers modeled after the Orcish Freak. The fight was over in about 5 or 6 rounds and took around 45 minutes.
. Rel made it seem like we were very bad off at the end of the falling in the river episode.
