News Alert - This was not Justin

Blog reader Danmar asked me verify that this wasn't Justin, the player who runs Thunderclease/Thundercat.

Not one of us

:)

Session #41

Ok, if you thought that waiting an extra week for this week's session would make it that much better, man are you going to be disappointed.

The western half of region N is pretty picked clean. So any time the party spends there is going to be a bit boring. And with this session, the party was exploring the areas that didn't have many critters to challenge the party.

Now traps are a different story.

Only three players this session; Aaron, Jeff, and Justin. Senmonious was played by Aaron and Dariel was played by Jeff.

There was much bs'ing tonight. We got started late and just didn't have any one ting in the game to focus our attention. Going from several, good, challenging sessions, to a few with no real challenge makes it hard to focus. It usually takes a week or two for everyone to get back into it.

On thing we discussed was the irony of gaming when you're young (high school) versus gaming when you're older (post-college).
When you're young you have all kinds of time and you can play tons and tons of games of all kinds. Did you ever play D&D from Friday after school until Sunday morning? But the downfall is that you have a limited amount of money on hand. So you have all kinds of time to play your games, but very little money to buy the games.
Now when you're older, you've got a good job. If there's a gaming book out there that you want to buy, you go buy it. But now you have no time.
It's a cruel irony.
I've been at Yottaquest many times and left without buying a thing. I hate that. It feels wrong. And it's not Yottaquests's fault. They've got plenty of things to buy, but nothing I want or will get any use out of.
I have everything I ever need to play Federation & Empire, but now I have no time.
(If you've never heard of F&E; Turn 1 takes 2-4 hours, turn 2 takes 3-5 hours, turns 3-7 take 4-8 hours a piece, and turn 7+ easily 8 or more hours.)

Yes my cheapness does affect my purchases, but only to prevent me from buying book after book, and more-so if it's over $35...it's probably not going to be bought.

But anyway, on with the game!

Map

The party had last defeated the poor, innocent iron golem and checked out the long hallway before heading back to the garrison and resting.

This session started off with the party returning to the long hallway and investigating the door.

Oops! They don't have a rogue any more.
So now they have to fore-go the use of a trap remover and replace him with a trap springer.
Thundercat, you're up front!

Hallway N194: The party encountered a mohrg riding a zombie wyvern.
Instead of immediately beginning a fight, he held up his hand and spoke to party.
He told them he knows of their power and does not wish to fight any longer for his warlord. He only wishes to be left alone to serve the rest of his sentence.
And he is willing to give the party information in trade for his life and freedom.
The party says that their vows prevent them from making deals with something like him, but they may be willing to let him go on his way, depending on the information he gives them.
He reluctantly agrees and tells them that his warlord, a mummy-lord named Kasteoficiss, is a priest of the ancient god of death, Jergal. And she seeks to free some demon of death from the center of the region. If this demon is released and makes it to the surface-world, it will convert every living being into its undead slaves.
To stop this the demon must be defeated while it is still in the dungeon.
To get to the demon the party must find the four doors to the tomb (bronze doors with no handles) and the keys to open the doors, and a way to turn off the force fields in front of the doors.
Kasteoficiss's domain is to the north and she has at least one of the keys.

Note: I have forgotten what I specifically told them. So this dang blog may actually give them some more information than they had. I doubt it will matter much as they would find out the information eventually.

The party believes what he told him is all he knew and all correct, so the party lets him past them, albeit in a very paranoid fashion...just in case.

Room N193: This combat was a taste of things to come for this evening.
The room was your standard evil-altar and sacrifice room.
And residing inside, and in hiding, were 6 allips (powered-up of course...and in case you are wondering...several of the creatures in this region have been powered up to make things a little more challenging).

No round-by-round info this time. This fight was just sad.
Thundercat failed his save versus the insane rambling and just stood there the entire combat.
But it didn't matter. The rest of the group took care of them thanks to spells like Heal, Blade Barrier, and Firebrand. I'm not even sure I remember any melee damage that mattered.

