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.