The Growing of a World

Well this campaign’s been going on for a mere 10 sessions, and I like what I’m seeing.

Liking:

Every single PC’s background is having some level of impact on the world. Even the ones that have been permanently lost down the gullet of a huge ankheg have created a few interesting concepts to follow.

I had originally intended the elven lands Maratheelia to be a simple footnote in the story, but thanks to Dale’s and Brian’s characters, it appears as though it will be taking a much larger focus than intended.
Although Allen’s PC, Caspar, is gone, and not likely to return, there is still a side quest for Allen’s new PC, Lindo, to inform Caspar’s mother of his fate. And of course something else might happen in the meantime.

Aaron’s original PC, Ian Cabatuan (not to be confused with Ian de Magi), had me rewrite several things about a southern continent. Nothing drastic, but enough to change some things and add a new potential storyline.

Aaron’s next two PCs were added with a kind of thrown together histories that more aided the then current plotlines rather than create a new one. But given his play style and the status of his characters within the group, there is no chance his characters will fade to the background.

Joy, being new to the game, had only an idea of what she wanted for her PC, a warrior/wizard. So I let her have that and threw in the whole princess idea. So far I believe the reward of being a princess has plenty enough drawbacks (free things mixed with ambushes and being on the run).

Justin’s PC history was more or less thrown together and given a quick back story, so Trebor’s effects on the game world will be a little more muted unless I add something.

My preparation for the game, although with a few hiccups in the beginning, has gone quite well. Combats tend to go quickly by comparison to the way they’ve gone before. Though I expect them to take longer as everyone increases in levels, but that just means I’ll have to work more on the game itself when the time comes or find a good work around (making stuff up on the fly is a good way to save a lot of time and it really irritates people who metagame too much).

The treasure distribution, although a bit light at the moment, is about right. The main reason for this is because creatures that roam the plains tend to have little treasure. If the party were to stop taking the road and head through the mountains, they’d probably get a lot more treasure. But I would think the PC body count would be higher as well. Red dragons tend to do kill PCs.
My expectation is that at higher levels the treasure becomes quite prevalent.
At some point the party might say something like “Does anyone want this dagger +3? No? Alright, we’ll add it to the pile of things to sell.”

I like the danger level where it is. You may think I’ve been a killer DM with a dozen or so PC deaths, but I say “So what?”
PCs are supposed to be danger-loving adventurers out to seek fame and fortune. If they run away the moment they get a nosebleed, then good riddance.
Early on I was a bit harsh to the group, but that was to show that this isn’t some land of happy little elves making toys for Santa. This is a world where Santa has to buy an AK-47 and dress like Rambo to keep those greedy red dragons away from his sleigh while he’s delivering toys.
(How’s that for a Christmas reference?)
Now this group has a better feel of how to work together and what to expect, they can take on tougher challenges. And now that I have a better feel of their skills I can better match the toughness of the challenges to them.

But not every single thing is going perfectly to plan:

The group is not tearing through the combats, getting from point A to point B quickly enough, and the stories moving along a little slow. My solution for that is to shut up and accept it. I was really naïve to think that the party would level every single session for the first few sessions.

Then there’s the issue of the power of the warmage.

In a combat heavy campaign such as this, the warmage class is incredibly strong. This is so much to the point that it has nearly made the sorcerer obsolete. The obvious solution is to make combat less important to your game. There’s no chance of that happening because I’m not about to cut out something that integral to the game just to reduce the effectiveness of a class.

The warmage is ultra-specialized in one direction to the point that it can be utterly worthless in others. But isn’t the barbarian the same way? Both deal lots of damage in combat, but once you take them out of that situation, they aren’t so fun. Sure that barbarian can dish and take the damage, but he’s not the diplomat you’re going to send to make peace. Ask a warmage to dispel the protective enchantments on that lich. Sure, both can work around those issues, but it takes some resources that could have gone somewhere else.

I’ve given thought to somehow reducing the effectiveness of the Orb line of spells to stifle the warmage a bit. I feel it is way too strong for there to be so many spells out there that have no save versus damage and are unaffected by magic resistance. The power of an iron golem is now nil as all you need is someone to hold off the golem for a few rounds while it gets melted away with real acid summoned by the warmage.

So what do I do? Remove the spells entirely? Take away the anti-magic resistance? Add a material cost?