Room N120: This was another altar room. And it also had 5 allips.
Now instead of doing another combat the would have ended the same, I just told the party to mark off a Firebrand, a Flame Strike or Blade Barrier, and a Heal, and I'd give them some pittance XP.

Room N119: Effectively another empty room with some dark-clerical accoutrements in it.

Room N118: This room had hundreds of holes in the floor, walls, and ceiling. Thunderclease, newly anointed trap-springer, carefully walked into the room.
Four poison spikes jumped out of random holes. Had he not been in his Thundercat form, he might have had a problem. But he was, so jumped back to the hallway.
Then he jumped to the other door in the room, hoping to open the door without springing the trap. It almost worked. He sprung the trap again, with the same results. But the door was locked, so he leapt back out and the party chose another direction.

Room N117: Empty room.

Room N116: Another empty room.

Room N115: This is a holding pen for 4 wyvern zombies.
I don't think it took even 3 rounds for the party to clean them out.

Room N114: Black soot covered the walls of this room. Trapspringer Thundercat took damage from 2 simultaneous 18d6 Delayed Blast Fireballs. Once again decent saves and 2 clerics turn a powerful trap into a minor nuisance.

Room N113: Another empty room.

Room N131: Another empty room...with a compactor trap. The ceiling began lowering while the floor began rising. The solo Cleez easily got out of the room. Then the party decided to go another direction.

Room N130: Another empty room.

Room N132: This was the 2nd saddest thing to happen all night.
In this room was a mohrg riding a zombie wyvern.
Combat began immediately.

Round 1: Thunderclease won initiative.
He attacked the zombie wyvern mount. Two massive swings and 0 misses later, the mount dropped. The mohrg failed his riding check and dropped at Cleez's feat. One cleave swing and 2 regular swings later and the mohrg was no more.

The party had even buffed up for this fight.

Room N135: Well at least this room had some rubble.

Room N133: The party detected 3 points of strong evil in this room so they burst the door open. Well they tried too. Upon touching the door a trap with a Horrid Wilting and an Energy Drain blasted out at Cleez. Minor nuisance yet again.
So he opened the door and went to town.
Round 1: Cleez won initiative again. In that round he downed the mohrg near the door.
The other 2 mohrgs, realizing that staying and fighting was not a good idea, ran. One ran north and the other east.
Everyone but Cleez ran after the mohrg that ran east.
Round 2: Cleez with his 100' per round (60' leonal speed + 10' barbarian bonus + 30' hast bonus) movement caught up to one of the mohrgs and did some nice damage to it.
Both mohrgs try to continue to run.
The one Cleez is after is finished with an attack of opportunity.
The rest of the party gets a few AoO attacks, but not enough to drop it.
The last mohrg gets away and opens the door to room N136.
The rest of party catches up to the mohrg, leaving it in bad shape.
Round 3: Cleez sprints over 80' to catch up to the last mohrg and then finishes it off.

While the party is there, and the door is open, they decide to check out...

Room N136: This dark room was both warm, cool, and quite a bit breezy. Cleez investigated the room, to find nothing...except that he triggered a trap. A big trap that stretched out over 300' from the room. And it was a nasty storm.

Round 1: A loud thunderclap fills the area, the party has to save or of be deafened.
The party doesn't like it so they try to run away, then realize that everywhere they look is just as filled with a storm.
Round 2: Acid rain dropped down on the party for a mere 1d6 acid damage.
The party gathers together.
Round 3: Lighting bolts fly about everywhere. Everybody gets a nice 10d6 lightning damage. Dariel is at about 50% after that.
Krieg puts a Wall of Stone above the party.
Round 4: A hail storm crashes about, but the party is protected.
Round 5: Several meteors from a Meteor Swarm drop down on the party. They don't take any damage thanks to the Wall of Stone, but the wall is ruined as a result.
Valden heals Dariel. Dariel casts a Wall of Force over the party.
Round 6-10: Just rain for the rest of the spell. The Wall of Force looks like a car's windshield during a storm though.

