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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 4795000" data-attributes="member: 2">Sagiro, good writeup! I changed "poisonwood zombies" to "poisonweed zombies." I might have written it down wrong when I mentioned it to you. I'll also note that the demon (or devil, whatever that gargoyle thing was) didn't say "that it didn’t want any witnesses to our imminent demises." It said that with what it had planned, it didn't want anyone to know that it existed. Which makes you wonder what it had planned, although that's probably academic at this point. Poor 'lil fella.I thought it was a fun fight, although frustrating for several players who are tired of wading through immobilizing weeds. The group should have taken slightly more damage from the zombie auras; I goofed two or three times and didn't apply damage from just passing through their auras. As it was, the group ended up bloodied several times but didn't use any healing potions. It turned out to be just about as challenging as I hoped it would be. That'll teach the demon to underestimate the Grey Guard.I agree with Sagiro's observation that slightly disorganized player tactics made the fight more challenging, but that I planned an encounter setup (with a surrounding ring of zombies) that was largely responsible for this. The foes weren't ideally clustered for area attacks. If I had wanted to make the fight easier, I could have started the zombies farther away from the boat, giving the group effectively an extra round to organize and regroup.  Both Xiras and the paladin Toiva ended up dragging one of the poisonweed zombies underwater to reduce the effect of their auras. We observed that it's really hard to drown in D&D. Toiva is a doppelganger, but she was able to shapeshift into a crocodile because she multiclassed into druid this level.  Talk about flexibility! (Mind you, she had to shapeshift out of sight so that the NPC Yiddin didn't see her.) We're playing this as a divine power granted to her from her Goddess, and the word druid will never even get mentioned; before our next game, I'll use email with Toiva's player to handle the roleplaying aspects of this game-mechanical choice. Other notes: the dead zombie dragon fell onto the church of Demis, goddess of agriculture (and the deity whom Sklar is a corrupted cult of.) Caducity Skirr may not be dead, and may have fled the Guard instead -- Unclear. The Grey Guard's deceased sergeant, Obrin Tenblood, was replaced by the dragonborn sage (and former gladiator) Brogh of the Heavy Hammer, resulting in some internal strife. And the group found two magic items on the zombies: a beer mug that detects the distance to alcohol, and a warforged gizmo (shaped like a clockwork beetle) that can be used to relay messages.Kodiak played Mara the paladin in my last campaign. I set up the introduction of her new character, a wilden shaman, by having Commander Pikeline warn the PCs that a soldier from the fabled Thirteenth Legion was apparently being assigned to them. The Thirteenth has a reputations as terrifying and cruel badasses, a legion made up entirely of fey who are usually used to pacify insurgent or rebellious countries. No one is sure what to expect when Kodiak brings in her new character next game.It's a standard action that does not use up a power. Toiva (shaped like a crocodile) wanted to bite the zombie and fling it back up onto the weeds. DMG p42 to the rescue! I figured the push meant it should do less damage, and I want to encourage this sort of thing, so I made it a limited (instead of normal) damage expression for low damage: 3d6+4 dmg and the zombie was flung back up onto the weeds. In-game, the characters saw the water roil and the zombie fly upwards as if flung by something large. If they're not a little creeped out by Toiva, there's something wrong.Page 42 of the DMG is probably the most important page in that book. This is where you adjudicate every cool stunt the players want to try. Heck, you could eliminate powers entirely and handle every single attack through what's on this page; most importantly, by using this you help ensure that your players don't feel straitjacketed by only what's on their character sheet.</blockquote>

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