Cormyr #2
(Once again, this is all from memory. I made no recording of it. Errors are guaranteed to be in here.)
After a week’s delay we finally played again this past Friday.
It was a mostly hack ‘n slash night. For the most part that was our, the players’, choice.
Once again I am under-whelmed with a WotC “mega” module. Brian stated prior to beginning that we’d have a chance to use diplomatic means to win at some encounters and so on. So far I’ve seen nothing that would give an advantage by talking, unless the talking would allow us a first strike from surprise.
Everyone was at this session, so at one point we had 5 PC’s. But not at the beginning of the night, we had only 4. Justin had to sit and wait almost 2 hours before he could actually play so Brian could work Justin’s PC into the game.
We started off forging a note and posting it on the main door entrance of the false temple to Mystra. It stated something about an internal fight and everything is fine, please leave the temple be while we sort it all out.
So far it appears to have worked as no Cormyrian Purple Dragons have bothered to come inside.
Next, most of us healed up and traveled deeper into the temple down below after donning some of the temple robes.
At the bottom of the stairs we found a couple more of those shadowy skinned humanoids, an alive but unmoving earth-type creature, and a glowing statue of the real Mystra (though we didn’t know it at the time).
While Faris (my elf rogue) was sneaking around one part of the stairs, the rest of the party talked with a clueless guard.
The best part about sneaking around a temple to Shar (a goddess of night and darkness) is that everyone can do it without looking much out of the ordinary. So when the second guard asked why Faris was sneaking around when he didn’t have to, Faris told the guy to shut the hell up. I figured it was something a guard in this place would expect to hear, and it worked as far as I could tell.
The rest of the party was able to convince the guards to take us to their leader. One guard led, the other guard stayed in the back of the group.
The front guard opened one of the many doors out of the room and led us down a hall to another doorway. When the guard was about to open the next door we sprang into action. Faris got the rear guard by surprise and dropped him with a sneak attack dagger strike (and critted). The rest of the group took out the front guard before he was aware of what was going on.
We wanted to get into the next room pretty quickly, so Dom (Aaron’s beguiler) checked the door for traps and didn’t find any. But there was an alarm, which Dom set off when he opened the door.
Faris hid near the door to the rear, hoping to surprise the earth elemental thing (genaasi maybe?). But the thing never came through the door.
Mouse (Dale’s warlock) and Saeri (Joy’s ranger) took up covered positions in the hallway for their ranged attacks.
Dom hid near the front door in case the priest came in.
The remainder of the fight was big nasty mess.
Dale had forgotten to heal Mouse prior to entering this level, so he only had 4 hit points when the earth elemental thing earth-glided through the floor and up next to him. It pounded him for 14+ points of damage, killing Mouse. That would be the first oops of the night.
Dom was the next to drop as he isn’t equipped well to handle the earth elemental thing. He stabilized at around -7hp.
Saeri was able to drop the earth thing with her ranged attacks, leaving just her and Faris to fight the priest that had joined the fight a few rounds ago.
Faris was pretty much delaying the inevitable while fighting the priest of Shar until then. He bounced between 1 and 11 hit points for a few rounds, but the priest didn’t run out of spells until the very end.
Basically between the earth thing and the priest’s continuous use of spells, we took a beating. Had Brian rolled slightly better and got average damage rolls it would have been a TPK.
Saeri was the last one standing before the priest finally dropped.
At that point in the module, the designers of it actually tell DM’s to do the next part if the fight was too much for the PC’s. To me it’s a little mark against the module, but I’m probably biased against WotC modules at this point (their own fault).
Every one of us in the area healed up 20 hit points, even Faris, who was at exactly -10hp was healed. But not Mouse, being an outsider and having been killed on the prime meant he was out. So Dale pulled out his next PC.
Afterwards we healed up what little we could and searched around the complex, leaving only one door untouched – a black portal with purple trim, but no substance.
We found a variety of things here and there. The diary of a guard in the place that started off with the guard being concerned about the goings on of the place, but later entries in the diary shown the person as a much darker and evil than the earlier entries did as if he had become tainted. We found a note from lead priest that mentioned the trouble with the legitimate cleric of Mystra. More notes about things I cannot recall at the moment about shipments from the east. A room with headless bodies hung up in it, and another room with heads mounted like trophies (one was probably the bookseller we were trying to find). And finally a torture chamber filled with 2 people waiting to be tortured to death.
They had the PC stamp on their forehead, and their equipment was nearby, so they joined us and we continued on our merry way.