I’ve talked to Dale about this, as this would affect him the most. He totally understands the issue as he’s had to deal with it before. His opinion is about the same about the power of the warmage, but he feels that any changes to the Orb spells would cripple his character and ruin his fun. He would rather not play Artemis at all if the warmage class were weakened. Personally I think he’s just overreacting on that part, but I’m not going to discard his opinion on it.

He argues that the warmages weaknesses are much more numerous than can be seen. The warmage’s primary weakness is that he can dish it, but he can’t take it. At level twenty warmage can toss a sudden maximized, sudden empowered Orb of Acid that deals about 140 points of damage. At average hit points, with a constitution of 16, a warmage will only have 123 hit points. If any of his spells are rebounded back to him, or he faces another warmage, things could end up very unfortunately. There is almost no middle ground.

My intention is to throw in a few challenges that nuking alone cannot defeat, or maybe an enemy warmage or two, and opponents who can rebound his spells back at him. If the power of the warmage is still too heavy after all of that, I might have to actually nerf something.

Now you’re probably thinking that I’m overcorrecting or being mean. I have no plans to sit and wait for Dale to do something simply to pounce on him and screw him over, but I do want to make him paranoid about his own spells. So before he tosses out his huge nuke of a spell, he has to “test the waters” to make sure that it won’t go to waste, or worse come back at him.

I want people to enjoy playing their characters. And I want them to not think that the DM is always out to get them. I am not one of those DMs who rarely give out magic, and when they do, it’s a cursed item. What the hell kind of fun is that? I want the players to get powerful characters, give them the opportunity to use them, and a memorable game.

But one thing I will not do is allow them to relay upon one tactic to win the day all of the time, as they have been with their warmage. That will lead the party down the path they had with Thunderclease – one large and powerful character with a troupe of other PCs that are there to back him up. What happens when that character is no longer there to do what they expect him to do? If they’re not ready, they’re dead.

Maybe I’m alone, but I kind of think WotC dropped the ball when it comes to creating core classes that are that narrowly focused.

I’m willing to listen to all opinions though.

Sean's Campaign - Session #10

Sorry for the lateness. I’ve been pretty busy recently.

In fact, a lot of us are busy in some manner. That’s why we didn’t play this last Friday and we won’t be playing this coming Friday. But given that it’s the holiday season, I doubt any of you are surprised.

This was an excellent game session, in my opinion. Well half of it was. The first half involved paperwork gaming - meaning that the group sold their unwanted loot and bought new loot.

I cut that out of the podcast because who wants to download 2 hours of gamers doing math?

There was a smidgeon that I cut out that was directly game involved and that was the party helping the escaped elves of Maratheelia get a new start in Endrin. This came in the form of the party giving them some masterwork tools they had found in their travels but had never put to use and similar sorts of aid. Ysilia, being an elf that actually misses her homeland and is sad to hear of it current state, helped the elves as much as she could by donating over half of her share of the party’s loot (around 2000gp) to them.

Beyond that, those two hours of game of session went something like:
Aaron: “Ok, we have 4 rubies. How much can we sell those for?”
Sean: “Let’s see the store have a few of those, so probably 75% of their 1000gp value.”
Aaron: “Wait, I have it written down that they’re worth 5000gp.”
Sean: “Nope, only 1000gp.”
Aaron: “Ok, does anybody want to keep any rubies in the group? They’re used in creating fire items mostly.”
Joy: “Yeah, I’m going to create a Wand of Scorching Ray.”
Aaron: “Do you want just one?”
Joy: “Yeah.”
Aaron: “Alright, just mark 1000gp off the amount I give everyone later.”

And so on.
Two hours of that sound like fun?
No, I didn’t think so.

Allen missed this session, and I bet he’s glad he missed it now.

But after the paperwork, the 3 hours of game we had afterwards went really well.

I think I was on my game for this session. Perhaps I’ve finally gotten back the good old DM’ing style I used to have prior to the WLD. I don’t know, but I’m hoping things stay this way. It’s the way things used to be in my Valley campaign.

Once we were done with the paperwork we played a little practical joke on Brian.

His wife called him on his cell, so he went upstairs to talk with her and not interrupt the not-yet-started game. Then one of us, I think it was Justin (getting back for a wet Willy), suggested that we should make him think that Zelast was about to die in a combat.

