Shilsen's Eberron SH (Finished - The Last Word : 9/20/15)

[Furby076]

Top update Shil! The story just gets deeper and deeper - awed compliments for keeping track of so many NPCs! I guess I shouldn't be surprised that your players steered the conversation round to going back to Khesuvathir - they don't take defeat kindly!

Gareth was pushing this - the rest of the group were fine with letting by-gones-be-by-gones. I think with the NPCS (which the one guy who agreed is at LEAST level 20) we should be ok to bust open this pinnate.

Is it frustrating for the players to be on a continent where they can be chopped into mincemeat at any moment by hundreds of big old dragons?

You get used to it after you realize the paper boy in sharn can kill you. You're actually thankful, because the big dragon is an obvious enemy - the paper-boy...we learned the hard way.

-Gareth

 

[Rackhir]

I don't know why, but the lolcats just sprang to mind.

"I'm in Ur House. Fyting Ur Aburashuns"

Hehe.

Top update Shil! The story just gets deeper and deeper - awed compliments for keeping track of so many NPCs! I guess I shouldn't be surprised that your players steered the conversation round to going back to Khesuvathir - they don't take defeat kindly!

That's pretty much all down to Gareth. Nobody else has any interest in going back there actually.

He's even suffering from this delusion that having persuaded one guy to go back with us, who said he'd see if anyone else was interested in going, means that there is now a vast horde of high level characters who will come with us. Or that somehow it's likely to make a difference if he does.

As bad as he sounded in the story hour, it doesn't fully convey how nasty that dragon was. Basically only Gareth could hit him in melee. Even with Assay Resistance we still had a not insignificant chance of spells failing against him. He could only fail saves on a one.... etc.

The worst thing was his breath weapon. Among other things it uses a horribly broken feat from the Draconomicon that let him up the save DC by his con bonus at the cost of it taking an additional round per point to recharge, which upped the DC to the point where Gareth couldn't make the save without rolling like a 18. Between that the breath weapon being maximized, it clings (does 1/2 dam in subsequent rnds) and can be set to what ever elemental damage we DON'T have up (he had Analyze Dweomer up). Once is all you need.

Toss in that he gets to use Heal and no doubt a carefully selected smorgasbord spells from other classes.

No. The rest of us have no interest in fighting him again.

Is it frustrating for the players to be on a continent where they can be chopped into mincemeat at any moment by hundreds of big old dragons?

As AviLazar said, that is the normal state of affairs in Shil's campaign. Dragons or no dragons and if you ever forget it, he's got no hesitations about making it clear to you. Just go back and re-read the story hour for all the times we've gotten racked up by stuff.

We don't dare go to the corner newstand for the morning paper without the entire group being fully buffed up.

As a result we use the term "Noia" to describe the well justified belief that they are in fact all out to get us.

 

[Furby076]

He's even suffering from this delusion that having persuaded one guy to go back with us, who said he'd see if anyone else was interested in going, means that there is now a vast horde of high level characters who will come with us. Or that somehow it's likely to make a difference if he does.

No, Rackhir is suffering from a delusion that Gareth is suffering one. Gareth realizes that he has one person who wants to go (someone who is at least level 20 according to our glorious DM) and someone who has the influence to get us one or two other people who are also high level. The dragon is tough, but getting someone who is specialized in killing dragons and is at least level 20 is a pretty good bet. Also, we now know we can teleport out of there (we did not know that before and were scared to teleport out)

As bad as he sounded in the story hour, it doesn't fully convey how nasty that dragon was. Basically only Gareth could hit him in melee. Even with Assay Resistance we still had a not insignificant chance of spells failing against him. He could only fail saves on a one.... etc.

Be honest - you could have penetrated his resistance if you didn't roll (CONSTANTLY) under what a 5? You had terrible rolls that day - scary actually. If we would have gotten his last armor spells off, his armor would have dropped by about 10 points - which would have let KORM/SIX be able to hit. Though the original plan we had got foiled in round one (when Korm charged instead of hanging back). We did have a nice plan...that we killed with instant stupidity. Also, since we were not sure if we got his electricity buff off we couldn't use that spell you had ready to stun him. We need analyze dweomor to view his buffs.

