KotS #2 (a.k.a. 4E #3)

Well my opinion of the speed of 4E combat is that it is faster if, and only if, everyone is totally prepared at the table. I don’t mean just the DM.

If a player doesn’t know their PC very well, or 2 PC’s in our case, then the game slows down.

I would much rather have 5 players at the table consistently than have to play 2 PC’s.

In fact, we’re looking in to getting more players right now. I hope that works. I’m hearing that finding gamers is kind of hard right now, unless you’re willing to accept cat-piss men into your games.

I enjoy playing my two PC’s; so long as I’m prepared, and I am for the moment.

This session we jumped right into a combat.

We had found the lair of the kobolds that had been raiding the King’s Road.

It was another D&D Miniatures map, whose name eludes me, but it is one half forested and one half caves, with a waterfall.

This 15 minute encounter involved the forested half and almost a dozen kobolds, 8 minions, a slinger, a skirmisher, and a dragonshield.

We maintained our tactical formation pretty well.
Our front line did a good job of tearing through the kobold front line, while our back line took out groups of minions or went after particular targets.

Unfortunately a very hurt dragonshield kobold shouted out to a skirmisher “Irontooth must be warned!”

The skirmisher promptly ran into the waterfall, giving the kobolds and Irontooth 3 full rounds to prepare for our arrival.

After we handily sent those kobolds to Kurtulmak (the kobold deity), we regrouped and moved into the waterfall without resting.

Some notes for this night:
Note #1:
Aaron can’t roll worth a damn. I think that’s why he plays clerics more than most other classes; he doesn’t get into combat much.
We used to have a term for a member from long ago, Craig. Craig couldn’t roll worth a damn either, and the term “Craiging the roll” was created to account for his amazing ability to roll horribly.
After he moved to other side of the country, we changed it to “Dale-ing the roll.”
We might have to transfer that title to Aaron. As for this session he rolled double digits less about 25% of his roll d20 rolls.
In fact had he not rolled so poorly, we probably could have shaved 20 minutes off this next 100 minute long fight.

Note #2:
I goofed royally by telling Dale that monsters can heal.
The actual rule is that monsters have healing surges, but no way to implement them in combat as they usually don’t have any Second Wind abilities.
This made the next combat last a bit longer as well.

Note #3:
Justin really hates playing wizards in 4E.
Since everything requires a to-hit roll with spells, even Magic Missile, spells are not usually a guarantee to do anything.
Even worse, when a spell does half damage on a miss, minions don’t die because “minions don’t die on a missed attack”.
And what truly ticks him off is that the only attack bonuses you get to attack with wizard spells are half your level and your intelligence modifier. Which for Justin’s wizard is +4 total right now.
He said more than once that he “Frkn hates wizards” and “Just kill him”, meaning he wouldn’t mind if his wizard died.

Note: #4
The reason we’ve been getting surprised by kobolds was because Dale totally misunderstood how Passive Perception works. He was making rolls for Faerel’s perception and rolled low, therefore we were surprised.
How different would those fights have been last week had it been done correctly?

Back to the game…

Behind the waterfall we were met by a horde of kobolds (12 minions, 4 skirmishers, and 2 dragonshields protecting a wyrmpriest) and a goblin (Irontooth – a barbarian type with over 100hp).

The first few rounds of combat were decent. Berlin, Justin’s hated wizard, used an action point to clear out 2/3 of the minions and hurt some others with dual Clouds of Daggers. It also forced other combatants down a couple small rows of open squares funneling them to us.

But after that things got worse.
Justin forgot that fighters are meant to stay put and protect the back line. So Stout wandered off to solo a skirmisher and the two dragonshields.
Aaron saw a good opportunity for backstabbing, so he had Valenae orbit around Stout’s opponents.
When those two got in over their heads, my warlord, Tornok had to go help them with some healing.

That unfortunately left Berlin and our two strikers, Faerel (bow-ranger) and Starlock (a starlock), totally open to attack from the remaining minions, 3 skirmishers and Irontooth.

