Session #23
And now it's time for Sean's Movie Reviews:
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
I never read the books. I did listen to one of the books on tape.
I went to this movie not expecting all that much.
I was not disappointed. My wife liked it a bit more than me, but only because of the "Coming of the Great White Handkerchief" bit.
Justin could not make it tonight. He got called in to work. So Brian played his character.
Brian will probably not be able to play for the next 3 weeks. Torin is going to be hurting for some XP after that.
On that note we discussed inviting a new player to the group as we've had a couple people expressing interest. Our group is currently at 7 total. But we consistently have only 6 showing. Joe and Justin weren't there for this, but they have each said before that we're maxxed out on players. A few minutes of discussion and it was decided to not add anyone new for now.
Joe was running late. We called Joe's cellphone and let him know that Dale was running Zorak. That scared Joe pretty good. He made it here in record time.
Joe had also had an awesome day. Apparently his whole day had gone well. Unfortunately for us, Joe is a bit of a spaz. Ok, that's kind of mean, yeah. But when Joe is having a good time he'll sing, chat, humm, chat, whistle, chat, make noise, chat, flip through books, and chat. Now he also had a good D&D night. Usually I just do what I can to bring him back to reality. Tonight, nothing worked. I dealt to him 8 points of constitution damage, 2 point hits 4 times. This was after 2 warnings, and 2 points of smartass damage. I don't think any of it even phased him. I could have killed Zorak and danced on the imaginary grave and Joe wouldn't have been phased. So oh well. Now if you're reading this Joe, mark off the remaining con damage. To the rest of the group, don't tell Joe to read the blog entry. I just want to see if he is reading this thing.
:)
Otherwise, we were also all distracted on our own. (Dale took a couple hp hits from it as well.)
And to make things even worse, the DM became moodier as the night went on. More distractions in the game = less nice DM.
But in spite of all of that, they explored a huge section of the map and got a lot done. The first half of the night was filled with combat.
Take a look
Big map
The party had rested up in the stairwell between regions I & J.
Their next step was to attempt to cross the bridge they saw last session while near...
Room J15: This room was barely recognizable as such. It had been charred black with an occasional fused-to-the-wall bone sticking out. Dalron heard "We shall feast on your soul", whispered into his ear. Then he tried to talk back. And everyone looked at him like he was crazy.
Then everyone took a point of damage from foulness of the area. Valden cast Detect Evil and the room was full of it. Then everyone took another point of damage.
Then everyone left the room.
The party headed towards the bridge along the "river's" edge until they saw the magmin at the edge of their smoke & steam obscured vision.
They saw dozens magmin praying or swimming at the edge of the river.
The party took a few tentative steps towards the bridge, weapons out but down.
Next is the beginning of a sequence of events that lasted 2 1/2 hours...
The halfling-sized magmin rush towards the party. Some walking along the edge of the river and others walking & swimming through the river.
Krieg cast Tongues, hoping to avert combat with 100+ magmin (from room J17).
He then spoke, "We do not seek to fight you."
A single magmin responded while other magmin were maneuvering to surround the party (under the lava), "Why are you here?"
"We are here to explore"
"Heretics! Infidels!"
(No round by round combat this time, sorry.)
The magmin rushed out of the river, having the party all but surrounded. The only escape is to clear path or cross the bridge.
There is also the option to fight.
The party decided to decide after a round or 2.
Krieg attempted a Greater Command spell on the magmin. "Flee". It worked perfectly, but those that ran were quickly replaced.
Dalron dashed accross the bridge. Zorak cast Haste and hightailed it over the bridge as well.
Torin & Thunderclease each took a few swings on the magmin. Thunderclease took down 1 and almost dropped another. Torin was able to nearly drop 1, then drop it the next round. But they each had to save for their weapons or the weapons would melt. That scared them.
Magmin attacked the party, but only got a few hits in. And since most of the party had fire protection spells, it was minor. Thunderclease didn't have such a spell on him, and a magmin lit him on fire.
Krieg and Valden scampered (hehe) onto the bridge.
Torin and Thunderclease were the last to get onto the bridge. Thunderclease was "put out" with a little patting and a protection from fire spell.
Zorak, from the bridge, cast Cone of Cold onto the magmin on the edge of the river and into the river.
The result, the magmin in range were killed, but the area of river that was hit disappeared with a loud scream. We're not talking that it turned to stone, it "poofed". It quickly filled back in, but the party found that to be odd. (Everyone in the party made their save vs. loud noise or go deaf).
That was more than enough for the magmin to run back to their home. It was also enough to get some attention from something else. New combatants entered the combat, but without the party's immediate knowledge.