The worst thing was his breath weapon. Among other things it uses a horribly broken feat from the Draconomicon that let him up the save DC by his con bonus at the cost of it taking an additional round per point to recharge, which upped the DC to the point where Gareth couldn't make the save without rolling like a 18. Between that the breath weapon being maximized, it clings (does 1/2 dam in subsequent rnds) and can be set to what ever elemental damage we DON'T have up (he had Analyze Dweomer up). Once is all you need.

His breath weapon sucks, and i think (as you do) it is unfair for him to get to use Draconomicon feats while we cant use energy immunity. Next time, we memorize and cast EACH resist energy type for each person. Then get energy resistance to everyone, but make it a different type. So one of us will be immune, the rest will take 40 less damage, and this will give us time to get more energy resistance spells up.

Toss in that he gets to use Heal and no doubt a carefully selected smorgasbord spells from other classes.

No. The rest of us have no interest in fighting him again.

One or two members said they would consider going if our powerbase was upped. A person level 20+ willing to go is a significant powerbase. Can him casting heal be countered?

 

[Rackhir]

No, Rackhir is suffering from a delusion that Gareth is suffering one. Gareth realizes that he has one person who wants to go (someone who is at least level 20 according to our glorious DM) and someone who has the influence to get us one or two other people who are also high level.

You keep talking in the plural when describing the people who MIGHT coming with us.

The dragon is tough, but getting someone who is specialized in killing dragons and is at least level 20 is a pretty good bet. Also, we now know we can teleport out of there (we did not know that before and were scared to teleport out)

This is not a "typical" dragon in any way, shape or form. I remain highly dubious that unless he's got something really spectacular stashed away, one more fighter type is going to change the balance significantly.

It wasn't that we were afraid to teleport out, it was that we were afraid if we left, we couldn't come back. Since that is one of the legends we were told about the place, namely that if you left, you wouldn't be able to find your way back. The reluctance was to leave and loose any chance at getting access to what was supposed to be our best chance at finding a source for the information we needed and did in fact receive. Now that we have that information there is even less reason to head back, aside from simple greed or desire for revenge.

Be honest - you could have penetrated his resistance if you didn't roll (CONSTANTLY) under what a 5? You had terrible rolls that day - scary actually. If we would have gotten his last armor spells off, his armor would have dropped by about 10 points - which would have let KORM/SIX be able to hit. Though the original plan we had got foiled in round one (when Korm charged instead of hanging back). We did have a nice plan...that we killed with instant stupidity. Also, since we were not sure if we got his electricity buff off we couldn't use that spell you had ready to stun him. We need analyze dweomor to view his buffs.

Yes, having Analyze Dweomor would have been useful and I was kicking myself for not having though of it.

The original plan was foiled by the fact that we had assumed that the Dragon would be most dangerous in Melee, so we should avoid it, that we could counter it's breath weapon and that we had assumed we'd be superior casters to the dragon. As it turned out, our casters were largely ineffective, nothing we could summon would have been able to touch it, the dragon is a more powerful caster than we are (it was the same level + Practiced Spellcaster) and Melee was what inflicted most of the damage we did.

What precisely leads you to believe my luck (or Korm's for that matter) is likely to be significantly better a second time around?

His breath weapon sucks, and i think (as you do) it is unfair for him to get to use Draconomicon feats while we cant use energy immunity. Next time, we memorize and cast EACH resist energy type for each person. Then get energy resistance to everyone, but make it a different type. So one of us will be immune, the rest will take 40 less damage, and this will give us time to get more energy resistance spells up.

There are 5 types of energy to be protected against. That will suck up a lot of spells. In some respect Energy Immunity would actually make things worse, since it sucks up a significantly higher spell slot. Also Resist Energy only protects from 30 pts.

One or two members said they would consider going if our powerbase was upped. A person level 20+ willing to go is a significant powerbase. Can him casting heal be countered?

I'm quite confident that we haven't seen half of the dragon's tricks and if we go back planning to counter the last battle, we are going to get a whole different bag of whup-ass poured on us.

Six does have it right, without knowing a LOT more about the Dragon, we're just asking for another smackdown.

 

[Furby076]

You keep talking in the plural when describing the people who MIGHT coming with us.