Room N140 & N141: One room had a big hole in the floor, 3 long dead elves, and a bunch of rusty digging equipment. The other room was a receptacle for the dug up rubble.

But first, the door leading to room N140 was trapped. A Wail of the Banshee spell went off. Just like the one that killed the sorcerer Zorak. And this time the sorcerer Dariel failed his save and promptly died of fright.

And then we realized that Wail of the Banshee is a death spell, and Death Ward prevented it from working. So Dariel was alive again.

Heh.

Room N142: This room was tall and trapped. It even took 2 charges off the Wand of Knock to open the door.
It was utterly empty except for fiery yellow corundum on the floor. When Cleez tried to grab the gem, the door tried to close, and a spray hits Cleez.
The party is able to hold the door open and Valden and Cleez switch places.
Eventually the party is able to pull the gem free and make a run for it out of the room.

Room N143: Empty room.

Room N146: Another empty room that looked like the sight of an intense battle.

Room N144: Yet another empty room.

Area N100: Another "unholy oil" trap. Everyone makes it past the area with no ill-effects.

Room N149: A rubble filled hallway with some minor treasure buried in the rubble.

It's late, so the party flies back to the garrison and we call it a night.

Next session...Pain!

Session #40

All right.

I'd like to start with links.
There are 3 types of links I have on the blog; WLD related links, general gaming links, and my personal favorites.

If you have a blog or website about the WLD, let me know and I'll add it.
If you have a blog or website about gaming in general that I might think is useful, put up a link for this site and I'll add it on here.
And to be one of my favorites...well good luck with that.
Also note that if your site is inactive for over a month, I may remove it to make room for others and general website cleanliness :)

The map this time around is a bit ugly. Region N is the size of 2 standard regions, so the map is split into 2. So that requires some creative playing with the map when the party does that much exploration. And if the party's explorations covers a wide area, that requires some creative editing on my part. So if it's too ugly for you, sorry. If it matter that much to you, I have the originals that I can e-mail to you.

And we reached a resolution for the accidental rules-breaking of polymorphing Thunderclease into Thundercat. The biggest cause for this is that this is the first campaign I've had for 3rd edition that went above level 12. So hiccups are to be expected.

But anyway, if you're wondering how the party had access to Polymorph Any Object, it's not that complicated. Krieg has access to it as part of his clerical domains. But it was too high of a level for him to cast, until he was able to buy a Candle of Invocation. While using it clerics get a level bump, so long as the wick is burning.

Resolution came with the final use of the candle. Krieg cast Miracle and paid 5000xp. So now Thunderclease is considered an outsider, and receives the good and bad that comes with that.

Now you might think to yourself that this is just too much. Yeah maybe, but it's fun. And games are supposed to be fun.

We are skirting the border of power-gamerism though. That I'm not cool with. And I'll be addressing that.

But on with the game.
Everyone made it this session.
Those who came to the game to kill some evil monsters were pretty disappointed for the first 2-3 hours. Because they killed the leader of the incorporeal undead, those under her control fled. This left quite a few empty rooms.

Map

Well first off the party sold their unused and unwanted gear and ill-gotten gains from killing monsters and taking their treasure. Then they ordered a few more items from those sales.

Then they burned off the rest of the candle as spoken about above, cast their breakfast spells, and Wind Walked to room N56.

Room N56: This is the central area for the Judge's domain. The party scoured the area looking for something, but weren't sure what it was. They weren't even sure it would be here. And to make it worse, they don't have a rogue-type that can search effectively.

Needless to say, they found nothing.

Hallway N68: The party began walking down the hallway in their usual manner. They then see a large statue-like object blocking their path.

Thunderclease and Senmonious, the 2 PCs with the longest dang names to type, move forward to investigate.

It doesn't appear to move as they get closer.

They move from 60' away to 30' and finally 20'. But the statue doesn't stir.
So Cleez, in his infinite wisdom score of 8, picks up a rock and tosses it at the statue.

And in classic Robocop ED-209 style it erupts into movement. It looks at the rock, then at Cleez, then goes back to its original position and ceases all movement.