Faerel did have a shining moment that kind of showed him as a level 1 Legolas. He used his daily power, Split the Tree, to shoot at Irontooth and a skirmisher.
He critted with it, dealing 26 damage to both, killing the skirmisher outright.

In spite of how bad our tactics were, we still had plenty of fight in us.
Justin consistently rolled max damage on his attacks and eventually wore the dragonshields down.
Our three back liners, Faerel, Starlock, and Berlin were able to shift or feystep away from combat. Starlock’s curses kept Irontooth away from Faerel and herself.

But the wizard was not as fortunate as a raging Irontooth knock Berlin to negatives.
Tornok was able to get Berlin back up, but it cost Tornok his positive hit points.

The end had come for Irontooth though. After all but the wyrmpriest were dropped we surrounded him and finished him off.

When Irontooth finally dropped he yelled out “Kalarel and Lord Orcus, prepare my way!”

Great, Superman is helping Orcus. (I thought it was funny.)

When it was finally over we healed up (including Tornok) and were exhausted.

Almost all of our daily and encounter abilities had been used, and when rested almost everyone had used half their healing surges.

We did the standard looting, finding some nice things and a note mentioning something about a spy in Winterhaven and those townspeople soon being food for those in the rift.

When done scouring the area for treasure, we returned to Winterhaven to find a subdued town of people who felt as if “someone had walked on my grave”.

We talked to Lord Padrag (or whatever his name is) and got our reward.
He told us that we might want to check into some keep nearby, the same one we had heard about goblins making their home.
We told him about the spy, and he promised swift and final action if he had real proof of who it was.

For the rest of the day we did some information gathering in the marketplace and the inn.

We found out that the keep holds within in it a rift to the Shadowfell realm. And if it is reopened, this village is doomed.
We also know where the keep is now.

We found out where Stout’s mentor was last seen going to, some “big dig” about 2 miles away.

And finally we think we know who the spy is, but have no proof; some jerk of an elven “noble” woman who doesn’t do anything except hang out at the inn, named Ninnarin.
Valenae searched her room for any proof, but found none. So we put that side quest on the backburner.

After resting, the next morning we headed out to the location of the archaeological dig to find Stout’s mentor.
We found a crater-like area (DDM map – Dragondown Grotto), and bunch of people working on it. An excited gnome was telling us all about it and wanted to show us more about it.

It was an obvious to us trap, but our PC’s didn’t notice thanks to poor rolling.
When they sprang the trap, we were only put on the defensive for a round or two.
It didn’t take long for the gnome to run away invisibly and later appear and put a dagger to Dalthryn’s (Stout’s mentor) throat.
We agreed to leave him alone to do all the digging he wanted and we’d be on our way.
Surprisingly he agreed, and we were soon heading back to town with Dalthryn.

Back in town we helped Dalthryn and rested with the intent of heading off the next morning to the Keep on the Shadowfell.

We’re not sure how next week is going to work as it may only be Aaron, Dale, and myself.

The Keep on the Shadowfell #1

What should have been an immediate jump full bore into 4E was stalled.

We should have had a new player this week, a friend of Justin’s. But he wasn’t ready to join us just yet. That’s usually a bad sign, meaning the guy’s never going to join or he’s a flake.

That’s not a 100% for sure sign of course, but past experience would go with the more pessimistic version.

Brian also cancelled on us because he was sick. He’s going to be out an additional two weeks on vacation.

In related news there were several jokes at Brian’s expense the first hour of the game. At this rate he’ll be two levels behind the rest of the group when he joins us.

Dale decided to end the mini-adventure that we started last session and start us anew with the Keep on the Shadowfell.

The problem was that there were only going to be 3 PC’s in a 5 PC module. Dale gave us options and we went with the 2 PC’s per player option.

So in addition to Tornok, my tiefling warlord, Stout, Justin’s dwarf fighter, and Valenae, Aaron’s eladrin rogue we added:
Faerel, my elf bow ranger
Berlin, Justin’s eladrin wizard
Morgan Starlock, Aaron’s half-elf star-pact warlock

(Note to self – find the guy who nicknamed the warlocks starlock, feylock, and hellock, and punch him in the back of the head.)