Yes two people are plural. The guy said he has one other person he knows will want to come, but wants a cut of the rewards. But he talked about this guy, we haven't met him yet.

This is not a "typical" dragon in any way, shape or form. I remain highly dubious that unless he's got something really spectacular stashed away, one more fighter type is going to change the balance significantly.

None of shils characters are "typical" but that doesn't mean they are unbeatable. As for this one extra fighter type: At LEAST level 20, and specialize in dragon slaying.

It wasn't that we were afraid to teleport out, it was that we were afraid if we left, we couldn't come back. Since that is one of the legends we were told about the place, namely that if you left, you wouldn't be able to find your way back. The reluctance was to leave and loose any chance at getting access to what was supposed to be our best chance at finding a source for the information we needed and did in fact receive. Now that we have that information there is even less reason to head back, aside from simple greed or desire for revenge.

We were afraid to teleport because we had experiences in there that made teleporting random and woudl split the team apart. We didn't know that teleporting OUT would be fine. We have some information, not necessarily ALL of it. So its a combination of revenge, wanting to reclaim my items, AND getting information. Don't attribute negative emotions on to my through process.

Yes, having Analyze Dweomor would have been useful and I was kicking myself for not having though of it.

Hindsight 20/20 - nobody to blame, we didn't know the dragon would have that up.

The original plan was foiled by the fact that we had assumed that Melee would be useless and that we had assumed we'd be superior casters to the dragon. As it turned out, our casters were ineffective, nothing we could summon would have been able to touch it, the dragon is a more powerful caster than we are and Melee was what inflicted most of the damage we did.

Except for gareth, melee was worthless - and once the ennervations hit - well there it went. The problem was you rolling 5 or less (not your fault, just random chance) pretty much every single round. If we knew his electrical resistance was down we could have done the stun trick

What precisely leads you to believe my luck (or Korm's for that matter) is likely to be significantly better a second time around?

Korms luck? Nah. Korm should just sit there and heal people and cast resistances on them on the fly. No attacking for him (i said that from the start). You - well you normally don't roll THAT bad. We will also have one more level then we did before (shil said even you and me will be +1 level when we return to playing). Luna can remain the shield wall. Gareth, and the one (maybe two or three) new fighters will be the hammers. Once you get his defenses down - then you can do the stunning tricks. No summons required unless they do things like heal (unicorns)

There are 5 types of energy to be protected against. That will suck up a lot of spells. In some respect Energy Immunity would actually make things worse, since it sucks up a significantly higher spell slot. Also Resist Energy only protects from 30 pts.

30 points is great. Gareth can do a bunch of those castings since his spells in combat are worthless. The only things gareth wil lcast that are of that level is: 1) the resistance spells, and death ward to help against ennervation. We can always use scrolls or wands for the rest.

I'm quite confident that we haven't seen half of the dragon's tricks and if we go back planning to counter the last battle, we are going to get a whole different bag of whup-ass poured on us.

Agreed, and I am quite confident hasn't seen half the stuff we can do - like what happens when we stun his punk butt.

Six does have it right, without knowing a LOT more about the Dragon, we're just asking for another smackdown.

I have faith..then again I am a paladin We have lots of knowledge, and we can get some more. Even Six said, if we return there, we can start casting div spells to find out as much as we can.

-Avi

 

[shilsen]

I don't know why, but the lolcats just sprang to mind.

"I'm in Ur House. Fyting Ur Aburashuns"

Top update Shil! The story just gets deeper and deeper - awed compliments for keeping track of so many NPCs!

Thanks. And it's just as much due to the players as me. I put a lot of stuff out there and see what they bite at. As for the NPCs, I have a Word document just listing names of those who have showed up in the game, and that stretches a few pages. Doing the writeups does help me remember them a lot better.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that your players steered the conversation round to going back to Khesuvathir - they don't take defeat kindly!

As noted by Rackhir, that's pretty much all Gareth. The others really have no interest in returning there. The exchange above is pretty typical of the IC and OOC conversations about it we've been having every session. I sincerely doubt another visit to Khesavuthir is happening any time soon, if ever, but Gareth/Avi lives in hope

Is it frustrating for the players to be on a continent where they can be chopped into mincemeat at any moment by hundreds of big old dragons?