Justin’s PC was a monk. I can’t remember his name, but I suggested Holden McGroin.
Dale’s new PC was a druid who used the PHB2 shapeshifting rules. I don’t remember his name either.
After making sure there were no other paths in and out of the place, we checked out the black portal with purple trim (the holy symbol of Shar is a black circle outlined in purple).
The black part of the portal was just an illusion acting as a door, with three displacer serpents waiting around for us to come kill them. But not before they tore Faris a new one.
Once the rest of the party killed the serpents we checked out the room. It had another portal, but this one an actual portal that we left totally alone. After searching the area we went down another set of stairs.
It led to a small dock at an underground river.
Faris scouted the area a bit, heard something from one direction and saw a couple more of those shadow-skinned guards in another direction across a bridge. We had the ranged attackers attempt to take out the visible guards. They only succeeded in getting rid of one, so combat began.
Faris, figuring correctly that the unseen target from one direction would be passing by, waited and hid around the corner it would have to come by.
Everyone else focused on the last guard, and crossed the bridge to get to him.
That was a mistake as a large squid (or something with two long tentacles in the water) grabbed out of the water and pulled targets in, holding them underwater.
Faris’s plan went off pretty good though. He scored yet another crit with a dagger sneak attack. Unfortunately it didn’t bring the target down, and worse, the target was at least level 6 fighter-type. Faris was hosed for sure. A level 4 rogue versus a level 6 fighter – I think you know the outcome.
The rest of the party was able to deal with the shadow-human and eventually (once they adjusted and adapted) the squid, bits of the party broke off to face the human.
Justin’s monk ran to face the guy who was about to drop Faris.
None of us paid that big of attention to the fighter at the time because we thought he was just another mook. Nope, he was specialized in the longspear he was carrying.
Justin didn’t bother tumbling into the combat (oops #2), giving the spear dude a free attack. A confirmed critical did 3d6+21 damage to a guy with only around 28 hit points and already hurt. Goodbye to that PC.
(Having spent two hours just sitting there, Justin was understandably not happy having lost a character an hour later.)
A round later and Faris was at -7hp.
Everyone else went after this spear freak.
By the end Dale’s druid had stabilized Faris, another crit from the spear freak killed Saeri, and Dale’s druid was dropped to negatives.
We stopped after the fight was over.
Next week we pick up our pieces.
After a week’s delay we finally played again this past Friday.
It was a mostly hack ‘n slash night. For the most part that was our, the players’, choice.
Once again I am under-whelmed with a WotC “mega” module. Brian stated prior to beginning that we’d have a chance to use diplomatic means to win at some encounters and so on. So far I’ve seen nothing that would give an advantage by talking, unless the talking would allow us a first strike from surprise.
Everyone was at this session, so at one point we had 5 PC’s. But not at the beginning of the night, we had only 4. Justin had to sit and wait almost 2 hours before he could actually play so Brian could work Justin’s PC into the game.
We started off forging a note and posting it on the main door entrance of the false temple to Mystra. It stated something about an internal fight and everything is fine, please leave the temple be while we sort it all out.
So far it appears to have worked as no Cormyrian Purple Dragons have bothered to come inside.
Next, most of us healed up and traveled deeper into the temple down below after donning some of the temple robes.
At the bottom of the stairs we found a couple more of those shadowy skinned humanoids, an alive but unmoving earth-type creature, and a glowing statue of the real Mystra (though we didn’t know it at the time).
While Faris (my elf rogue) was sneaking around one part of the stairs, the rest of the party talked with a clueless guard.
The best part about sneaking around a temple to Shar (a goddess of night and darkness) is that everyone can do it without looking much out of the ordinary. So when the second guard asked why Faris was sneaking around when he didn’t have to, Faris told the guy to shut the hell up. I figured it was something a guard in this place would expect to hear, and it worked as far as I could tell.
The rest of the party was able to convince the guards to take us to their leader. One guard led, the other guard stayed in the back of the group.
The front guard opened one of the many doors out of the room and led us down a hall to another doorway. When the guard was about to open the next door we sprang into action. Faris got the rear guard by surprise and dropped him with a sneak attack dagger strike (and critted). The rest of the group took out the front guard before he was aware of what was going on.
We wanted to get into the next room pretty quickly, so Dom (Aaron’s beguiler) checked the door for traps and didn’t find any. But there was an alarm, which Dom set off when he opened the door.
Faris hid near the door to the rear, hoping to surprise the earth elemental thing (genaasi maybe?). But the thing never came through the door.