Since it wasn't making any aggressive moves, the party turned around and left it alone. But the warmongers of the group kept urging the group to return and crush it.

Room N60: This area was relatively empty, there would have been combat had the Judge still been around. After a quick search, they moved on.

Room N89: This area was relatively empty, there would have been combat had Vinnara still been around. After a quick search, they moved on.

Room N91: This room had 4 grey skeletons piled together on the floor with dozens of demonic busts on the ceiling. Thunderclease and Dariel (for whatever reason) both investigate. Moments after they enter the demonic faces in the ceiling blast a tremendous cold blast on the two PCs. This adds up to 24d6 damage.

Luckily for Dariel, they both saved.

Some healing and anti-cold buffs later, Cleez searched the room and only found out that the bones were 100% stripped of life.

Thus begins the learning curve for Brian to play an arcane caster.

Room N92: This room appeared 100% empty, but did have quite a bit of mortar filling in countless cracks in the walls.

Just a few seconds after Cleez entered the room to search it; hundreds of voices began loudly babbling an insane torrent of voices.
Everyone that could hear the voices had to make a DC30 will save. And they had to save every round they remained near the room and heard the voices.
Cleez failed twice. Sen, Krieg, and Dariel failed once. And Valden didn't fail at all.
Each time they failed, they got a curse that gave them a -8 on one of their saves, attack rolls, ability checks, or skill checks (determined randomly).
Krieg quickly cast Break Enchantment that removed three of the five curses. In the end Cleez and Dariel have a -8 to their Will saves.

They don't return to the room.

Room N109:
Ok, if you haven't learned by now that I like screwing with the heads of the players, well this must be for you first visit, so "Hi."

The party opens the door to this room and sees a giant evil-looking stone skull with its mouth open and almost 7' tall.

Thunderclease enters the room, alone.
What Cleez see: After he gets a few feet into the room, the party disappears and the door slams shut.
What the rest of the party see: Cleez gets a few feet into the room, then he disappears and the door slams shut.

I then ask Justin to go upstairs so I can deal with him in a separately and throw in a feeling of urgency for everyone.

Round 1:
Cleez: Doesn't seem to worry about what's happening. He searches the room.
Party: They try to use their Wand of Knock. When that fails they try to bash it down, but hit an invisible wall.

Round 2:
Cleez: The room gets dark and black field takes a humanoid shape in the center of the room. Then a dark blast explodes from it and Cleez has to make a series of saves. He makes all but the last one and only loses his Deathward spell. A dread wraith now stands in the center of the room.

Party: They hear the sounds of a giant cat being ripped limb from limb behind the door.
They try to disintegrate the field blocking the door. The field fades in a small area, but then reforms.

Round 3:
Cleez: He and the wraith go at it. Some damage is handed back and forth, but Cleez makes his Fort save, so no constitution drain.
Party: Two Dispel Magics do nothing. A Greater Dispel followed by a Nat 20 gets rid of the field. More agonizing screams of Cleez.

Round 4:
Cleez: Cleez leaves the wraith with less than 20hp by the end of the round. Cleez has taken only 17hp of damage from the combat.
Party: The door is locked, so they unlock it with a wand of Knock, which doesn't work. So they open it with another Disintegrate spell. All they see is an empty hallway and no Cleez.

Round 5: Cleez finishes off the wraith.
He was pretty much not in any real danger. He has a Scarab of Protection with 2 charges remaining.
But here's the best part, I walked back downstairs after handing Justin a piece of blank paper. I instructed him to rip it up loud enough for everyone downstairs to hear it as I walked downstairs. I wanted to make everyone else think he was ripping up his character sheet and that Cleez had died again.
It worked perfectly, I brought everything back down with me (dice, clipboard, paper, pen, and WLD book), so it was obvious the fight was over.

Party: They begin casting buffing spells.
Justin comes downstairs with no emotion on his face whatsoever. He grabs his glass and goes back upstairs to get a drink, with nothing more than a gesture stating that he's going for a refill.