I asked them to answer the question since they can do so better than me, and I think they covered it.

 

[Rackhir]

Yes two people are plural. The guy said he has one other person he knows will want to come, but wants a cut of the rewards. But he talked about this guy, we haven't met him yet.

"But perhaps I can find one or two other skilled people willing to accompany us."

That's PERHAPS, not definitely. Nor do we know how likely they are to be effective against THIS dragon vs some generic "young punk" dragon.

None of shils characters are "typical" but that doesn't mean they are unbeatable. As for this one extra fighter type: At LEAST level 20, and specialize in dragon slaying.

It's not a question of if it's possible to beat the dragon. This dragon was clearly quite specifically designed to screw us if we went in there assuming it was anything resembling a "normal" Wyrm black dragon.

I've heard nothing from you in terms of plans that doesn't amount to basically "More of the same things only 'better'." Which doesn't give me any confidence things are likely to go better the third time around.

We were afraid to teleport because we had experiences in there that made teleporting random and woudl split the team apart. We didn't know that teleporting OUT would be fine.

No. Nobody (aside from perhaps you) was worried about leaving. If we got scattered we'd still have been out of there. It was moving around in the place that we knew teleportation/dim door/etc... were unreliable.

Nameless didn't try to teleport out of there after the debacle, with the other party members, because I didn't know if Korm could get out on his own and he was stuck on the other side of the wall of force with Gareth. While we had no way for us to bring it down. Since you and I were the only people who had really argued for going back in there, I though we should be the ones who were going to suffer for it if anyone was.

We have some information, not necessarily ALL of it. So its a combination of revenge, wanting to reclaim my items, AND getting information. Don't attribute negative emotions on to my through process.

It might well be lethal for us to know any more. The dragons didn't exactly seem happy for us to even know it existed.

When exactly ISN'T greed a major motivation for Gareth by the way?

Hindsight 20/20 - nobody to blame, we didn't know the dragon would have that up.

Shil has mentioned a couple of time how useful that spell can be in this sort of situation. He doesn't do that casually in my experience.

Also, the main reason we didn't do stuff like open up with the stun spell was we didn't know if he had electricity protection up or if it had been brought down by one of the dispells. Having that spell up would have let us know.

We will also have one more level then we did before (shil said even you and me will be +1 level when we return to playing).

Yeah, he also said I'd level up when he got back the last time I died and he went off to India for the summer and I didn't level up until like a month-two months after he got back. I'll count my levels once we've got them.

Agreed, and I am quite confident hasn't seen half the stuff we can do - like what happens when we stun his punk butt.

Shil has. While he is good about separating knowledge for NPCs, that dragon was also quite clearly designed to screw us over and he's demonstrated multiple times that he's a better planner than we are.

I have faith..then again I am a paladin We have lots of knowledge, and we can get some more. Even Six said, if we return there, we can start casting div spells to find out as much as we can.

-Avi

Yes and I'm a cynical, "Glass half empty" kind of guy.

 

[Seekerofskill]

Is it frustrating for the players to be on a continent where they can be chopped into mincemeat at any moment by hundreds of big old dragons?

It is more like a minefield. Things go off for a reason. It's possible to find the trigger, but that requires patience, attention, etc. Case in point. If we didn't tell others about the blood magic before we saw the council, the dragons would have killed us. Our fortuitous timing was luck. Now old Xaggy is on the council's and the secret police's to do list. I don't know what they are planning to do about the Black Well, but I do know what they would do to anyone who gets the secrets of blood magic from there.

 

[Furby076]

"But perhaps I can find one or two other skilled people willing to accompany us."

In game he said he had one other person

It's not a question of if it's possible to beat the dragon. This dragon was clearly quite specifically designed to screw us if we went in there assuming it was anything resembling a "normal" Wyrm black dragon.

That is your viewpoint - and the same in other aspects. Shil doesn't design his monsters with specific knowledge of our characters. He has said this multiple times over the years. He has even stated, and shown us, that his characters have non-combat based spells and has at times had those spells memorized.

I've heard nothing from you in terms of plans that doesn't amount to basically "More of the same things only 'better'." Which doesn't give me any confidence things are likely to go better the third time around.

