World's Largest Dungeon in actual play [Spoilers!]
- Thread starter haiiro
- Start date
pokedigimaniac
First Post
Hussar's a meanie and won't post session logs. D: I want to read of his group's exploits and woes!
My group's going decently. About to start up another game for Region I, because I want to run that, damn it. But my current group just ran into Nardarik in Region C, and is now probably going to get their way back through the gnolls and head into F. Whee. One of my least favourite regions. Maybe I can sucker them elsewhere...
My group's going decently. About to start up another game for Region I, because I want to run that, damn it. But my current group just ran into Nardarik in Region C, and is now probably going to get their way back through the gnolls and head into F. Whee. One of my least favourite regions. Maybe I can sucker them elsewhere...
Hussar
Legend
Sorry PDM. Been busy at work and the transcripts are on a different computer. I'll get around to it. 
No opinions for E honestly. I barely read it and my players went nowhere near it.
On the whole austerity thing. I dunno. It was fun for a region or two, but, it got pretty stale IMO. Plus, with so many PC deaths, the new PC's were coming in with custom equipment anyway. Every player is on their third or fourth PC, so, effectively, they've gotten to craft anyway.
The problem with crafting in G is that there are no arcane casters.
Linking things up with the World Serpent Inn would make a lot of life simpler IMHO.
TwoFall's alteration of A was superb.
No opinions for E honestly. I barely read it and my players went nowhere near it.
On the whole austerity thing. I dunno. It was fun for a region or two, but, it got pretty stale IMO. Plus, with so many PC deaths, the new PC's were coming in with custom equipment anyway. Every player is on their third or fourth PC, so, effectively, they've gotten to craft anyway.
The problem with crafting in G is that there are no arcane casters.
Linking things up with the World Serpent Inn would make a lot of life simpler IMHO.
TwoFall's alteration of A was superb.
erucsbo
Explorer
a battle too big for one session
feeling confident and having healed themselves back to full hitpoints (though now starting to get low on spells) the party decides to go and tackle the spider kings.
They have a map showing the cavern with the machine.
The rogue sneaks off to have a look - sees the cavern, and heads back to tell the party.
Do they discuss tactics? - no
Do they try and capture a drow or drider for intel? - no
Do they seek some strategic advantage from the terrain in the cavern? - no
Do they try and engage in diplomacy? - no
Cast fly on the fighter (F9) and enlarge on the dwarf (F2/W6/EK1) and charge in guns blazing.
Now - I had had the driders that had gone invisible at the end of the last battle warn the rest of their brethren, and watch to see how the party handled the flesh golems - they know what sort of spells the party has available, what sort of tactics they employ etc.
So - despite some of the party members winning initiative, I did not have the driders flat-footed.
The fighter is hell on wheels with a bastard sword and pretty much took out one drider before it could react, but with withdraw and shoot tactics, bringing in flesh golems (the fighter forgot that he had a scarab of golem bane until near the end - but wasn't in use because was wearing amulet of health instead), and poison arrows I now have all the slaves have fled, about 3 drow guards and 1 flesh golem have been dispatched, and the party has 3 unconscious (Sor9, Rog9, Clr3/Wiz3/MT3) with the Clr9, F9 and dwarf (F2/W6/EK1) getting close to being knocked out as well.
I used some of the party's own tactics against them (mirror image, fireball) and it was good to see their reaction when they were on the receiving end![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
A couple of invisible stalkers joining in from the rear at the end, and another flesh golem appearing made them think that they were in for a TPK.
My idea was to have them all knocked out rather than killed and waking up chained (or held by silkstone) with Elotor planning on conducting some experiments on them when the slave / rebel revolt began.
But - the dwarf decided that it was time to play the Ace up his sleeve a bit earlier than I would have liked, and used the bracelet of friends to summon the NPC Paladin (who had made it to region G - helping the 2 garrisons join up together again and tipping the battle in G to allow the Children of Light to win).
She has just appeared, and I now have 4 weeks to decide what I am going to do (we aren't gaming over easter and we only play every fortnight). The battle is paused between rounds.
While the fighter is hell on wheels with his bastard sword (dishing out over 100 hitpoints in one round when he managed a cleave) the paladin is death incarnate against evil (smite, holy weapon and has the ability to do a retributive strike [max damage] 1/day if attacked first). I do not want to have an NPC save the day for them so she will probably quaff an invisibility potion and run around to use lay on hands to stop people from dying.
The party knew that this was going to be a big battle.
They knew that fighting first and asking questions afterwards has gotten them in to trouble in the past.