Round 6:
Party: The party casts another round of buffing spells.
Cleez: Appears to the party, and looks at them like they're crazy, with barely a scratch upon him.

I enjoy the moment in a job well done by Justin and me. I should probably give Cleez a boost in XP or something for that.

Room N108: The party begins another "charge through the dungeon".
This room had 3 skulls hanging over the doors that seem to "aim" at the center of the room.
Cleez steps into the center of the room. The skulls emit some white light at Cleez. He feels nothing more than a warm tingly feeling.

Otherwise the room is empty.

Room N107: This room is bare save for a serpentine rune on the floor with the Celestial word "Absolve" written by it. The faintest of magic is emitting from the rune. After some testing that turns up nothing, the party gives up and moves on.

Room N106: Another room that is empty because Vinnara is gone.

Room N103: Yet another empty room because Vinnara is gone.

Why did I make these rooms empty? There is not a challenge in these combats. A few dice rolls and 15-30 minutes gone all for no real gain or risk all adds up to boredom.

Area N158: The eastern hallway to this area was not an ordinary hallway. A visible wall of force blocked the party from investigating further.
They could see a bronze door behind the wall that no knob, but instead had an indentation in the door in the shape of an eight-pointed star.

The party notes this and moves on.

Room N157: Another room that is empty because Vinnara is gone.

Room N156: An actual empty room.

Room N155: This room was pretty much just a pit. It was a sprung trap that was never reset. There was a 1' ledge, but 4 of the 5 party members have Freedom of Movement cast on them.

Dariel cast Fly on Cleez who then investigated the pit.
At the bottom he found a +1 dagger that had a faint glow to it, a potion, and 24gp in coin.

Room N154: This room once held crates of food and other provisions, but now they are dried out and unusable thanks to the taint of the undead in the area.

Room N153: This room held the skeletal remains of man with a dog's head. The party believes it to be either a hound archon or a gnoll, either way they leave it alone.

Room N151: A once occupied room that is now empty, once again, thanks to Vinnara's death.

Room N146: This room contained many patches of dried blood, but was otherwise empty. So the party moves on.

Room N149: Powdered rocks, boulders, charred wood, and broken furniture litter this room. The party moves on.

Room N152: Another trap fills this room. A double-strength maximized fireball (120 fire damage) blasts in this room. Those who were in the room saved and then were healed by the walking band-aids.

Room N151: A lightning bolt trap was in this room. Read room N152...same thing.

Room N147: A statue made of red stones, green stones, and blackened metal stood at the southern door of this room. It is indeed a shield guardian with some powerful abilities added to it.

When Cleez tosses a rock at it, it immediately springs to life and attacks.

It is slow and goes last on the initiative.
Round 1: Cleez, Valden, and Senmonious move directly into melee.
Dariel casts a purified Disintegrate at the guardian. He makes the ranged touch attack, breaks through its spell resistance, and it fails its save. So Dariel does 28d6 damage to the guardian.

...target acquired...and it's within 10'

The guardian gets 4 swings, each with a Vampiric Touch added to it. But Dariel has Deathward, so Vampiric Touch means nothing. But the guardian's 2d6+12 is quite a bit of damage to a sorcerer.
By all rights, Dariel is dead. The fourth hit put him beyond the -10hp threshold. But I also understand that going from playing melee types to playing a caster type is a transition. So for the 2nd and final time, I cut Brian a break with this PC. Dariel is left at -9hp.

The rest of the fight is the standard back and forth melee damage that we all know and love. It takes a few rounds, but the 388hp guardian eventually falls to the might of the party.

Dariel, of course, was healed and got out of melee range ASAP.

Area N148: This area is very similar to are N158. A visible wall of force prevents the party from closely investigating a bronze door with no handle, but instead has wide circle of sparkly white diamond with a hole in its center.

The party makes note, and moves on.

Now it's getting late, and the warmongers got a taste of blood.
Soooo...

Hallway N68:
They want to take out ED-209. So they buff up with their remaining spells and charge.