I have a bunch of plans in mind, but until I know how many people come with us, and what they can do there is no point to making a more solid plan.

No. Nobody (aside from perhaps you) was worried about leaving. If we got scattered we'd still have been out of there. It was moving around in the place that we knew teleportation/dim door/etc... were unreliable.

We were worried about getting scattered IN there. Getting scattered top-side would be ok, getting scattered INSIDE would be horrible.

Nameless didn't try to teleport out of there after the debacle, with the other party members, because I didn't know if Korm could get out on his own and he was stuck on the other side of the wall of force with Gareth. While we had no way for us to bring it down. Since you and I were the only people who had really argued for going back in there, I though we should be the ones who were going to suffer for it if anyone was.

When the dragon turned his back you had a chance to escape and the only casualties would have been Gareth.

It might well be lethal for us to know any more. The dragons didn't exactly seem happy for us to even know it existed.

Maybe - but that doesn't seem like Shils style.

When exactly ISN'T greed a major motivation for Gareth by the way?

When exactly ISN'T negativity a major motivation for Nameless by the way?

Also, the main reason we didn't do stuff like open up with the stun spell was we didn't know if he had electricity protection up or if it had been brought down by one of the dispells. Having that spell up would have let us know.

Yes i know this - i am not blaming you for unlucky rolls. I know why you didn't do the stuns - and I agreed.

Yeah, he also said I'd level up when he got back the last time I died and he went off to India for the summer and I didn't level up until like a month-two months after he got back. I'll count my levels once we've got them.

I'll make sure to remind him. SHIL REMINDER!

Shil has. While he is good about separating knowledge for NPCs, that dragon was also quite clearly designed to screw us over and he's demonstrated multiple times that he's a better planner than we are.

No, we screwed us over. Korm charged as the first possible action, comitting us to charging up. We screwed us over. We decided to stand in a narrow corridor instead of going to the opening and spreading out.

Yes and I'm a cynical, "Glass half empty" kind of guy.

We agree on some things.

 

[shilsen]

It is more like a minefield. Things go off for a reason. It's possible to find the trigger, but that requires patience, attention, etc.

Nice analogy. And it applies for the campaign as a whole, I think

Case in point. If we didn't tell others about the blood magic before we saw the council, the dragons would have killed us. Our fortuitous timing was luck.

That was a very interesting moment for me, since I was quite prepared for things to go very badly as soon as the blood magic got mentioned. As usual, I didn't know what would eventually happen, since I was playing it by ear in response to what the PCs said (and how they said it). But if you hadn't already told the Gatekeepers or didn't make that very clear to the dragons, the PCs would not have been leaving the meeting in one piece, and the campaign could have taken a very different direction.

Now old Xaggy is on the council's and the secret police's to do list. I don't know what they are planning to do about the Black Well, but I do know what they would do to anyone who gets the secrets of blood magic from there.

As I think you mentioned IC during the game, you guys screwed poor Xaggy a lot worse by spilling the beans about him to the Chamber than you could by going back there with a dozen 20th-level PCs. Much worse!

Shil has. While he is good about separating knowledge for NPCs, that dragon was also quite clearly designed to screw us over and he's demonstrated multiple times that he's a better planner than we are.

No, we screwed us over. Korm charged as the first possible action, comitting us to charging up. We screwed us over. We decided to stand in a narrow corridor instead of going to the opening and spreading out.

Little behind the scenes info, since it doesn't make much difference now - Xagygyrag was designed to screw you over, but as usual, there was an IC reason for it. He has access to unusually powerful divination magic in the Black Well (remember the PCs finding that the dragons of Khesavuthir had records of dragonmarks appearing all over Eberron, including Khorvaire and other places they haven't been?) and he has an ability to change his available spells for the day.

So once Xagygyrag had the first fight with the PCs (which told him a little about their capabilities), he spent a significant part of the day learning as much as he could about the PCs. He didn't get as much info as he would normally have, but he did go into the next fight knowing that they included two druids and one wizard as their primary casters (and a few other things). So he prepared a spell loadout which was heavily protective and combat-based (he only had a few when you first met him) and also protected himself from fire and electricity since most druid damage spells use one of those elements.

Of course, now he knows your capabilities even better than he already did, so...