Session #15

-Picture linked for space reasons-

What you're looking at is the black pudding fight from room I5. I know it's not the best pic, but eh. Yeah, it's usually that messy. Putting even 4 people at a foldable 6'x3' table has its problems. Imagine it with 6 people. (The DM uses his own table.)
The miniatures we use are Brian's D&D minis and my lead & pewter minis (I worked at Ral Partha long ago and still have gobs of their figures plus some recent additions of Reaper minis).
The black mat is from Skeleton Key Games. It's basically a piece of ferrous metal coated with black plastic. Then you use some magnetic tiles (think refridgerator magnets) to create the rooms of a dungeon. I love them, but they stopped being made after I found out about them. So I bought some sticky paper and a roll of adhesive magnetic tile, scanned the tiles, cut out the tiles that came with the 3.5E DMG, and created some new tiles. Eventually I'll do more, but for now it's not needed.
The character sheets we use range from E-tools printouts, Mongoose's giant 12-page character sheet, WotC's online pdf character sheet, and the group's preferred sheet - Green Ronin's 12-page character sheet.
The glass beeds are just that. I picked them up long ago back when I thought that vampire CCG was fun. In this case, since there are no figures out there that are sufficient to represent a black pudding, the different colors of glass worked out perfectly when that pudding were to split.
As for dice, we're gamers. I think I may have the largest collection. That collection grows thanks to assistance of Adventure Cat and a dice eating couch.
The purple note cards are an idea of Aaron's. After spending way too much time looking up the same buff and bane spells over and over again, he wrote down all of an often-used spell info onto a card, so when that spell is cast, he just lays it on the table. It saves a lot of time. Right now those spells are Bull's Strength, Crushing Despair, Magic Weapon, Bless, Prayer, and Haste.
Oh, and that's Aaron's arm.

Ok, I figure that everyone needs just a little bit more information on the PCs.
So here you go in the order of where they are in my stack:

Thunderclease, chaotic good shield dwarf
Barbarian 5 / Fighter 2
Strength 17
Dexterity 14
Constitution 16
Intelligence 14
Wisdom 8
Charisma 6
hit points 79
Armor Class 17/17/12 + Dodge feat
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +3, Will +2
Notable feats & abilities: Power Attack, Great Cleave, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus: Greatsword, Rage 2/day
Notable Equipment: Ring of Protection +1, masterwork breastplate, Holy Greatsword +2
Standard actions, duties, & tactics: To deal large amounts of melee damage and to take it. Standard combat involves Rage + maxed Power Attack with his greatsword.

Torin, true neutral human
Ranger 3 / Fighter 2 / Rogue 1
Strength 14
Dexterity 14
Constitution 12
Intelligence 14
Wisdom 14
Charisma 9
hit points 45
Armor Class 17/14/12 + Dodge feat
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +8, Will +4
Notable feats & abilities: Favored enemy: aberrations, sneak attack +1d6, Two-Weapon Fighting, Spring Attack suite, Blind-fighting
Notable Equipment: Masterwork Scimitar, Masterwork Kukri, Mithril Chainshirt, Bastard Sword +1, Ring of Climbing, Boots of Elvenkind.
Standard actions, duties, & tactics: Survival of the fittest attitude, has superior Listen skill to Dalron, uses Spring Attack whenever possible.

Zorak, chaotic good human
Sorcerer 7
Strength 10
Dexterity 12
Constitution 14
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 10
Charisma 19
hit points 40
Armor Class 11/10/11 +4 w/ Mage Armor
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +7
Notable feats & abilities: Eschew Materials, Combat Casting, Improved Initiative, Skill Focus: Spellcraft
Notable Equipment: Wands of Knock, Detect Secret Doors, & Light, Cloak of Charisma +2
Standard actions, duties, & tactics: Crowd control & combat buff (Fireball, Haste, Mage Armor, Invisibility, Scorcing Ray)

Valden, neutral good gold dwarf
Cleric 6 (soon to be 7)
Strength 14
Dexterity 10
Constitution 14
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 17
Charisma 12
hit points 40
Armor Class 18/18/10 +1 w/ Magic Vestment
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +3, Will +11
Notable feats & abilities: Combat Casting, Improved Initiative, Power Attack
Notable Equipment: Cloak of Protection +1, greatsword, Amulet of Health +2
Standard actions, duties, & tactics: Standard combat cleric. Shares Detect Evil duty (with spells) with Krieg since Dugan's death.

Dalron, neutral good wood elf
Rogue 7
Strength 16
Dexterity 18
Constitution 13
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 8
Charisma 10
hit points 33
Armor Class 16/12/14 +1 w/ Dodge + Two Weapon Defense
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +3, Will +11
Notable feats & abilities: Two Weapon Fighting, Sneak Attack +4d6
Notable Equipment: Longsword +2, Shortsword +2
Standard actions, duties, & tactics: Standard rogue trapfinding, to get behind a creature for a backstab AT ALL COSTS!

Krieg, neutral good gold dwarf
Exalted Cleric 7
Strength 14
Dexterity 10
Constitution 10
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 16
Charisma 14
hit points 44
Armor Class 18/18/10
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +3, Will +10
Notable feats & abilities: Exalted Turning, Greater Turning, Improved Turning
Notable Equipment: Sheild of Light Fortification
Standard actions, duties, & tactics: Standard non-combat cleric duties (i.e. buffs & walking bandaid).

Brian was unable to make the game this week. Torin was played by Justin.
Also, Jeff made it, but had to leave early due to a family emergency. Valden was played by Aaron.