Island J18: Dalron, Torin, and Krieg were investigating a statue no the souther tip of the island while the rest of the party were healing and getting off the bridge.
The DM rolled 2 d3's, for random targeting. Both rolls targeted Krieg.
Now I want everyone reading this to whistle. Start with a high pitch and then slowly bring it to a low pitch. That's was they heard.
And the Krieg got smacked in the chest with a big burning rock. And then a 2nd. Had he not had a fire protection spell on he would have taken around 60 damage. But he still took 40+. That's 2/3 of his hit points.
The party went back on alert. The next round 2 more burning boulders hit 2 more party members. The party made some decisions based off the information they had:
- The party can only see 60' thanks to the smoke & steam of the area, but not all of the region's denizens have that same problem.
- Giants throw boulders + this is a fire region = probably fire giants (it sounds dumber than it actually was, I think the party is used to me throwing them curveballs....dangit)
- The boulders came from the north (remember, their map at the time was smaller than what you see). That means the boulders came from something on the island or from something over the bridge.
The party consensus, go over the 2nd bridge and either find their new attacker or get some cover.
The broken area southwest of J19 on the map is where the party mostly resides. But the party is not acting as a unified force.
- Torin and Dalron hear metal banging on metal coming from J19, but their vision won't let them see what they hear. So they generally hide and keep watch.
- Zorak stands out in the open, casts Greater Invisibility on himself, and investigates the area.
- Thunderclease, Krieg, and Valden take cover and heal up.
- Later Zorak casts Greater Invisibility on Thunderclease while Thunderclease looks for a backway to their targets.
Eventually Zorak spots 2 fire giants looking for something to throw a boulder at. He surprises them with an Ice Storm spell. They flee back to their area of J21.
When the Ice Storm spell ends, Zorak moves up to find his targets. He finds them hiding in cover. He blasts them with a Cone of Cold and runs away. Thunderclease, knowing what the Cone of Cold means, rushes in to finish off the giants before his rage ends.
While this is happening, Torin hears, "Hey, someone is killin' Grogguk!"
Torin and Dalron freeze in place, but the giants have some really good spotting skills. They're spotted and each takes a boulder to the shoulder :)
The giants close the distance and pull out their giant greatswords.
Thunderclease coup de graces the last of the original giants. Zorak can't see his party members through the smoke, and moves back to where they were to see them concerned about something else. He moves closer while yelling for Thunderclease.
Torin, using his Spring Attack feat, gets a couple of swings with Eight Strikes Fang in (regular attack + haste attack) and then darts away over 30'.
Valden moves closer to the new melee, but can't make the whole distance.
Krieg blasts the giants with holy fire in the shape of a Flame Strike spell. The giants are immune to the fire half of the damage, but they aren't immune to the holy damage that looks like fire.
Dalron, knowing he is the only target, believes that he won't survive the Attacks of Opportunity from running away. So he takes a 5' step back and goes on full defense.
The 2 giants step forward 5' and each gets a full attack round. Now Valden is within the 10' reach of the giants.
Giant #1 has 3 attacks at +20/+15/+10. Dalron has 49hp. Swing #1 hits. Damage is 3d6+15 damage. All rolls are made in front of the party. The DM rolled 3 6's. Dalron takes 33 damage and is in real danger of hitting -10 on another hit. Amazingly, the other 2 attacks miss.
Giant #2 has the same stats. Swing #1 soundly hits Dalron and does 24 points of damage. Leaving Dalron at -8. The giant has the feat Cleave and so he swings on Valden and hurts Valden bad. The 2nd swing from the giant landed squarely on Valden's chest and knocked him down to exactly 0 hp. If swing #3 hit, he was dead for sure (again). The DM rolled a measly 4. Dangit.
The rest of the combat is relatively quick and painless for the party. Zorak gets in and blasts the giant twice with Cone of Cold. Valden healed Dalron and passed out. Then Krieg healed Valden.
Combat over.
The party can still put up a fight, but not much of one. Healing spells are spent like water. Zorak has only a couple useful ice spells left.
And worse, the party must choose to either move forward and hope to find a suitable place to rest or to head back accross the bridge and face the magmin.
While the group is discussing options, a pathetic excuse for an azer fearfully approaches them.
He tells them that he has been sent by his queen and that she would like an audience with them. The party agrees to, foolishly trusting the DM to not screw them over.
The party is led by the flinching azer through area J19 as a very angry fire giant glowers at them while it pauses its smithing of a giant greatsword.
They are then led through the hallway to room J20. The hallway has many paintings of giants killing trolls.
