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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sagiro" data-source="post: 5376374" data-attributes="member: 726">This write-up will summarize and discuss runs #45 and #46, which mostly consisted of combats.  Piraetcat has already provided the plot content of the first of these runs – us entirely failing to bluff Lord Tomberlin during dinner, and him poisoning us and tilting us into a deathtrap, after first stunning the entire party.   (What kind of sick bastard has such an elaborate set-up in his dining room, anyway?  The entire huge table on a swiveling floor panel, and needle-launchers built into the chairs?  Really?)The fight was against a horrific agglomeration of mashed-together animated bodies, featuring Cobalt’s murder victim, Anders Riverlimb (Tomberlin’s son) as a central component.   It was a straight-up Cadaver Golem (Level 12 Elite), which ordinarily would be pretty easy for six Level 9 PC’s, but a) we started the fight at half-health or lower due to the fall, and b) every single party member started the fight with the “Stunned (save ends)” affliction.    Worse, if I recall correctly, we were at (slowly diminishing) negatives to our saves!   While Stunning is usually an obnoxious effect to throw at PC’s (and Piratecat is quite friendly in this regard), this set-up made for great cinematics.   We’re all lying on the floor, bruised, injured, unable to move, and here comes the horrible monster!  Will we shake off the poison in time?Turns out, yes, we did.  Even with the gruesome prologue, it was only a medium-difficulty fight; once we started saving (especially the healers), we bootstrapped badly need hit-points.   Cobalt did go unconscious at one point, but 4E’s “start-at-zero” policy when being healed from negative makes it easy for PC’s to bounce back into the fight.  The Golem was reliably stunning one or two PC’s per round, but once we hit the tipping point of saving vs. the Stun, our vastly superior number of actions per turn won the day.We healed up after the fight, and then heard some group of people(?) approaching, presumably to collect and/or clean up the bodies.  We lay in wait, and ambushed a quartet of Flesh Golems as they entered the room.  This was a much harder fight – although Piratecat knocked their healths down from 300+ to about 150, they still a) had extraordinarily high AC and Fort defenses, and b) had hit-roll bonuses high enough that they almost never missed.  (According to the Monster Builder, Flesh Golems are +16 to hit AC, or +18 when they’re bloodied, and our AC’s are all in the low 20’s, except for Bramble with a 19.   (Cobalt has the best AC at 24).  On top of that, all of their attacks caused “Dazed (save ends)” on a hit, and each Golem was making 2 attacks per round.  The result was that, on a typical round, half or more of us were Dazed, at least until we started whittling them down.This was also a combat where our lack of Defender hurt us more than usual, since the Golems charged right through our front line and into the softer backfield.   I try to play Cobalt as the party defender, but although I’ve been sinking feats into his defenses, he’s still not “sticky.”   Gilran was knocked unconscious during this battle, which (to my recollection) marks the first time in a long time we’ve had knock-outs in two consecutive fights.   But we’ve got good healing mojo in the party – Dr. Caldwell has become kind of a ranger/artificer mix, with a concentration on healing abilities, Cobalt took the Warlord multiclass to a get a great 1/day heal, and of course Bramble is a Shaman with Healing Word, and various health/temp HP abilities.   With some focused-fire, we took down one Golem fairly quickly, and held on decently for the rest of the battle.With the Flesh Golems dispatched, it was time to get the heck out of this hell-hole.   And hell-hole it certainly is – the Riverlimbs are a whole family of clandestine necromancers, and their secret basement is filled with ongoing body-stitching operations and tools.  We discovered a room where some poor victim had been cut in half, but was kept alive and hooked into tubes of liquid, obviously to be made into some grotesque amalgam at a later date.   There was one more battle before the night ended – a door to the main part of the basement was guarded by a Bone Golem.  We surprised it (using Stealth and Thievery to quietly remove the hinges of the door, which was otherwise barred from the Golem’s side), and pretty much smashed it to pieces in 2-3 rounds.   When facing only a single enemy, we pretty much pile on the states – it was dazed, blinded, immobilized, etc. for most of its short life, and while it did manage some decent damage, it didn’t live long enough to prove a serious threat.  That said, it did syphon away even more of our Dailies and surges (Caldwell is down to a single healing surge, I believe.)  And we’re not out of the mansion yet, and Lord Tomberlin Riverlimb is still here somewhere, waiting to be reckoned with.  We ended the session with Bramble discovering a secret door behind a painting (hooray for having someone with a stellar Perception skill!), and the party about to explore beyond it.Also:  Ding!  We all get to go up to Level 10 for next game – only one to go before Paragon.  Cobalt is continuing to play the part of faux Defender, taking the Blade and Buckler Duelist feat that increases his AC and REF by 1.  (So, as a 10th level leather-wearing striker, his AC is now 26 and his Reflex is 28.)Final note:  I too am a big proponent of the "+1 to hit with a cinematic description of your attack" rule, but the DM in me worries about balance, and I mentioned to Piratecat that he could use that to replace the free Expertise Feat we've all effectively been getting.  (PC has been knocking all monster defenses down by 1).  Can’t wait for the next game, as usual.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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