NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 4738640" data-attributes="member: 99">Well I may as well get caught up now since last session was pretty short and hopefully we won't be playing this coming week since UNC will be in the NCAA Men's Basketball Final game, right?So the PC's did a lengthy Q&A with Rhazul.  They never tortured him and didn't have to intimidate him much either.  Rhazul seemed to answer their questions truthfully if rather haughtily.  The general gist of it was that the Black Moon had a base down here to pursue their ongoing quest to "cleanse" The Dweller of the taint of the Mist.  Apparently this task was given to them generations ago by the lady who appeared in the dark crystal.  Her name is Mayaheine.After a bit of discussion amongst themselves they determined that they had no interest in furthering Mayaheine's quest to cleanse The Dweller, even if it meant that she became their enemy.  They also agreed that they needed to destroy the Ghouls they'd encountered earlier and turn Rhazul over to King Klo.  As they departed Rhazul's quarters there was a flash of light and a *CRACK*.  Astavian ducked back into the room to find the dark crystal in pieces on the floor.  They didn't know quite what to make of that but it probably wasn't good.They took the boat they found inside the Black Moon quarters (theirs had been destroyed in the previous battle) and quietly paddled back across the lake, giving wide berth to the island in the center where they'd fought the spectral hounds.  It took some doing but they managed to climb their way up to the cave where the Ghouls hid and dispatched them methodically (I just docked them each two healing surges and expositioned this because there was really no chance of them losing that encounter while at full strength).They returned to King Klo with Rhazul in chains and told of his involvement with the Black Moon.  King Klo seemed lenient and mentioned that rumors of various parties being involved with this notorious but (from his perspective) relatively harmless cult flew around his court all the time.  But it was when the PC's explained that Rhazul was the one who destroyed the bridge to Semma that the King seemed to really bring down his royal wrath.  THAT was an unforgivable sin (the bridge to Semma is the only link that Opkhar has to anyplace else that doesn't require air travel and it being destroyed is causing MAJOR economic hardship in his kingdom).  King Klo ordered Rhazul taken to the dungeon to await his execution.The party took a couple days to rest and recover, located some equipment that they needed and replenished their stocks of ritual ingredients.  All of this was much easier since they had seized Rhazul's personal treasury and were also gifted with 2000 GP of gold and jewels by King Klo for getting the coal mines working again.  They sent word that they wanted to purchase passage again from Tornear.  The goblin airship captain drove a hard bargain but the PC's had little choice but to pay it.  They bid their goodbyes to King Klo who welcomed them back anytime and departed Opkhar for the tiny plateau where they'd fought Blackbreather the dragon.As night fell they took in some of the fresh air up on the deck of the ship (also the hold was still crawling with rats).  Suddenly bolts of lightning streaked out of the night and struck Astavian and Mialain.  A griffon rider landed on the deck of the ship, his glowing eyes standing out against his blue skin.  Another griffon bearing a pair of riders in the black leathers of The Black Moon flew up to apparently land on top of the balloon that held the airship aloft.The battle on deck was vicious as the blue-skinned warrior hurled attacks filled with thunder and lightning at them.  One of the goblin deckhands was hurled over the side to his death and Zanne and Astavian were pushed right up against the railing.  The warrior's glowing eyes seemed detached and he never flinched from the damage the party was unleashing upon him, right up until the moment he was defeated and exploded in a ball of light that left them momentarily blinded.Astavian was already climbing the rigging up to the top of the balloon when that happened because by that point it was obvious that the cultists up there were cutting loose the ropes that held the balloon to the gondola below.  Mialain managed to use her affinity with nature to calm the blue warrior's griffon mount and rode it up to the top of the balloon as well.  There they did battle with the pair of cultists and their griffon at the edge of great peril.  Finally they dispatched the pair of cultists however and managed to shoo the griffons away into the night.And we ended our session there a bit early due to one of the players having some difficulty with their kids at home.*****One of the things that I have come to really like about 4e, which I didn't like at all when I first heard about them, are healing surges.  I think they work well for their basic purpose of PC's recovering Hit Points in chunks but also they are neat as a narrative tool.I knew that the fight with the Ghouls was likely to be difficult in the sense that climbing the cliff to get at them while being attacked would be tough.  But I also knew that once the PC's got there it was a foregone conclusion of victory.  After all they'd already fought these Ghouls before, successfully, while simultaneously doing battle with 14 zombies!  I wanted to handwave this fight and get to the more important stuff ahead.  And Healing Surges were the perfect answer.  I explained to the players that the fight was an ugly one but the outcome was never in doubt as they grimly dispatched the undead slaves that they had only recently rescued.  They paid the Healing Surges as proof that it was no cakewalk and we got on to the audience with King Klo.I had considered making that a Skill Challenge but it really came down to the fact that Rhazul's crime of destroying the bridge was really egregious and even if he had a mind to be lenient about it (and there was no real indication of that) King Klo could not fail to punish him from a political standpoint.  So instead I just had this come down to a couple of Diplomacy rolls and we got straight to the point:  Rhazul was basically a terrorist and needed to die.  The players seemed really pleased with that since they felt sure that, as a member of the court, Rhazul would get a slap on the wrist and be let go.The fight on the airship was really fun for several reasons.  First, I made this blimp model years ago for one of my Sky Galleons of Mars games and I got to bring that out for the fight on top of the balloon.  But also I got to play around with some PHB2 stuff by bringing in the Deva Invoker.I "cheated" here by making this guy with the Character Builder rather than as an NPC.  I definitely wouldn't want to do that all the time because there were a lot of abilities to juggle.  This aspect makes me appreciate the 4e design philosophy of "Bad Guys don't have to use the same rules as Good Guys".  But still it was a change of pace that I'd certainly be willing to do again because it gave a very different dynamic to the battle.  The players later said, "We kept waiting for that guy to run out of tricks and he never did!"  I did boost his HP a bit so he wasn't such a glass cannon but he still had far fewer than other monsters of his level normally would.  He served his purpose well however in providing a distraction for the PC's while his minions were cutting the lines up above.  And his attacks that push people around were SCARY, what with them fighting on the cramped deck of the airship where one failed save could send you over the edge to certain doom.</blockquote>

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