At first it was just joking, but then we started planning and laying out the battle grid with Zelast surrounded by 4 large figures and everyone else just rushing up to help him.

Then Brian came back and we acted like it was just another combat.

When it got to Brian’s turn, I informed him that he was at -9 hit points and needed to make his stabilization roll or die. A roll he failed.

But we kept going for another minute or so, while Brian thought “Well coming here was a waste. I might as well go home.”

Then we let him in on the joke. He took it pretty good and we all had a laugh.

Now on our last session the group had to decide where they wanted to head to next. I turned it into a poll on our Yahoogroup and here’s how it ended:
Option 1: “Head north to aid the elves.” 4 of 7 voted for this one.
Option 2: “Head west to Siglund to talk to Ari’s father and stop the bounty hunters.” 2 of 7 voted for this one.
Option 3: “Head east, over the bridge, to the land that the party had that nasty fight with 4 huge ankhegs.” 0 of 7 voted this one.
Option 4: “I like pie”. I voted for that one.

Though had Brian known the whole story about the elves, he probably would not have voted for option 1, and gone with 2. Then Aaron probably would have done the same. But it was too late for me change the planned module, so they were stuck with option 1.

So the party began traveling north to the lands of Maratheelia.

After only one random combat with a group of oversized worgs, the party was at a point where they had to choose how to get over the river that separated the lands of Endrin from the lands of Ponalim. They could cross the river at its shallowest point through Krendalar, find a boat or ferry that could take them across, or think up something else that the DM hadn’t planned for.

They chose to head through Krendalar, so they stayed on what was left of the road.

(It’s been a year so the roads aren’t exactly kept up very well, nor are they traveled often.)

When they were a mere mile away from Krendalar they were confronted by a group of 5 minotaurs. Oddly enough the minotaurs had no interest in combat with the party. They instead wanted to offer the party a chance to join them on a raid against a village of “happy, fat people”.

The party agreed, but most likely had no intention of keeping their word.

After a night of mistrusting rest, the two groups awoke to a beautiful morning and headed to the village they were to raid.

The minotaurs led them to the white and pristine walls of Krendalar.

This totally messed with everyone’s heads because they had been in the tornado ruined city of Krendalar a little over two months prior. They were fairly sure that two months isn’t enough time to rebuild a city.

This caused the party to baulk at the thought of a raid, where before they had thought about aiding the minotaurs if the place they were raiding was an evil place, and turning on the minotaurs if they were raiding a good city. This didn’t quite fit their plans.

But all it did was anger the minotaurs, who then called off their partnership and raided the city on their own.

And that was the last the party ever saw of them.

No alarms were raised. No arrows or bolts came raining down. The bull men just ran through the wide open gates of the eastern city wall and disappeared out of sight.

The curiosity got the best of the party, so they cautiously entered the city.

They saw a busy and very normal city, full of people going to and fro.

A very enthusiastic young man greeted the party and offered to help the party find whatever it was they needed in the city.

He directed them to a variety of taverns and inns, temples and churches, and even a magic shop.

That last one got their attention, but they had some tests they wanted to perform. They interacted with things, thinking that it could be an illusion. They even went through the fun of turning Sorra’s horse invisible. All that got them was a freaked out horse. Ari tried a Detect Magic spell, but nothing happened (the spell didn’t go off).

So now instead of an illusion, they thought maybe that this might be a city displaced in time, but first there was magic to be bought.

There they conversed with the magic shop owner, Maleel (I think). She was overjoyed that she had new customers, because she had not seen anyone new in a long time. One by one the party asked if she had a particular item or two. She didn’t, but was confident that she could make it within a few days or so and offered it to the party cheap, 3000gp or less in most cases, even for a carpet of flying. But the party did not trust Maleel, and left her store empty handed.

Next they visited a tavern and had a nice meal.

Then they were off to the library to do some research about prophecies and the past of this city. But when they opened the books, all they found was blank pages but those who lived in the city could see the writing just fine.

Now they wanted to see the mayor, whom they thought lived in the oddly shaped towers in the center of the city (where the ring of trash used to be). There was only one gate to enter the courtyard of the towers, and it was protected by a couple of very large men who had no intention of letting the party in, under any circumstances.

When it about to come to blows, the mayor showed up to ask if the party would like to join him in his house for a chat and they could solve their problems.