ED-209 is an iron golem. It was an iron golem built by the celestials that made the prison. Had the leonal looking Thundercat, or the angelic looking Senmonious, both who have signed the charter, simply asked the golem to step aside, it would have.

But they wanted a fight...

Round 1: Dariel, this time from over 50' away, casts Disintegrate. For his ranged touch attack he rolls a natural 1...
Valden moves forward and casts a Blade Barrier where the golem is standing. The party isn't yet aware that this is an iron golem, so they aren't happy that all they see are a bunch of sparks.
Krieg tries another spell on the golem...to the same results.
Sen and Cleez jump into melee and do some minor scratching on its armor.
It slams at Cleez for maybe 10% of his hp. Hardly worth mentioning really.

Round 2: Dariel tries a purified Disintegrate this time. He hits this time, but there is once again no effect.

The rest of the fight is nothing much really. Standard back and forth melee damage, but the party has the benefit of the Power Attack feat to push the odds into their favor.

A short while later, it falls to the ground in chunks.

They check out the extent of the hallway, then Wind Walk back to the garrison and rest.

Until next week!

Session #39

I didn't kill anyone this session.
So the streak is over.

There's also been a post-game discovery.
I had figured that the Polymorph Any Object, in the manner we were using it, was over powered.
I did some asking on ENWorld, and aha, something was pointed out.
A leonal is an outsider. You can't be polymorphed into an outsider unless you're already one.

I believe we've found a way to fix this, at a cost of course.

Brian's new sorcerer has been made. His name is Dariel (Duh-rye-ull). The logic behind the design is to work for and around the party. He has as many buff spells as the clerics, and he has the feat Purify Spell. That feat allows him to cast damage spells that don't hurt those of good alignment, and does a little extra to evils.

I took the lazy way to introduce Dariel. I just couldn't think of anything all that interesting to make it mesh with everything. Here's how it worked. Dariel had been in contact with various celestial groups, and owed them a favor. The celestials called in their favor.
Dariel, party.
Party, Dariel.

Yeah...it's sad...but you can't say you haven't done something like that before.
No pointing the finger at me if you've ever started off a campaign with the words, "So you're all at the local inn...".

Yeah...I thought so.
:)

Oh, and I watched the movie Dungeons & Dragons 2: Wrath of the Dragon God.
...And that's about all I have to say about it.

Map

After they say "Hi" to their new party member, the adventurers Wind Walked to room N27.
They then cast their buff spells and prepared for another charge through the dungeon.

Room N22: Skeleton hordes. Drats. They turn around.

Valden notices, through his clerical Detect Evil spell, that he will briefly get a "blip", but it quickly goes away. This happens over and over again.

Room N98: More Skeleton Hordes.

Room N96: A clerical Detect Evil spell detects 6 points of strong/overwhelming evil within the room...then they go away.

Thunderclease and Valden enter the room, side-by-side, and buffed up, to investigate.

Six dread wraiths jump out of the walls, but not in the room. They jump out of the walls in the hallway and all attack Krieg.

Surprise Round:
Six dread wraiths swarm Krieg, then flee back into the walls. He's left just above 50% hp.

Round 1: Thunderclease remains in the center of the room and calls for everyone to join him.
Valden rushes to the door to offer an armed escort for Krieg and Dariel
Krieg readies an action.
Dariel readies an action to cast a spell.
The wraiths jump out of the walls, 1 at a time.
Dariel's action is to cast a Firebrand spell, doing 13d6 damage to the dread wraith.
Krieg casts Ray of Light and does 15d6 damage to the wraith as well.
The wraiths once again attack only Krieg. Leaving him at around 30% hp.

Round 2: Thunderclease holds his action for a melee attack. But he never gets to use it.
Valden holds his action as well. But he gets to use his.
Krieg casts Heal on himself and moves closer to Valden.
Dariel holds his action.
The wraiths jump out of the walls again, one at a time.
First Dariel casts a Scorching Ray at a Wraith, but only hits once because of the amazing touch AC of a dread wraith (25!).
Valden gets his full attack and is hurts a wraith nicely.