Mouse (Dale’s warlock) and Saeri (Joy’s ranger) took up covered positions in the hallway for their ranged attacks.
Dom hid near the front door in case the priest came in.
The remainder of the fight was big nasty mess.
Dale had forgotten to heal Mouse prior to entering this level, so he only had 4 hit points when the earth elemental thing earth-glided through the floor and up next to him. It pounded him for 14+ points of damage, killing Mouse. That would be the first oops of the night.
Dom was the next to drop as he isn’t equipped well to handle the earth elemental thing. He stabilized at around -7hp.
Saeri was able to drop the earth thing with her ranged attacks, leaving just her and Faris to fight the priest that had joined the fight a few rounds ago.
Faris was pretty much delaying the inevitable while fighting the priest of Shar until then. He bounced between 1 and 11 hit points for a few rounds, but the priest didn’t run out of spells until the very end.
Basically between the earth thing and the priest’s continuous use of spells, we took a beating. Had Brian rolled slightly better and got average damage rolls it would have been a TPK.
Saeri was the last one standing before the priest finally dropped.
At that point in the module, the designers of it actually tell DM’s to do the next part if the fight was too much for the PC’s. To me it’s a little mark against the module, but I’m probably biased against WotC modules at this point (their own fault).
Every one of us in the area healed up 20 hit points, even Faris, who was at exactly -10hp was healed. But not Mouse, being an outsider and having been killed on the prime meant he was out. So Dale pulled out his next PC.
Afterwards we healed up what little we could and searched around the complex, leaving only one door untouched – a black portal with purple trim, but no substance.
We found a variety of things here and there. The diary of a guard in the place that started off with the guard being concerned about the goings on of the place, but later entries in the diary shown the person as a much darker and evil than the earlier entries did as if he had become tainted. We found a note from lead priest that mentioned the trouble with the legitimate cleric of Mystra. More notes about things I cannot recall at the moment about shipments from the east. A room with headless bodies hung up in it, and another room with heads mounted like trophies (one was probably the bookseller we were trying to find). And finally a torture chamber filled with 2 people waiting to be tortured to death.
They had the PC stamp on their forehead, and their equipment was nearby, so they joined us and we continued on our merry way.
Justin’s PC was a monk. I can’t remember his name, but I suggested Holden McGroin.
Dale’s new PC was a druid who used the PHB2 shapeshifting rules. I don’t remember his name either.
After making sure there were no other paths in and out of the place, we checked out the black portal with purple trim (the holy symbol of Shar is a black circle outlined in purple).
The black part of the portal was just an illusion acting as a door, with three displacer serpents waiting around for us to come kill them. But not before they tore Faris a new one.
Once the rest of the party killed the serpents we checked out the room. It had another portal, but this one an actual portal that we left totally alone. After searching the area we went down another set of stairs.
It led to a small dock at an underground river.
Faris scouted the area a bit, heard something from one direction and saw a couple more of those shadow-skinned guards in another direction across a bridge. We had the ranged attackers attempt to take out the visible guards. They only succeeded in getting rid of one, so combat began.
Faris, figuring correctly that the unseen target from one direction would be passing by, waited and hid around the corner it would have to come by.
Everyone else focused on the last guard, and crossed the bridge to get to him.
That was a mistake as a large squid (or something with two long tentacles in the water) grabbed out of the water and pulled targets in, holding them underwater.
Faris’s plan went off pretty good though. He scored yet another crit with a dagger sneak attack. Unfortunately it didn’t bring the target down, and worse, the target was at least level 6 fighter-type. Faris was hosed for sure. A level 4 rogue versus a level 6 fighter – I think you know the outcome.
The rest of the party was able to deal with the shadow-human and eventually (once they adjusted and adapted) the squid, bits of the party broke off to face the human.
Justin’s monk ran to face the guy who was about to drop Faris.
None of us paid that big of attention to the fighter at the time because we thought he was just another mook. Nope, he was specialized in the longspear he was carrying.
Justin didn’t bother tumbling into the combat (oops #2), giving the spear dude a free attack. A confirmed critical did 3d6+21 damage to a guy with only around 28 hit points and already hurt. Goodbye to that PC.
(Having spent two hours just sitting there, Justin was understandably not happy having lost a character an hour later.)
A round later and Faris was at -7hp.
Everyone else went after this spear freak.
By the end Dale’s druid had stabilized Faris, another crit from the spear freak killed Saeri, and Dale’s druid was dropped to negatives.
We stopped after the fight was over.
Next week we pick up our pieces.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 5:47 AM
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