D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)

[jydog1]

ht quite fun.

Ghoulish infant swarm

Level 8 Brute
Huge elemental humanoid XP 350
Initiative +7 Senses Perception +9; darkvision

Knee-biter aura 1; the ghoulish infant swarm makes a melee basic attack as a free action against any enemy that starts its turn within the aura.
HP 104; Bloodied 52
AC 17; Fortitude 21; Reflex 20; Will 16
Immune disease; poison; Resist -10 half damage from melee and ranged attacks, necrotic; Vulnerable 10 damage from close and area attacks
Speed 8 , Climb 4



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Interesting. Not vulnerable to radiant?

 

[Sagiro]

Interesting. Not vulnerable to radiant?

It wouldn't have mattered. We have no way of doing radiant damage, except for hoping for a lucky roll by the chaos sorcerer.

 

[the Jester]

Ahh, ghouls. Just like the old days.

 

[Markn]

• Takes up a 3x3 square, and can occupy squares with party members.
• Gets a free attack on anyone who starts their turn inside its area – an attack which immobilizes
• We can't damage it with melee and ranged attacks
• Anything we can do that does damage it also does massive damage to at least half the party, because it's trivial for the swarm to swarm over a bunch of immobile heroes at a time.

Curious, why couldn't you damage it with melee or ranged attacks? Swarms should take half damage from those attacks.

 

[Piratecat]

Interesting. Not vulnerable to radiant?

Hmm. I think there's a monster builder bug involving resistances and vulnerabilities. Either way it had resist 10 to necrotic damage and vulnerable 10 to radiant. Good catch.

Markn, my source monster (the abyssal ghoul horde) was -10 dmg for melee/ranged attacks, not half damage (and +10 dmg for close and area attacks). Dunno why, but I kept it that way. One melee attack critted and did 18 damage (8 points got through); Bramble also hit it for 10, doing no damage.

Sagiro didn't mention it, but one thing they did to help in the first fight was collapse their entrance tunnel with a dungeoneering check. A ghoul was rushing them through it, skittering along upside down, and Bramble closing the tunnel before it could close was a great tactic. Helped make up for Cobalt going mano-a-mano with a ghoul that was eating his chin and rolling two "1"s on his riposte strikes.

Jester, I'm getting it all out of my system early in the campaign.

 

[Sagiro]

In looking at the Abyssal Ghouls in the Adventurer Tools, one sees that only the ones level 16 and lower have Vulnerable 5 radiant. All of the higher level ones don't. That seems like a conscious design decision, as opposed to a bug in the monster builder.

Also, the Abyssal Ghoul Horde in the MB has Resist half damage from melee and ranged attacks, and not Resist 10, though in practice it amounted to about the same thing for us. Either way, it was a good, revolting fight!

 

[Rechan]

It surprises me that you guys are taking so long to get through the ghoul hole. Three sessions to resolve an almost side-trek.

 

[Delgar]

Consider your ghoulish infant swarm stolen.

My players will be both disturbed and annoyed. 2 things that always make for a great game.

You don't! Scurrilous rumors.

Ghoulish infant swarm

Level 8 Brute
Huge elemental humanoid XP 350
Initiative +7 Senses Perception +9; darkvision

Knee-biter aura 1; the ghoulish infant swarm makes a melee basic attack as a free action against any enemy that starts its turn within the aura.
HP 104; Bloodied 52
AC 17; Fortitude 21; Reflex 20; Will 16
Immune disease; poison; Resist -10 half damage from melee and ranged attacks, necrotic; Vulnerable 10 damage from close and area attacks
Speed 8 , Climb 4

m Horde of Tiny Little Fangs (standard; at-will)
+11 vs AC; 2d6 + 5 damage, and the target is immobilized (save ends). An immobilized target takes an extra 2d6 damage

C Necrotic Spit-Up (immediate reaction; when the horde is damaged) • Necrotic
Close burst 1; +8 vs Reflex; 2d6 + 5 necrotic damage

C Toddling Death (when the horde takes forced movement and when it is reduced to 0 hit points) • Necrotic
Each square the ghoulish infant swarm formerly occupied now contains one ghoul minion, which acts just after the swarm

Alignment Chaotic Evil Languages Baby-talk
Skills Stealth +12
Str 18 (+8) Dex 16 (+7) Wis 11 (+4)
Con 14 (+6) Int 10 (+4) Cha 7 (+2)

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[jydog1]

It wouldn't have mattered. We have no way of doing radiant damage, except for hoping for a lucky roll by the chaos sorcerer.

This is when you insist I visit and sit in for a session. "Oh, run an NPC? Sure! Hey, I just happen to have a cleric here that pretty much sweats radiant damage, what a coincidence!"

Seriously, what's an 8 hour round trip drive on a Thursday night between friends?

 

[Markn]

@PKitty's group

I found this thread to be a boatload of fun to read and its been really inspirational. Our current campaign is slated to wrap up in 2 months at which point we will be starting a new campaign. I was thinking of trying something similar to this (assuming I get at least 1 regular player willing to contribute much like Sagiro does) but with one addtion - I was thinking of snapping a few pics each session of the mini's board during dramatic moments and attaching it to the commentary. My thinking is that it might be inspirational to others to see hand drawn maps and what not. Do you think that would be something that would be useful and more importantly do you see any technical issues with Enworld if we were to do that?