Map

The last session ended with the party returning to region E to rest after being attacked by some Gricks that appeared to move through walls in room I11.

Room I11: The party returned here to check out the secret door. No gricks returned this time.

Room I5: Prior to entering the room Detect Evil noted the standard interference of region I. Listen checks failed. When the party opened the door, they heard the cacophonous rambling of a lunatic and they saw nothing but a room that whose far side was covered in moving shapeless shadows and the floor appeared to be smooth and slightly uneven.
Not knowing what they were up against, the party had to make an immediate Will save. Failure to save meant that the PC was effectively mesmerized and listened to the ramblings for the duration of the combat. Dalron and Krieg failed their save.
Round 1: In this order; Zorak casts Haste, Valden casts Bull's Strength on Thunderclease, Thunderclease rages and enters melee. Now Thunderclease is a nightmare in melee - but he can't see his opponent. He received 2 Spot checks; 1 when he made it to within 30' of the thing and another when he was right on top of it. He failed both. This caused him to step right into the thing. 2d6 acid damage later Thunderclease was able to make out that he was up against a black shaped mass of goo that seemed to have an elf-shaped face in the middle of it. He swung his sword at it and hurt it. Then it split into 2 smaller versions, each with an elf face. So Thunderclease swung at it (one of them) again. Same result. Now there we three of them. The party now knows that it's a black pudding.
Quote from Aaron: "It's a good thing black puddings aren't intelligent."
Round 2: This particular black pudding is intelligent. It has tactics. It surrounds Thunderclease and each version hits him.
Round 3+ is a blur. The party eventually defeats it. But Thunderclease ends the combat with 8 hit points (he started with 79).

When the pudding finally dies the cacophony stops, then Krieg and Dalron both scream in terror and collapse. They recalled nothing.

Room I6: This room had a poor dead celestial that had been spiked to the wall. It had long ago rotted, but still seemed to have fresh blood on the spikes. The had no clue what to make of it, so they moved on.

Room I16: This room had a thick coating of gluey purple slime. Otherwise the room appeared to be empty. While the party was in a vulnerable position (Thunderclease and Dalron investigated the north-western hallway) 6 gricks jumped out through the slime. For 2 rounds the party took some a lot of pin-prick damage. Then this happened: Zorak casts Haste, Krieg cast Bull's Strength on Thunderclease, Thunderclease rages. By round 4 the last remaining Grick jumped back into the slime.

Searching the room found no special exits hidden for the gricks. It appeared as though they were able to travel through the slime.
But Thunderclease did find a cat. A mummified, slime covered cat. He gave it a name and placed it in his backpack next to his once-living bit of belt.
(At this point the DM tried to stop listening.)
The group came up with a contingency plan in the event that their Everburning Torch is dispelled. {sigh} They will take one of their 10' poles and tie the cat to it (at least I'm hoping they said "tie") then cast Continual Flame on the cat. This became the theme for the remainder of the evening.

Room I18: The party is now more cautious about the slime. As far as they know, every slimy looking wall, floor, or ceiling could be a haven for gricks. When they entered this room, they did not like it one bit. This room had all but collapsed. Rocks were everywhere and the ceiling looked like it could come down at any moment. They closed the door and moved on.

Room I17: At this point, the party is getting a little low on their resources. Thunderclease has used all of his rages for the day. Zorak is low on spells. And both Krieg and Valden have used a lot of their spells healing and buffing. Then they enter this room.
This room looked like it was once a prison. Now it was slime coated, stinking, and all the cell doors were open. Perfect for an ambush.
The party took it one step at a time. They began to work their way up the hallway, investigating one cell at a time. Dalron would enter it while Thunderclease waited just outside the door in case something happened. Then it began.
The combat rounds blend together:
Round 1: Dalron gets attacked by 3 gricks that jump out of the slime. He makes room for Thunderclease to get in their midst and clean house.
Round 2: Approximately one dozen more gricks jump out from the floor, the walls, and the ceiling right in the midst of the remainder of the party. Buff spells start to fly, including a Prayer spell.
Round 3: The party is in over their heads. The Prayer spell saves the party from being immediately overwhelmed by making several barely hits into misses. This saved Dalron and Zorak especially. The party started to head into the cell to try to get together instead of being spread out.
Then more gricks came. This time only 6 new gricks appeared. Two of them were much larger and tougher than the rest. Four of them had 8 arms instead of 4. Now the party was in even more trouble. Gricks were everywhere and the party could not move without clearing a path and Thunderclease was stuck inside a cell where he could only hurt a couple gricks at a time.
Round 4: Seeing little to no better option, Zorak dropped his last 3rd level spell, a Fireball. He dropped his nuke right in the midst of the combat.
Torin was safe in the room.
Krieg, Zorak, and Thunderclease made their saves.
Valden and Dalron failed their saves and both would have died had they not had a re-roll point (from now on I'll call them "fate points" {thanks twofalls}). Their 2nd roll was a success.
The standard gricks; several saved but it did not matter. Two of the standard gricks survived, but with exactly 0 hp.
The other gricks were either not in the blast area, or were severely wounded.
Another round of mopping up finished it. Four gricks fled and over a dozen lay dead about the room.

The party got the hell out of Dodge. They did not bother searching the room for fear of another sneak attack (and they were quite ready for a rest).
They went through another I1 returned to region E for a rest.

The 2 characters who had just used their fate point level!
Dalron adds a 7th level of rogue.
Valden also levels, but since Jeff was not around, Valden will level up then. I suspect it will be a 7th level of cleric. But who know? It wouldn't be the first time a player did something I didn't expect.