The party agreed and they had a wonderful afternoon chat and tea with the mayor. When the party asked who lived in the towers he responded politely that it was not their business. Things went really well until the party, back to thinking that this place was a complex illusion, asked the mayor to come outside the city with them.

The mayor immediately said that he was sorry and he had business to attend to, and quickly went to his study. The mayor’s wife apologized, but repeated that he was very busy and could not waste any further time with the party.

Now the party obviously struck a nerve and decided to just take an object, rather than a person out of the city.

But first they heard a loud commotion by the stables where the party had left their horses.

Oh yeah, the party has horses again. All but Sorra’s are from the spell Regal Procession, which is a basically Mass Mount spell.

Sorra’s horse had escaped from the stable and had gone crazy, kicking and screaming at anything that got near her. Sorra calmed her horse down, but it was still very disturbed, obviously wanting to leave town as soon as smurfing possible.

So the party spent 1gp on a single horseshoe and left town.

Although nothing happened to the horseshoe immediately when they left the town, it did disappear when they were over 2000 feet away from the city.

A successfully cast Detect Magic then showed that a large area, centered on Krendalar, had a very strong illusion aura.

Next the party rested to begin the next morning fresh.

But they weren’t too fresh as the meal that they had at the bar in Krendalar was a bit rancid (mmmm, otyugh jerky), so everyone had to make a save. Those that failed were healed by Ysilia, so it didn’t do much more than irritate the party.

They were willing to leave the city in peace, thinking it was a relatively harmless illusion. But being diseased by a meal proved to the party that something more sinister might be at work here.

Their next stop would once again be Krendalar.

Well in a couple of weeks anyway.

Sean's Campaign - Session #9

Sorry for the long delay. I had a busy weekend, and I paid a lot of attention to the election this past week. Without breaking my “no politics on the blog” rule, I felt that an on time blog entry was trumped by the election process. Hopefully it won’t happen again for say, two years.

Ok, this session was quite a bit better than last one.

Allen liked session #8. He’s a hack-and-slash kind of guy, so it was right up his alley.
(And no, I never docked him any XP for bringing an Eberron book into my house. Though he wasn’t sure if I was kidding or not.)

The main reason last session wasn’t so good in my opinion is that I had a lot of things planned all of which involved Ari, Artemis, or Zelast; and the player of each of those PCs was going to miss. So I had to make a non-consequential side-quest to work into the storyline.

I’m one of those DMs who prefers that everything to have a reason for being in a game world. Why would a wizard place a hedge maze there? Does he like mazes? Does he just have an odd sense of humor? The reason must be something more than “A maze would be cool here”. And I prefer it that way even if the players never find out the exact reason.

That makes it a bit hard for me to work in something new when I already have solid plans. So I just threw together a half-assed storyline about an elf boy noble who ran off when the kythons came. The story line works just fine, but I did a very poor job of executing it.

My strengths as a DM are interesting storylines, preparedness, and math. But among my biggest weaknesses is thinking on my feet. The reason I am prepared is because I need to be prepared. I need to be ready for when the players do something unexpected. Figuring out what to do usually isn’t that hard, but executing it without looking like a bumbling idiot can be a small challenge. Being prepared is the solution to having to think on your feet.

So you mix the irritation of three players whose PCs are crucial to the story at that point with the DM’s preparedness cut short by a busy week at work (mindless work aids the imagination) and you have a recipe for bad night for the DM.

(Another weakness is being too mean to players. But who gives a rat’s ass about that?)

This session suffered from no such problems. Yes Brian was still out, Justin cancelled on us to work, and Allen had to leave early, but it was all ok. We finally knew enough about Brian’s duskblade to be able to run him sufficiently, Justin’s rogue/scout is easy enough to run, and we understand how to run Allen’s monk the way Allen wants him to be run (run being the operative word there).

We stopped the previous session with most of the party returning the body of the young elf noble to his mentor .

The old elf told the party how they came to be in Krendalar.

The elven nation of Maratheelia survived the attacks that hit on the first night, but only barely. The royal house had fallen and several of the remaining noble houses each reached for power instead of choosing the wisest of kings. The noble houses had become as corrupt as the human feudal lords.

The noble houses reached an agreement to form a council until a new elven king could be named. This new council was able to provide protection, but at a high cost to the non-noble elves. The truly corrupt nobles began abusing their powers. Chief among these was House , a house that Zelast, Ysilia, and Artemis had issues with before in the shape of an elf name Jothillian.