Room J20: The party sees a huge room containing a dozen slave azers, 3 fire giants standing over a large granite table holding a map, and a black-robed fire giantess sitting bored on a granite throne.
She spoke to the party calmly and uncaring, "I know what you are, adventurer's, and I know what you're here to do. For that I could care less, but you have cost me 4 soldiers..."
"But they attacked us..."
"I could care less. You aren't in a position to claim anything. You have two options; we kill you or you kill the demon in charge of the trolls."
The party attempts to bargain for just about anything. She repeats the conditions and the only information the party gets is where the trolls and their demon leader are (northeast) and a guarantee of free passage to their resting place near region I. Plus the party has to leave something with her as collateral, and she asks specifically for Dalron's mystery sword.
He hands it over and they return to their spot. Zorak gets many angry stares from the magmin.
They rest w/o interruption...dangit.
Area J23: A fire giant heaves chunks of iron ore into a very large smelting pot. It barely notes the group's presence.
Area J26: This area is full of rubble but it has a slightly cooler feel to it. The party logics that since trolls are not fans of the heat, this must where the trolls lair at. Torin travels forward and easily makes his reflex save to prevent himself from falling down a pit.
Further investigation shows that the entire area is one big pit trap and the rubble and volcanic ash hide its purpose.
The party turns around, hoping to find another route to their target.
Area J25: A fire giant oversees a group of slave azers hauling chunks of ore. An azer falters and gets a severe lashing from the giant. Krieg vows to get this giant later, but for now he can't.
Area J22: As the party travels down this corridor, a fire giant warns them to be careful, (using a mountain hick accent) lots of falling rocks around here. Shortly afterwards several chunks of rocks rain upon the party.
Some minor damage later and the party gets through the area.
Room J34: A small crater rests in this room. Dalron enters to search the area. Shortly after he does the crater shoots out a small blast of lava filling the room with burning smoke. Dalron easily saves and gets out of the room without a scratch (that don't happen often does it?)
:)
Room J27: This room was investigated by an invisible, scouting Torin. He found that the northmost end of the northern hallway had 2 trolls guarding it and the eastern hallway did not.
Room J29: Torin investigates this room and quickly triggers a trap. He leaves and does not return.
Room J39: Several azer toil here in a mine of some sort.
Torin then returns to the party and tells them what he saw.
We then stopped for the evening.
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
I never read the books. I did listen to one of the books on tape.
I went to this movie not expecting all that much.
I was not disappointed. My wife liked it a bit more than me, but only because of the "Coming of the Great White Handkerchief" bit.
Justin could not make it tonight. He got called in to work. So Brian played his character.
Brian will probably not be able to play for the next 3 weeks. Torin is going to be hurting for some XP after that.
On that note we discussed inviting a new player to the group as we've had a couple people expressing interest. Our group is currently at 7 total. But we consistently have only 6 showing. Joe and Justin weren't there for this, but they have each said before that we're maxxed out on players. A few minutes of discussion and it was decided to not add anyone new for now.
Joe was running late. We called Joe's cellphone and let him know that Dale was running Zorak. That scared Joe pretty good. He made it here in record time.
Joe had also had an awesome day. Apparently his whole day had gone well. Unfortunately for us, Joe is a bit of a spaz. Ok, that's kind of mean, yeah. But when Joe is having a good time he'll sing, chat, humm, chat, whistle, chat, make noise, chat, flip through books, and chat. Now he also had a good D&D night. Usually I just do what I can to bring him back to reality. Tonight, nothing worked. I dealt to him 8 points of constitution damage, 2 point hits 4 times. This was after 2 warnings, and 2 points of smartass damage. I don't think any of it even phased him. I could have killed Zorak and danced on the imaginary grave and Joe wouldn't have been phased. So oh well. Now if you're reading this Joe, mark off the remaining con damage. To the rest of the group, don't tell Joe to read the blog entry. I just want to see if he is reading this thing.
:)
Otherwise, we were also all distracted on our own. (Dale took a couple hp hits from it as well.)
And to make things even worse, the DM became moodier as the night went on. More distractions in the game = less nice DM.
But in spite of all of that, they explored a huge section of the map and got a lot done. The first half of the night was filled with combat.
Take a look
Big map
The party had rested up in the stairwell between regions I & J.
Their next step was to attempt to cross the bridge they saw last session while near...
Room J15: This room was barely recognizable as such. It had been charred black with an occasional fused-to-the-wall bone sticking out. Dalron heard "We shall feast on your soul", whispered into his ear. Then he tried to talk back. And everyone looked at him like he was crazy.