It only took us just under an hour to make the PC’s this time around, but that was a costly hour and then we had to learn the new abilities of our new PC’s while trying to still master the powers of our original PC’s.

I made the bow ranger because I wanted something easy to run. Since he was a second PC, I could afford to make him an eggs-all-in-one-basket type. I gave him a 20 Dexterity, 14 Wisdom, 12 Constitution, 10 Intelligence, 10 Strength, and 8 Charisma and all of his powers and feats have to do with ranged attacks and getting out of melee combat.

The 2 PC’s per player did split our attention a bit, but it was our best option.

It also allowed us to experience another character class and race without having to wait for our PC to die a campaign to end.

Like last week we had to consult the book for rules a few times, but it was much easier to find things this week.

The biggest game mistake this week was done by me. I found out after the fact that the ranger power Twin Strike does not get to add your Dex modifier to your damage rolls.

Oops. It was nothing major, and had only a slight impact on the combat it was used in.

The rules mechanics I’ve read so far seem to me to be very similar to 3.5, but have been adjusted to be more streamlined to work with. Additionally, having all of a monster’s abilities spelled out in the stat block helps the DM a lot.

Dale started us in the town of Fallcrest and gave each of our main PC’s a plot hook to get us involved.

Stout’s dwarf mentor, Dalvin Stahl, had gone missing while adventuring and searching for a dragon’s tomb, and his wife asked Stout to investigate. The old dwarf’s last known location was in the village of Winterhaven.

Valenae was approached by the scholar Parlay Cranewing, who hired him to map an old keep near Winterhaven for 250gp.

Tornok’s was asked by Marla, of the church of Pelor, to investigate a group of death cultists who had been last seen near Winterhaven.

The clerics and paladins of the church of Pelor are now very good friends with Tornok. Much drinking was done at the inn and Tornok didn’t have to pay a copper (an 18 charisma is awesome), plus he kept his head on. So when morning comes those Pelorites prayed to the porcelain god while Tornok and his 5 new friends headed to Winterhaven.

We traveled along the King’s Road for 3 days and on the last day we were ambushed by a squad of kobolds that somehow were able to avoid Faerel’s 19 in Passive Perception.

We realized quickly that Dale handicaps are going to hurt him when running this new version of the game.

His vision makes it hard for him to read the monster stat blocks. There’s not much we can do there except maybe buy him a magnifying glass.

But we were able to help Dale with the initiative tracking. He’s not exactly an icon of organization and his fingers just don’t get along with the initiative tracker we bought and love. By taking over that for him, we helped speed the game up almost enough to make up for how slow we made it by taking on 2 PC’s.

The six of us level 1 PC’s were up against 4 kobold minions, a kobold “slinger”, and a pair of dragonshield warrior kobolds.

The round of surprise they got on us hurt us, but we were fine in the end.

Stout was glued with another gluepot, but that was more of an annoyance for a round.
They surrounded us which annoyed all 3 strikers who need a bit more maneuverability, but once one of their sides broke, we made quick work of the rest.

Near the evening of the third day we made it to the small farming village of Winterhaven.

We explored the market area a little bit and Valenae was warned by an old elf lady selling flowers that there were goblins near the keep where she picks her flowers.

Today’s quote of the game is a tie between “Pilsner swilling pretty boy” and “Child molester mustache”.
…Don’t ask.

While at the inn we met with Lord Hadrag, the man in charge of Winterhaven.

The conversation ended with us offering our services to him to help cleanse the local area of the evils it was plagued with, assuming that he helped us with information and there was a reward involved.

He paid for our rooms and gave us directions to find the lair of some kobolds that had been raiding the King’s Road.

The next morning we were back on the King’s Road to kill some more kobolds.

Once again they surprised us (Dale was rolling killer for their hiding).

Tornok was at the bottom of the initiative stack, meaning that every monster would get two actions before was able to act once.

This time the kobolds were a trio of dragonshields, a skirmisher, and a “wyrmpriest” who started the fight with a cold breath attack that hit everyone in the group save Faerel.

Those simple kobolds hurt everyone a little bit, but tore up Tornok who went from 24hp to 6hp before he even acted once. His first round he used his Second Wind and Inspiring Word to heal himself back up to 23hp.

