Ravenloft #9
As I read through the Rappan Athuk module, I become more impressed with module.
The writers of it are just plain evil for some of the traps and tricks. I won’t mention any specifics just in case, but wow.
Most of the levels I’ve read so far are good for mini-adventures. They’re not like Ravenloft’s one room side-quests, but I think that most of them can be solved in a single session or two. Nor are they like the World’s Largest Dungeon levels with room after room after room that takes 7+ sessions to get through and a lot of repetitive fights.
I will run this module one day, and the goal will be to see how far the party can go at a time without a fatality. I’m betting that can be measured in hours and not sessions.
Hey if this group can survive the multiple PC deaths per player in Ravenloft, I think they can handle a little more of it.
I know I’m still having fun after 1 PC death.
Allen has lost one PC, and he’s leaving the group after this next session. As far as I can tell he’s still having fun. (Note: no Allen this session, Justin played Mortimer.)
Aaron has lost one PC. He seems to be enjoying himself.
Brian is on his third PC, and he’s not complaining. Though this session ticked him off as his dice turned on him. Being a melee type PC and missing 75% of your attack rolls tends to make the night suck.
And the opposite of what I expected, the two people who we thought would be on their second or third PC are still on their first. Justin and Joy haven’t lost a PC yet, in spite of the DM constantly gunning for one of them.
We didn’t do much this session other than make Strahd really, really mad.
After we returned to the village of Barovia, we met Brian’s new PC, a paladin named Hannibal, rested during the afternoon, and went to the underground Mountain Fane to get there around 6pm.
But Strahd had been occasionally scrying on us, so he knew where we were going. But he still had no clue we were using an earth elemental to steal his power away.
We set ourselves up close enough to each other to be able to help in a round or two, but not so close that more than a couple of us couldn’t be caught in a spell blast. Plus we had prepared ourselves to cast protective spells (Protection from Evil on the big hitters and Mass align weapon for everyone) and use single-use items (Silversheen).
So when Strahd showed up around 1am, he did his best to separate us. First he had cast Greater Invisibility on himself, but we knew he was around because he always travels with his fog. Then he cast Wall of Force to separate Ian and Mortimer from the rest of us and teleported near enough to disrupt our false-praying at the shrine with his usual attack spells.
We had chosen the Mountain Fane for a reason; it’s a lot harder to fly away when there’s a roof over your head. Being invisible doesn’t guarantee immunity from attacks, nor does turning require you to see the undead you’re trying to blast. Flying hurt us bad before.
We had him outgunned and surrounded when Ian and Mortimer were able to take the long route around to the battle, and Mina was able to cast Invisibility Purge and a Dispel Magic right at him.
So as is his usual tactic he teleported away, but not far away. He jumped to the entrance and covered it with a Wall of Stone, blocking us in.
It also kept everything else out, so it was a good thing to us.
By the next morning we had been given a good opportunity for rest, and our friendly neighborhood earth elemental succeeded in stealing another portion of Strahd’s power.
At that point we said “why wait another day?” and went straight to the Forest Fane to repeat this thing one more time.
So off to the Forest Fane we went, and just in case you’re wondering we always kept the elemental out of site. He broke us free of the Wall of Stone, but he didn’t do the last bit of destroying it. When he travels with us, he travels underground.
We were pretty much thrown straight into another fight, and Strahd brought some buddies with him again; seven werewolves, a corrupted nymph (or some other kind of corrupted fey), and a trio of vampire spawn – all surrounding us.
Things started off bad for us, then became worse. First the monsters, including Strahd, went early in initiative. Then the entirety of the land was covered in dense plant growth or rubble, so most of us were at half speed. And finally Strahd blasted Mina and Gortag with a Fireball the first round and a Lightning Bolt the next round, and leaving Mina in the negatives and Gortag with a single hit point (plus his raging hit points).
On the plus side, between Mina’s local blasting and Strahd’s nukes, several of our enemies had been fried.
Mortimer, in a rare display of prowess rolled three hits with his bow shots at the nymph, ending her time in the battle before she had a real chance to cause some charm-chaos.