Then everyone took a point of damage from foulness of the area. Valden cast Detect Evil and the room was full of it. Then everyone took another point of damage.
Then everyone left the room.
The party headed towards the bridge along the "river's" edge until they saw the magmin at the edge of their smoke & steam obscured vision.
They saw dozens magmin praying or swimming at the edge of the river.
The party took a few tentative steps towards the bridge, weapons out but down.
Next is the beginning of a sequence of events that lasted 2 1/2 hours...
The halfling-sized magmin rush towards the party. Some walking along the edge of the river and others walking & swimming through the river.
Krieg cast Tongues, hoping to avert combat with 100+ magmin (from room J17).
He then spoke, "We do not seek to fight you."
A single magmin responded while other magmin were maneuvering to surround the party (under the lava), "Why are you here?"
"We are here to explore"
"Heretics! Infidels!"
(No round by round combat this time, sorry.)
The magmin rushed out of the river, having the party all but surrounded. The only escape is to clear path or cross the bridge.
There is also the option to fight.
The party decided to decide after a round or 2.
Krieg attempted a Greater Command spell on the magmin. "Flee". It worked perfectly, but those that ran were quickly replaced.
Dalron dashed accross the bridge. Zorak cast Haste and hightailed it over the bridge as well.
Torin & Thunderclease each took a few swings on the magmin. Thunderclease took down 1 and almost dropped another. Torin was able to nearly drop 1, then drop it the next round. But they each had to save for their weapons or the weapons would melt. That scared them.
Magmin attacked the party, but only got a few hits in. And since most of the party had fire protection spells, it was minor. Thunderclease didn't have such a spell on him, and a magmin lit him on fire.
Krieg and Valden scampered (hehe) onto the bridge.
Torin and Thunderclease were the last to get onto the bridge. Thunderclease was "put out" with a little patting and a protection from fire spell.
Zorak, from the bridge, cast Cone of Cold onto the magmin on the edge of the river and into the river.
The result, the magmin in range were killed, but the area of river that was hit disappeared with a loud scream. We're not talking that it turned to stone, it "poofed". It quickly filled back in, but the party found that to be odd. (Everyone in the party made their save vs. loud noise or go deaf).
That was more than enough for the magmin to run back to their home. It was also enough to get some attention from something else. New combatants entered the combat, but without the party's immediate knowledge.
Island J18: Dalron, Torin, and Krieg were investigating a statue no the souther tip of the island while the rest of the party were healing and getting off the bridge.
The DM rolled 2 d3's, for random targeting. Both rolls targeted Krieg.
Now I want everyone reading this to whistle. Start with a high pitch and then slowly bring it to a low pitch. That's was they heard.
And the Krieg got smacked in the chest with a big burning rock. And then a 2nd. Had he not had a fire protection spell on he would have taken around 60 damage. But he still took 40+. That's 2/3 of his hit points.
The party went back on alert. The next round 2 more burning boulders hit 2 more party members. The party made some decisions based off the information they had:
- The party can only see 60' thanks to the smoke & steam of the area, but not all of the region's denizens have that same problem.
- Giants throw boulders + this is a fire region = probably fire giants (it sounds dumber than it actually was, I think the party is used to me throwing them curveballs....dangit)
- The boulders came from the north (remember, their map at the time was smaller than what you see). That means the boulders came from something on the island or from something over the bridge.
The party consensus, go over the 2nd bridge and either find their new attacker or get some cover.
The broken area southwest of J19 on the map is where the party mostly resides. But the party is not acting as a unified force.
- Torin and Dalron hear metal banging on metal coming from J19, but their vision won't let them see what they hear. So they generally hide and keep watch.
- Zorak stands out in the open, casts Greater Invisibility on himself, and investigates the area.
- Thunderclease, Krieg, and Valden take cover and heal up.
- Later Zorak casts Greater Invisibility on Thunderclease while Thunderclease looks for a backway to their targets.
Eventually Zorak spots 2 fire giants looking for something to throw a boulder at. He surprises them with an Ice Storm spell. They flee back to their area of J21.
When the Ice Storm spell ends, Zorak moves up to find his targets. He finds them hiding in cover. He blasts them with a Cone of Cold and runs away. Thunderclease, knowing what the Cone of Cold means, rushes in to finish off the giants before his rage ends.
While this is happening, Torin hears, "Hey, someone is killin' Grogguk!"
Torin and Dalron freeze in place, but the giants have some really good spotting skills. They're spotted and each takes a boulder to the shoulder :)
The giants close the distance and pull out their giant greatswords.
Thunderclease coup de graces the last of the original giants. Zorak can't see his party members through the smoke, and moves back to where they were to see them concerned about something else. He moves closer while yelling for Thunderclease.