Once we were on our feet and able to fight back, we slaughtered the kobolds, especially the wyrmpriest.

Justin critted with his wizard’s Force Orb, my ranger nearly took out a dragonshield alone, Aaron’s warlock played the blasting game, while Aaron’s rogue and Justin’s fighter had a good time flanking and killing.

The wyrmpriest tried to run when he was the last kobold around, but we captured him. When he refused to speak to us, Tornok killed him (he gives no mercy to someone who just tried to kill him).

On the bodied we found around 7gp in coins and a golden symbol of Orcus.
That’s not a good sign. But does tell Tornok the kind of death cult he’s looking for.

After that we stopped for the night and wondered how many more fights we could have taken on had we had that hour, I’m betting on two because Dale had the miniatures for the fights ready.

4E is here!

Hooray, 4E is here!

Despite all of my love-hate rants of 4E in the past 10 months, I was glad the game was here.

Third Edition, in spite all of its vast improvements over Second Edition, had kind of run out of steam for me.

High level combats took ridiculous amounts of time to prepare for and run. Dispel Magic in a most combats took several minutes to readjust all of the math from the new list of buffs on the party.
Low level games were fun, but after a while they became repetitive. When new books were released they certainly added something to the game, but it was temporary.

I just hope 4E can deliver what was promised, and so far the potential outlook is good.

We played a short episode with Dale as the DM, and a few of us took part in the Worldwide D&D Game Day at Yottaquest.

I took half a day off at work to get the books as soon as I could (then went home and took care of babies for the next 5 hours with little reading of the books).
Brian had the day off as well (he has no babies, so he read plenty of the PHB).
Justin had gotten the PHB about half an hour prior to the session.
Dale and Aaron ordered the books online, meaning they would be getting their books later (1-3 days).

The first thing we did was to sit down and plan out what we were going to do as a group. Something we really hadn’t done very well for a couple of years.

Brian was debating on taking a paladin or a wizard.
Aaron was debating on rogue or cleric.
Justin was unsure, but melee classes are always his preferred.
I was debating on a paladin or warlord.
Dale was busy mentally devouring my copy of the DMG or MM.

To cover the controller task, Brian took a wizard.
To cover the striker task, Aaron took a rogue.
To cover the defender task, Justin took a fighter.
To cover the leader task, I took a warlord.

It took us nearly 3 hours to make our characters, 1 hour creation + 2 hours BS’ing. We just couldn’t resist ourselves. They added things that reminded me of Diablo 2 (3 stages of armor), and they added lambas bread from Lord of the Rings!

And here are our results:
Brian made Hadrei, the human wizard.
Aaron made Valenae, the eladrin rogue.
Justin made Stout, the dwarven fighter.
I made Tornok, the tiefling warlord.

(If you’re wondering why I made a tiefling PC when I ranted about using them, it was just to try it out.)

First we agreed on a few ground rules for the game:
First – We are going to make mistakes since we have new rules. We’ll just deal with them as best we can. (An example for this night was Cleave vs. minions.)
Second – We make no long-term house-rules until we understand the rules of the game sufficiently enough to make changes that won’t disrupt the whole game.
Third – Pay attention. Everything we’ve heard shows that this version of the game requires more attention from everyone.

Dale’s campaign is going to be a standard village with all kinds of problems that only heroes can fix.

We had less than an hour for us to play after character creation, so Dale ran us through the first room of Raiders of Oakhurst – a fan-made module he downloaded.

The plot was the standard, someone needs help somewhere, and some brave adventurers are needed to kill bad guys doing bad things to people who need help.

(Yeah I forgot the specifics of the module, there was a lot going on that night.)

The first room we entered had a bunch of kobolds (minions) around a fire with there leader nearby.

We go on initiative.

The leader of the kobolds in the room (named Ichichi I think) goes first and raises the alarm with a gong and drops a bunch of caltrops around the ground near us.

As we took out the minions, more minions show up.

When we took out Ichichi, a kobold skirmisher and caster join the fray.

It took us a while to kill the skirmisher and make the caster run away, but we won.