Round 3: The entire party rush to the center of the room.
The wraiths do not appear as they are moving into position within the walls.

Round 4: The entire party holds their actions.
When a wraith pops his body through the wall, Krieg and Dariel hit it with their low level damage spells.
The wraiths look for weak points in the parties defenses and take those opportunities to go after Krieg first.
Valden and Thunderclease both take swings when they get a chance.

Round 5: Repeat round 4.

Round 6: Repeat round 4 except that Valden casts Blade Barrier as a protective circle around the party.

Round 7: The wraiths do return.

Round 8: The wraiths attack the party from above.

Rounds 9 & 10: The party gets in the best defensive position they can obtain to allow everyone to be able to attack a wraith that flies in.

Rounds 11 & 12: The wraiths appear to flee.

Valden drops the Blade Barrier.
The wraiths return.

Round 13: The wraiths swarm Krieg again and continue to focus on him.

Round 14+: The party maintains their defensive position and are able to deal 10 times of damage to the dread wraiths before a dread wraith can even make a melee attack.

Once the 3rd dread wraith falls, they retreat for good this time.

The party realizes that the wraiths are learning more and more each time they fight the PCs.

Room N95: The party detects multiple points of medium evil inside this room from their location at the southwest door.

The party's short duration buffs are long gone, but they still have their minute/level spells running and are only expecting to see some minor undead.

So they cautiously enter the room as a single group, not wanting to separate because of their last fight. They find a barracks room for the incorporeal undead, even with bunks that are made of a shadowy substance the radiates faint evil.

As they investigate, they come across the rooms inhabitants, who are watching the party from 30 feet away. Twelve normal wraiths watch the party.

The party almost laugh when they start the combat.

Round 1: Krieg turns to the wraiths and attempts to turn them. Since this areas converts turning into damage, he singes a couple of the wraiths.
The wraith run away through the walls.

The party searches the room and finds absolutely nothing. What do wraiths use for weapons, or need for treasure?

Room N102: This room radiated an overpowering level of lingering evil and direct evil. So the party started buffing up again.

This room was the central room of the leader of the incorporeal hordes. Sitting on her throne was a ghost-woman, dressed in full combat regalia. She was surround by 4 large dread wraiths, and about the room were tables and maps...all drifting in to and out of vision. Every single thing in this room was incorporeal, even the tables.

She started off with some nice conversation and introduced herself as Vinnara. She tells the party that she has been imprisoned in this area for over 4000 years. As she does this she asks the party about their travels and interests and shows much interest in what they've done in this region.

The party realizes she's fishing for information, but they have nothing to lose and plenty to gain.

She then offers the party a deal; help her defeat the game she is playing with the other warlords of this region, and she'll show them the way out. She explains that each warlord holds a magical treasure that represents their power within the game they are playing.

Vinnara is no fool though. She honestly did not expect the party to accept the deal. She knows that the party members are of the purely good type, and won't make a deal with her. She had an ulterior goal.

To waste time.

By the time the party told Vinnara "No", twice, two minutes had passed. So the short duration spells had left in mid-conversation.

It also allowed her other forces to move into position.

She simply couldn't let the party leave. They could end up helping her other enemies. That could not happen.

When the party tried to leave, it began.

The party:
A thundercat barbarian
A buff-less combat cleric
A cleric wearing a big red target on his shirt
A sorcerer that Vinnara knew very little of

The incorporeal forces:
Vinnara - a ghost with 1 level of fighter, 9 levels of rogue, and 10 levels of blackguard...and I doubled her hit points to give her a little staying power
4 dread wraith bodyguards
2 dread wraith lieutenants that had faced the party in combat before, but had to run - they were blocking the hallway exits
12 dread wraiths hiding in the walls near the exit
12 wraiths hiding in walls throughout the area

This combat took over 2 hours to finish.