Torin, using his Spring Attack feat, gets a couple of swings with Eight Strikes Fang in (regular attack + haste attack) and then darts away over 30'.
Valden moves closer to the new melee, but can't make the whole distance.
Krieg blasts the giants with holy fire in the shape of a Flame Strike spell. The giants are immune to the fire half of the damage, but they aren't immune to the holy damage that looks like fire.
Dalron, knowing he is the only target, believes that he won't survive the Attacks of Opportunity from running away. So he takes a 5' step back and goes on full defense.
The 2 giants step forward 5' and each gets a full attack round. Now Valden is within the 10' reach of the giants.
Giant #1 has 3 attacks at +20/+15/+10. Dalron has 49hp. Swing #1 hits. Damage is 3d6+15 damage. All rolls are made in front of the party. The DM rolled 3 6's. Dalron takes 33 damage and is in real danger of hitting -10 on another hit. Amazingly, the other 2 attacks miss.
Giant #2 has the same stats. Swing #1 soundly hits Dalron and does 24 points of damage. Leaving Dalron at -8. The giant has the feat Cleave and so he swings on Valden and hurts Valden bad. The 2nd swing from the giant landed squarely on Valden's chest and knocked him down to exactly 0 hp. If swing #3 hit, he was dead for sure (again). The DM rolled a measly 4. Dangit.
The rest of the combat is relatively quick and painless for the party. Zorak gets in and blasts the giant twice with Cone of Cold. Valden healed Dalron and passed out. Then Krieg healed Valden.
Combat over.
The party can still put up a fight, but not much of one. Healing spells are spent like water. Zorak has only a couple useful ice spells left.
And worse, the party must choose to either move forward and hope to find a suitable place to rest or to head back accross the bridge and face the magmin.
While the group is discussing options, a pathetic excuse for an azer fearfully approaches them.
He tells them that he has been sent by his queen and that she would like an audience with them. The party agrees to, foolishly trusting the DM to not screw them over.
The party is led by the flinching azer through area J19 as a very angry fire giant glowers at them while it pauses its smithing of a giant greatsword.
They are then led through the hallway to room J20. The hallway has many paintings of giants killing trolls.
Room J20: The party sees a huge room containing a dozen slave azers, 3 fire giants standing over a large granite table holding a map, and a black-robed fire giantess sitting bored on a granite throne.
She spoke to the party calmly and uncaring, "I know what you are, adventurer's, and I know what you're here to do. For that I could care less, but you have cost me 4 soldiers..."
"But they attacked us..."
"I could care less. You aren't in a position to claim anything. You have two options; we kill you or you kill the demon in charge of the trolls."
The party attempts to bargain for just about anything. She repeats the conditions and the only information the party gets is where the trolls and their demon leader are (northeast) and a guarantee of free passage to their resting place near region I. Plus the party has to leave something with her as collateral, and she asks specifically for Dalron's mystery sword.
He hands it over and they return to their spot. Zorak gets many angry stares from the magmin.
They rest w/o interruption...dangit.
Area J23: A fire giant heaves chunks of iron ore into a very large smelting pot. It barely notes the group's presence.
Area J26: This area is full of rubble but it has a slightly cooler feel to it. The party logics that since trolls are not fans of the heat, this must where the trolls lair at. Torin travels forward and easily makes his reflex save to prevent himself from falling down a pit.
Further investigation shows that the entire area is one big pit trap and the rubble and volcanic ash hide its purpose.
The party turns around, hoping to find another route to their target.
Area J25: A fire giant oversees a group of slave azers hauling chunks of ore. An azer falters and gets a severe lashing from the giant. Krieg vows to get this giant later, but for now he can't.
Area J22: As the party travels down this corridor, a fire giant warns them to be careful, (using a mountain hick accent) lots of falling rocks around here. Shortly afterwards several chunks of rocks rain upon the party.
Some minor damage later and the party gets through the area.
Room J34: A small crater rests in this room. Dalron enters to search the area. Shortly after he does the crater shoots out a small blast of lava filling the room with burning smoke. Dalron easily saves and gets out of the room without a scratch (that don't happen often does it?)
:)
Room J27: This room was investigated by an invisible, scouting Torin. He found that the northmost end of the northern hallway had 2 trolls guarding it and the eastern hallway did not.
Room J29: Torin investigates this room and quickly triggers a trap. He leaves and does not return.
Room J39: Several azer toil here in a mine of some sort.
Torin then returns to the party and tells them what he saw.
We then stopped for the evening.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 7:55 AM
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