Ian was in bad shape because he was in a location far from anyone else, and was surrounded by a couple of werewolves. He eventually was able to get away from them join up with...
Tenbeers and Hannibal were both terribly slow, a 20’ speed normally, plus being cut in half made them slow moving tanks. But the unfortunate vampire spawns and werewolves they came upon were doomed.
While that was going on Gortag picked up Mina and ran for cover from Strahd so he could heal himself up with potions. (Gortag almost left her there because he’s, well, he’s neutral.) Mortimer, being unable to harm Strahd with his bow, spent the next several rounds healing Mina with a wand of cure light wounds. But Justin’s dice rolling was pathetic (2, 1, 1, 1) and the combat was effectively over by the time she staggered up with a single hit point.
Once Gortag made it to respectable hit points again, he moved back to face Strahd.
Strahd had been busy dealing with Ian during this time. Ian had drunk a potion of Enlarge Person and finished off the remaining werewolves while also taking the blasts from Strahd, leaving him pretty low on the hit points.
When Gortag made it to Strahd, Tenbeers and Hannibal had finally reached about where Ian was. And all of them were grouped nicely for Strahd’s next spell.
He cast it defensively, so Gortag could do nothing to stop the swarm of black tentacles grabbing at the three warriors.
Tenbeers broke free of the things and moved to attack Strahd, so as expected, the coward ran.
But a couple of those rare “good damage rolls” from Dale meant bad news Ian and Hannibal as those two just could not break free and the healers couldn’t get there in time to help.
As Gortag finally reached Ian, he was at -9 hit points. Gortag had to free him and Ian had to stabilize or Ian would be dead for sure. No such luck. Add another body to the pile of character sheets building. Oh and make that two PC’s Aaron has lost.
Eventually, after much aid and healing, Hannibal was finally freed from the tentacles...one round before the spell ended.
But that’s ok, the next morning Strahd awoke with a third scream. The elemental had fulfilled his obligation to Mina, and stole the power of the three fanes from Strahd.
Next week, the castle. (Well I assume it’ll be the castle. I mean, what could be left to do outside of it?)
The writers of it are just plain evil for some of the traps and tricks. I won’t mention any specifics just in case, but wow.
Most of the levels I’ve read so far are good for mini-adventures. They’re not like Ravenloft’s one room side-quests, but I think that most of them can be solved in a single session or two. Nor are they like the World’s Largest Dungeon levels with room after room after room that takes 7+ sessions to get through and a lot of repetitive fights.
I will run this module one day, and the goal will be to see how far the party can go at a time without a fatality. I’m betting that can be measured in hours and not sessions.
Hey if this group can survive the multiple PC deaths per player in Ravenloft, I think they can handle a little more of it.
I know I’m still having fun after 1 PC death.
Allen has lost one PC, and he’s leaving the group after this next session. As far as I can tell he’s still having fun. (Note: no Allen this session, Justin played Mortimer.)
Aaron has lost one PC. He seems to be enjoying himself.
Brian is on his third PC, and he’s not complaining. Though this session ticked him off as his dice turned on him. Being a melee type PC and missing 75% of your attack rolls tends to make the night suck.
And the opposite of what I expected, the two people who we thought would be on their second or third PC are still on their first. Justin and Joy haven’t lost a PC yet, in spite of the DM constantly gunning for one of them.
We didn’t do much this session other than make Strahd really, really mad.
After we returned to the village of Barovia, we met Brian’s new PC, a paladin named Hannibal, rested during the afternoon, and went to the underground Mountain Fane to get there around 6pm.
But Strahd had been occasionally scrying on us, so he knew where we were going. But he still had no clue we were using an earth elemental to steal his power away.
We set ourselves up close enough to each other to be able to help in a round or two, but not so close that more than a couple of us couldn’t be caught in a spell blast. Plus we had prepared ourselves to cast protective spells (Protection from Evil on the big hitters and Mass align weapon for everyone) and use single-use items (Silversheen).
So when Strahd showed up around 1am, he did his best to separate us. First he had cast Greater Invisibility on himself, but we knew he was around because he always travels with his fog. Then he cast Wall of Force to separate Ian and Mortimer from the rest of us and teleported near enough to disrupt our false-praying at the shrine with his usual attack spells.