This time I want to make the payment a little more harsh (without resorting to them all having to roll up new characters).
feeling confident and having healed themselves back to full hitpoints (though now starting to get low on spells) the party decides to go and tackle the spider kings.
They have a map showing the cavern with the machine.
The rogue sneaks off to have a look - sees the cavern, and heads back to tell the party.
Do they discuss tactics? - no
Do they try and capture a drow or drider for intel? - no
Do they seek some strategic advantage from the terrain in the cavern? - no
Do they try and engage in diplomacy? - no
Cast fly on the fighter (F9) and enlarge on the dwarf (F2/W6/EK1) and charge in guns blazing.
Now - I had had the driders that had gone invisible at the end of the last battle warn the rest of their brethren, and watch to see how the party handled the flesh golems - they know what sort of spells the party has available, what sort of tactics they employ etc.
So - despite some of the party members winning initiative, I did not have the driders flat-footed.
The fighter is hell on wheels with a bastard sword and pretty much took out one drider before it could react, but with withdraw and shoot tactics, bringing in flesh golems (the fighter forgot that he had a scarab of golem bane until near the end - but wasn't in use because was wearing amulet of health instead), and poison arrows I now have all the slaves have fled, about 3 drow guards and 1 flesh golem have been dispatched, and the party has 3 unconscious (Sor9, Rog9, Clr3/Wiz3/MT3) with the Clr9, F9 and dwarf (F2/W6/EK1) getting close to being knocked out as well.
I used some of the party's own tactics against them (mirror image, fireball) and it was good to see their reaction when they were on the receiving end
A couple of invisible stalkers joining in from the rear at the end, and another flesh golem appearing made them think that they were in for a TPK.
My idea was to have them all knocked out rather than killed and waking up chained (or held by silkstone) with Elotor planning on conducting some experiments on them when the slave / rebel revolt began.
But - the dwarf decided that it was time to play the Ace up his sleeve a bit earlier than I would have liked, and used the bracelet of friends to summon the NPC Paladin (who had made it to region G - helping the 2 garrisons join up together again and tipping the battle in G to allow the Children of Light to win).
She has just appeared, and I now have 4 weeks to decide what I am going to do (we aren't gaming over easter and we only play every fortnight). The battle is paused between rounds.
While the fighter is hell on wheels with his bastard sword (dishing out over 100 hitpoints in one round when he managed a cleave) the paladin is death incarnate against evil (smite, holy weapon and has the ability to do a retributive strike [max damage] 1/day if attacked first). I do not want to have an NPC save the day for them so she will probably quaff an invisibility potion and run around to use lay on hands to stop people from dying.
The party knew that this was going to be a big battle.
They knew that fighting first and asking questions afterwards has gotten them in to trouble in the past.
This time I want to make the payment a little more harsh (without resorting to them all having to roll up new characters).
Ogg
First Post
ideas
I've found the rat scouts I'm using in mine a great way to guide PC's. It would be the same idea as some of the earlier posts with the lantern archons. Basically they lead the PC's in a direction. Got greedy PC's? Have the "guide" tell them they saw a glowing sword to the East if you want them to go East. Have it turn out to be a sword with continual flame on it if there's nothing applicable.
Anyways I've used the guides to motivate the players to head to the East before going North from A. It's working quite well. Players tend to go in the direction they're getting info from. So if they're told "There's goblins to the east." They're likely to go in that direction.
Erucsbo, if you don't want the NPC to bail them out to teach them a lesson have him just come out of another battle himself & be weak or even worse blinded, "Where art these foul minions?" *swing thump* "Sorry friend." Or have one of the bad guys cast a huge illusion that the paladin fails to make them all look the same so he has to spend a lot more time finding friend from foe. "Standard action: detect evil. Ok he can attack this one. Next round attack evil" If any players drop have him run over & dump a couple points of lay on hands enough to stabilize but not bring above 0 having the paladin explain he needs to save the majority for himself to make sure they don't all fall to evil. Remember just because he's good doesn't mean he won't feel the good guys are incompentent for calling on him. Have them wake up in the situation given above but the paladin mysteriously vanished. (Maybe he ran off chasing a demon that appeared late in the battle) Have their capture explain this in a classic bad guy soliliquey. "Oh yessss...your friend...well it appears he was rather pre-occupied with a demon ally of mine, a former prisoner of this forsaken tomb, last I saw he was chasing my poor ally down a hall away from here....now where were those lovely spider legs I wanted to see would graft properly to dwarven flesh."