Most of the elves remain in Maratheelia, hoping that time, hard work, and good-will can return what once was. But many elves saw this as nothing more than empty hopes and that the heart of Maratheelia had died.

So a little over a month ago over one hundred elves fled from Maratheelia. Most of them were not skilled in combat or magic, but a few combat-worthy types were around…for a while. The hungry creatures roaming the lands descended on the large and mostly untrained group of elves.

By the time they had reached kingdom of Ponalim, there was no one left to protect them, and only one person remaining from house .

Ponalim opened up their doors with open arms, and its king gladly offered the skilled elves a place in his city, all he wanted was a guarantee that his expenses would be worth it. He believed that 100 years of service from the long-lived elves would be fair enough. The elves did not agree. They saw it for what it was; slavery.

The elves declined, and the king of Ponalim let them leave, fairly sure that they would die or be back soon begging for his help.

Once again, the elves headed back out into the wild, still without anyone strong to protect them beyond the boy-noble. This time they followed the road to the trading city of Krendalar.

Reaching Krendalar was their biggest mistake yet. With no one to protect them the elves were easily captured by the kythons and were put to use in the kythons’ “machine”.

Now only 40 elves remain, and they begged the party to escort them to Endrin.

Ysilia & Zelast remained distantly quiet, but would help.

Artemis is sad that his old school could not protect Maratheelia any better, and is now under the control of the nobles. He offered his aid.

The way the king of Ponalim had treated the elves was one of the reasons Sorra had left Ponalim. She would help.

Ari and Trebor, although uninvolved, would help.

Lindo didn’t care, not exactly sticking to his lawful-good alignment too well. (Allen wanted to just go kill something and take its treasure.)

So after a week of regaining their strength, the elves and the party were ready to begin the month long journey to Endrin.

The travel setup was with the party mostly in the front, the elf group in the center, and Sorra with her horse in the rear.

And of course, they were attacked – multiple times.

The first was a couple of ambush drakes (Monster Manual III). No one was lost. The elves ran from combat the first moment they could, a recurring theme for the night.

The second attack was a trio of boneclaws (also Monster Manual III). Instead of attacking the flanks of the group like the ambush drakes did, the boneclaws appeared before the party at a distance of 200’. Since the party did not yet know what these things were, the boneclaws had a nasty advantage. Alone, the charismatic Artemis walked forward to speak with them, not knowing that they were simple killing machines. Artemis almost dropped from the surprise round, but did drop from the attacks of opportunity from running away. It was a long and difficult fight but the party won, and at the cost of Zelast’s life plus a bit of fun trying to get Artemis healed up while avoiding the 20’ reach of the boneclaws.

It’s good to see the party use teamwork. Too bad someone in the party has to die for it to happen. Next time the group might not run up to the creatures like in a bad kung-fu movie. All ninjas must move in at once to attack Bruce Lee, not one at a time like usual.

The next couple of fights were much less of an issue for the party.

One fight had some ravager trolls (from Kalamar’s Dangerous Denizens), but the party uses so much fire and acid damage that their regeneration of 8 was barely even put to use.

The other fight featured a black and red, huge ankheg. The fight itself was really one sided in the party’s favor, but what made this fight interesting was the party’s reaction to another huge ankheg and the alignment warning I had to toss at Allen.

The last time the party met huge ankhegs, they lost 2 PCs and two horses. So they fully expected something similar to happen once the ankheg grabbed someone. But this ankheg was in fact a fiendish variety of ankheg, and like a cat he wanted to play with his food. Once the party realized this, Mr. Fiendish Ankheg was turned into Mr. Squished Cockroach.

Then there was the warning on Allen for not living up to the required good alignment. I gave him a reminder that this is a good-aligned campaign, and all PCs should fit in with that. Of course he thought I was being a little harsh. This group will break him of his munchkinism yet! Or would that be Munchkinitis?

Next on the combat menu, a fight with a group of what Brian would call the Anti-PCs.

Once again they were mercenaries out to get the 250,000gp bounty put on Ari for her safe return to her father.

The DM put some thought into making a challenging but not overpowering combat. There were 8 total attackers of varied classes and options, all level 5 or 6, and hiding behind an illusion created by one of their wizards. To balance it out, the PCs were given a warning in the shape of a burning arrow shot into the sky, so no side had total surprise.