Round 1: Wraiths and dread wraiths are lightning fast and almost always go first. In fact, this combat the undead forces had their initiatives all together and the heroes had theirs all together.
The dread wraith lieutenants blocked the hallway exits.
The dread wraith bodyguards use their amazing speed to surround the party on its 3 open sides. They attack Krieg if they can, but they do not use spring attack. In fact Spring Attack is not used at all in this combat.
The other wraiths remain hidden within the walls as reserves.
Vinnara heads straight to the party, but does not immediately engage them. She casts a protection from fire spell. (Her wraiths have informed her of their penchant for fire spells and force spells.)
Thunderclease does his usual shredding of a wraith.
Valden, without his combat buffs, does some disappointing melee attacks.
Krieg uses one of his plethora of Rays of Light and aims down the hall at the whatever wraiths are in the way. He also gets off a quickened Prayer spell.
Dariel casts Firebrand, doing 13d6 damage to every opponent in his line of sight.

Round 2: Wraiths continue their attacks on the party. Now they focus their attention on Dariel.
Vinnara steps into melee, wielding her +3, ghost touch, brilliant energy scythe. She swings at Cleez while using her Smite Good ability. The scythe does 18 damage, but her Smite Good does 100 damage. That's about 50% of Cleez's pre-buff hit points.
Thunderclease swings at Vinnara, but her AC is very high thanks to her +5 ghost touch plate mail. It also doesn't help that no one in the party seems to be able to make their 50% vs. incorporeal checks more than a third of the time. He connects with a hit only once.
Valden casts Heal defensively, and then uses it offensively on Vinnara. She makes her save, but the spell still does 70 points of damage to her.
Krieg repeats his Ray of Light attack.
Dariel casts a purified Cone of Cold, with Vinnara as his main target.

Round 3: Wraiths repeat their actions. Dariel is left with less than 50% hp.
Vinnara takes her full attack on Thunderclease, with her first attack being another Smite Good. Her first attack hits, and the rest miss. But she has done another 110+ damage to him. After a minute's worth of math by Justin, he determines that he has exactly 0hp remaining.
Thunderclease delays his action until he is healed.
After some discussion, Valden casts Heal defensively again, and uses it offensively on Vinnara. She fails her save and takes 140hp in damage. See why I doubled her hp?
Krieg casts a Mass Cure Wounds spell. Every undead within his sight, and everyone in the party is healed a few hit points.
Thunderclease now swings, but misses Vinnara every single time.
Dariel repeats the purified Cone of Cold.

Vinnara ends the round with a mere 4hp left. But she had prepared for this. She prepared for a lot of things.

Round 4: The party has cleared a couple of the wraiths, but they are still giving the party problems. But simply put, without the ability to drain constitution, wraiths are chumps.
Vinnara's takes her full attack action on Cleez again. Her Smite Good attack is a natural 1, but a couple of her other attacks connect and leave him once again at 0hp.
She then takes a 5' step out of combat...and into the wall.
The players then throw their arms up in anger and despair. Another escape!
It then goes from bad to worse.
The dread wraith reserves burst out of the walls, filling every open space possible, keeping the party pinned in to prevent Vinnara's escape from being thwarted.
Thunderclease proceeds to rip into any wraith that's got some damage on it.
Valden delays his action, waiting for Dariel to finish his.
Krieg heals Cleez with a Heal spell (which only brings him up to 75%).
Dariel casts Disintegrate at the wall where Vinnara fled to. He easily hits it, but even if he missed it, he would have just hit a wraith instead.
Vinnara stands there dazed, totally caught off-guard. She hadn't prepared for this.
Valden gets his action and casts Cure Critical Wounds on Vinnara. He easily makes his touch attack. Had she even made her save versus the spell, she was doomed.

Her ghost touch equipment dropped to the floor and every ghostly item in the room faded away (even the maps of the region).

The rest of the combat, while not 100% one-sided, took an hour and ended in the obvious.

In the end, only 5 dread wraiths escaped and all 12 regular wraiths never even saw combat.

The party searched the room and found Vinnara's equipment, and in a hidden panel behind her chair they found a 3" thick, 2" across ruby in the shape of an eight-pointed star.

After that, they returned to the garrison, satisfied in a days work well done.

Next session Dale and Senmonious return.