I've found the rat scouts I'm using in mine a great way to guide PC's. It would be the same idea as some of the earlier posts with the lantern archons. Basically they lead the PC's in a direction. Got greedy PC's? Have the "guide" tell them they saw a glowing sword to the East if you want them to go East. Have it turn out to be a sword with continual flame on it if there's nothing applicable.
Anyways I've used the guides to motivate the players to head to the East before going North from A. It's working quite well. Players tend to go in the direction they're getting info from. So if they're told "There's goblins to the east." They're likely to go in that direction.
Erucsbo, if you don't want the NPC to bail them out to teach them a lesson have him just come out of another battle himself & be weak or even worse blinded, "Where art these foul minions?" *swing thump* "Sorry friend." Or have one of the bad guys cast a huge illusion that the paladin fails to make them all look the same so he has to spend a lot more time finding friend from foe. "Standard action: detect evil. Ok he can attack this one. Next round attack evil" If any players drop have him run over & dump a couple points of lay on hands enough to stabilize but not bring above 0 having the paladin explain he needs to save the majority for himself to make sure they don't all fall to evil. Remember just because he's good doesn't mean he won't feel the good guys are incompentent for calling on him. Have them wake up in the situation given above but the paladin mysteriously vanished. (Maybe he ran off chasing a demon that appeared late in the battle) Have their capture explain this in a classic bad guy soliliquey. "Oh yessss...your friend...well it appears he was rather pre-occupied with a demon ally of mine, a former prisoner of this forsaken tomb, last I saw he was chasing my poor ally down a hall away from here....now where were those lovely spider legs I wanted to see would graft properly to dwarven flesh."
erucsbo
Explorer
Ogg said:
thanks for the suggestions Ogg.
She has in fact just come out of a major battle (in G).
She's not the brightest character (int 12) but her wisdom is 15 and charisma is - well - let's just say that failing a saving throw or having to hold back dispensing LoH is rarely an issue.
She can assess a situation fairly well (unlike - it seems - the party) and will probably opt for the "stop the party from dying" option rather than "smite and all die gloriously". The party has excess anti-toxin - none of which was used prior to the battle (against known poison using creatures) - sunrods (and therefore not dispellable) - also not used (in an area of darkness and with drow who have light sensitivity), and have been mostly casting spells against the drow and driders (knowing that they had spell resistance) instead of concentrating on party buff and terrain modifier spells. Elanor (the paladin) knows better than that.
She will keep out of the fight as much as possible and depending on who shows up next session, she'll try and rescue some of them, while the rest are captured, then the two groups can both work on a solution.
If you have read the Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon, then she is very much like Paks (although the character predates those stories by 7 years [1988 for DoP, 1981 for my paladin]).
Hussar
Legend
I FINISHED IT!
We're done. They creamed the Tarrasque in three rounds. THREE ROUNDS. Flawless victory actually. The cleric stood in the background and readied heal spells while the barbarian went up with a pair of Trumpet Archons they brought with them. The chameleon sat in the background the peppered arrows in and the bard sang.
Splatter. I'll post the log after I've cleaned it up.
I'm currently having mixed feelings. I'm very happy to have completed this thing. 80 sessions, just shy of 2 years of real time. Lots, and lots of fun. It is a bit disappointing that D was incredibly anticlimactic. But, hey, they whacked the Big T. First time I've EVER used one.
I'll post some more thoughts later, but, I figured I'd put this up.
BTW, I'll be doing some housecleaning very shortly, so the work that went into the online versions of the WLD will likely come down, or at least the image files will, sometime soon.
We're done. They creamed the Tarrasque in three rounds. THREE ROUNDS. Flawless victory actually. The cleric stood in the background and readied heal spells while the barbarian went up with a pair of Trumpet Archons they brought with them. The chameleon sat in the background the peppered arrows in and the bard sang.
Splatter. I'll post the log after I've cleaned it up.
I'm currently having mixed feelings. I'm very happy to have completed this thing. 80 sessions, just shy of 2 years of real time. Lots, and lots of fun. It is a bit disappointing that D was incredibly anticlimactic. But, hey, they whacked the Big T. First time I've EVER used one.
I'll post some more thoughts later, but, I figured I'd put this up.
BTW, I'll be doing some housecleaning very shortly, so the work that went into the online versions of the WLD will likely come down, or at least the image files will, sometime soon.
Hussar
Legend
Here is the final transcript of our final session. 2 hours of planning, 45 minutes of me putzing around babysitting my girls, and 30 minutes of the party kicking the Tarrasque's ass all over the place.
Read the Transcript here of the Flawless Victory - Session 80
Read the Transcript here of the Flawless Victory - Session 80
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