We had chosen the Mountain Fane for a reason; it’s a lot harder to fly away when there’s a roof over your head. Being invisible doesn’t guarantee immunity from attacks, nor does turning require you to see the undead you’re trying to blast. Flying hurt us bad before.
We had him outgunned and surrounded when Ian and Mortimer were able to take the long route around to the battle, and Mina was able to cast Invisibility Purge and a Dispel Magic right at him.
So as is his usual tactic he teleported away, but not far away. He jumped to the entrance and covered it with a Wall of Stone, blocking us in.
It also kept everything else out, so it was a good thing to us.
By the next morning we had been given a good opportunity for rest, and our friendly neighborhood earth elemental succeeded in stealing another portion of Strahd’s power.
At that point we said “why wait another day?” and went straight to the Forest Fane to repeat this thing one more time.
So off to the Forest Fane we went, and just in case you’re wondering we always kept the elemental out of site. He broke us free of the Wall of Stone, but he didn’t do the last bit of destroying it. When he travels with us, he travels underground.
We were pretty much thrown straight into another fight, and Strahd brought some buddies with him again; seven werewolves, a corrupted nymph (or some other kind of corrupted fey), and a trio of vampire spawn – all surrounding us.
Things started off bad for us, then became worse. First the monsters, including Strahd, went early in initiative. Then the entirety of the land was covered in dense plant growth or rubble, so most of us were at half speed. And finally Strahd blasted Mina and Gortag with a Fireball the first round and a Lightning Bolt the next round, and leaving Mina in the negatives and Gortag with a single hit point (plus his raging hit points).
On the plus side, between Mina’s local blasting and Strahd’s nukes, several of our enemies had been fried.
Mortimer, in a rare display of prowess rolled three hits with his bow shots at the nymph, ending her time in the battle before she had a real chance to cause some charm-chaos.
Ian was in bad shape because he was in a location far from anyone else, and was surrounded by a couple of werewolves. He eventually was able to get away from them join up with...
Tenbeers and Hannibal were both terribly slow, a 20’ speed normally, plus being cut in half made them slow moving tanks. But the unfortunate vampire spawns and werewolves they came upon were doomed.
While that was going on Gortag picked up Mina and ran for cover from Strahd so he could heal himself up with potions. (Gortag almost left her there because he’s, well, he’s neutral.) Mortimer, being unable to harm Strahd with his bow, spent the next several rounds healing Mina with a wand of cure light wounds. But Justin’s dice rolling was pathetic (2, 1, 1, 1) and the combat was effectively over by the time she staggered up with a single hit point.
Once Gortag made it to respectable hit points again, he moved back to face Strahd.
Strahd had been busy dealing with Ian during this time. Ian had drunk a potion of Enlarge Person and finished off the remaining werewolves while also taking the blasts from Strahd, leaving him pretty low on the hit points.
When Gortag made it to Strahd, Tenbeers and Hannibal had finally reached about where Ian was. And all of them were grouped nicely for Strahd’s next spell.
He cast it defensively, so Gortag could do nothing to stop the swarm of black tentacles grabbing at the three warriors.
Tenbeers broke free of the things and moved to attack Strahd, so as expected, the coward ran.
But a couple of those rare “good damage rolls” from Dale meant bad news Ian and Hannibal as those two just could not break free and the healers couldn’t get there in time to help.
As Gortag finally reached Ian, he was at -9 hit points. Gortag had to free him and Ian had to stabilize or Ian would be dead for sure. No such luck. Add another body to the pile of character sheets building. Oh and make that two PC’s Aaron has lost.
Eventually, after much aid and healing, Hannibal was finally freed from the tentacles...one round before the spell ended.
But that’s ok, the next morning Strahd awoke with a third scream. The elemental had fulfilled his obligation to Mina, and stole the power of the three fanes from Strahd.
Next week, the castle. (Well I assume it’ll be the castle. I mean, what could be left to do outside of it?)
posted by BlueBlackRed at 5:55 AM
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