Additionally, since Ari had to be taken alive, she inadvertently protected the group of elves long enough to get away as the opponent casters had limited locations where they could place their Fireball spells.

The highlights of the combat:
Ysilia could not heal others because a dwarven cleric of war and death kept on her. He’d smack her with his spells and weapon, and then she’d respond by healing herself by about the same amount.

Ari was able to easily get out of melee combat and cast spells from safety. At the time she had no idea why.

Artemis had a rough time the entire fight. He was the unfortunate target of a Baleful Transposition spell which caused him to switch places with the dwarf cleric (which then beat on Ysilia). Artemis was now flanked by a halfling rogue and a half-elf ranger. Before they ripped him a new one, he was able to follow Ari’s Fireball at the opposing casters with a Hail of Stone. He eventually had to save himself with an Invisibility spell.

Lindo did even worse than Artemis. He failed his saves versus just about every damage spell thrown at him. Then the opposing monk jumped in an out of combat (Spring Attack) to smack him a time or two. Because Ysilia was busy with the dwarf cleric, she couldn’t get to him to heal him. So when he was down to 5 hit points, he ran out of combat and began taking shots with his large crossbow. But when Artemis turned himself invisible, the ranger picked a new target and got a lucky shot on Lindo, putting him exactly at -10.

(Aaron then complained that the shot was illogical. I disagreed but couldn’t fully disclose why at the time. This was a kidnapping, Lindo was more or less protecting Ari and he was still taking actions in combat, and the only other viable target was Sorra whose armor class was required a roll of 18 or better to hit. And top of all that, it’s not like the players never go after any opponent on the battlefield, even if the target is not all that dangerous at the time. At some point he might become dangerous.)

Sorra spent most of the combat trying to distract the NPC group so that the PCs could take them out. First she mopped up the opposing casters once Ari and Artemis softened them up. Then she used her knight abilities to force the halfling rogue and the NPC leader to focus on her, which then allowed Artemis to get out of combat and resume his nuking.

Artemis then focused his spells on the dwarf cleric, giving Ysilia a chance to heal Artemis.

In the meantime Sorra charged down the archer-ranger and put an end to him.

At that point the dwarf cleric and the monk ran off. But both were picked off by the spellcasters.

The leader of the NPCs, a fighter named Dexter, surrendered to the knight.

They questioned Dexter, finding out that he was simply trying to get the 250,000gp reward on Ari’s head, and then took him to Endrin to be jailed.

Endrin at this time was less than a week away.

The city had expanded its control twice as far as they had 9 weeks ago, when the party last left Endrin, so there are little to no random encounters. This is due to the vigilance of the guards and the aid of groups like Caspar’s Brightblades (this group).

The city had changed a slight bit in the 9 weeks as well. There was now an arena near the castle for entertainment, mostly in the shape of non-lethal combat.

Terrason, the royal wizard who had previously talked with the party informed them that he and others were going to be like the party, adventurers that is. There is a place not far to the south that may hold some information about the prophecy of the coming darkness.

Artemis talked with a representative of the Talonar arms trading company, and filled them in on the status of the elven nation. Although disappointed, the representative gave his sympathy and informed Artemis that if the situation changed, the Talonar would be happy to offer aid.

The elf refugees were not talked about much. The party was given their reward for 40 elves returned and the elf-boy is reported to have been raised. But not much more information has been told.

And of course they spent a little time at the Roaring Bull Inn.

It was late, so any other role-playing had to be cut short.

The party has a lot of loot to sell and then can be used to buy (as part of their deal) or create some magic items on their own. They also had been given a small list of scrolls they can buy (mostly non-combat spells).

This means that the party will be spending a lot of time in Endrin.

And the campaign is at a kind of crossroads.
The party has several options from here.

Do they return up north to deal with the issues of the elves and make a side trip to inform Caspar’s mother of his fate?

Do they travel west to the kingdom of Siglund and try to remove the bounty that Ari’s father has placed on her?

Do they travel east across the bridge to the unknown region that they lost both Caspar and Ian before?

Well no need to wait. This DM needed to know that as well so he could plan everything.
By a vote of 4, to 2, to 0, the party is heading to Maratheelia to save the elves.

And who know what other side-treks might pop up?