We did well as a group overall.

Justin did what he needed to with his fighter, wade into melee and take the brunt of the damage taking out the minions with Cleave and used his encounter attacks on non-minions.

Aaron did what he could with his rogue, getting into back stabbing position against non-minions.

My job was to keep Justin’s fighter decent on hit points with my limited healing, and to help Aaron get into position. I did about as well as I could, but hope to do better once we’ve gotten more used to the new system.

Brian did his job of staying in the back while concentrating his attention on the more dangerous non-minions. I think he made the mistake of using his daily power against the caster instead of saving it. But that’s ok; we made the mistake of getting too far away from him, leaving him open to melee attacks.

Live and learn.

We ended the night when the combat was over, anxious to try this new game again.

That particular combat lasted longer than 30 minutes. I would consider that a bad sign of things to come, but I think it was really because new combatants kept entering the fray, so it was really two combats with no rest in between. So if that’s the case, then I’m happy with those results.

Now if we can keep that up at level 10 and up, then I’ll be happy.

The next day I was able to get away from home for about 6 hours and was able to get some more game time in for 4E.

I played in two D&D events, a 2 hour mini-module that was a series of fights to save some kidnapped children from an evil wizard, and a half hour fight against a watered down white dragon (on the Hailstorm Tower DDM map – one of my favorites).

One thing that a lot of people were talking about (and making fun of) was the total lack of DDI being ready as originally touted. I wasn’t surprised but haven’t been keeping track of it. My bet is that WotC bit off more than it can chew and bugs ran rampant.

Anyway, Dale and I played together in the 2 hour mini-module. For this one I really wish we’d had a different DM (I think only Dale liked the guy’s game, Dale is pretty easygoing). I don’t want to go in to specifics, but had the other 3 players in the group not made the best of it, I’d have probably walked away.

I didn’t let the disappointment of the first game get me down, we still won the module (though I think the DM dropped a combat), and I was ready for the dragon-fight module.

Now lest you think I’m overly harsh on DM’s, the guy who ran this module was good (in spite of him being an Eberron lover). He enjoyed when the players did well and added some quick descriptions of what we did when we hit or missed our attacks (something I’ve never gotten the knack of).

I was hoping the dragon-fight was higher level PC’s vs. a tough dragon, but it was a watered-down white dragon meant to take on the same level 1 PC’s from the other mini-module.

Since I was last to sit down this time, I was “stuck” with the dwarven fighter. Hah! Their loss was my gain.

We started in a safe corner of the map and I went one way and the rest of the group stuck together and went another way. Lucky for them the dragon missed with its breath weapon (it then flew back to the tower).

We then swarmed the tower from two sides, and somehow it ended up with me being alone on one side. So I went on figuring I’d be dead soon enough.

That dragon had 200 hit points and somehow we tore it up. My dwarf and the other human fighter surrounded the dragon and trapped it in passage.

Using my daily attack and an encounter attack (with an action point) I did 60 points of damage in one round, plus another 10 when it tried to fly away, which ruined its attempt to fly away.

The dragon tore me up a bit, but I was still standing (and had to use my Second Wind).

For the first half of the combat only the other fighter, the cleric, and myself did anything to the dragon, but eventually the wizard and rogue players figured out how to best use their characters and helped us finish the thing off.

The cleric got in to melee and hit it with some Pelor type fire attack, gutting the poor dragon.

We impressed the DM, and I was glad to have a fun combat.

Rappan Athuk #17 - The Transmuter

I fully planned on this session being our last.

That means that this Friday (tonight) we’re going to start 4E, or at least prepare our PC’s for the next session.

Now, probably only some of us will have the books. I know Dale won’t, and he’s the DM.

He’ll be using some player-made adventure until he’s good to start.

I pretty much expected this session to be a quick one (and possibly final for the campaign), and I knew exactly where the PC’s would be heading.

Now they could have turned around and gone somewhere else, but they are now at the point where everything their level is not going to challenge them and lead to a boring night (lost in the mazes, head to other levels they knew about, which would eventually lead them back to the mazes).

So I took the expected encounter and beefed it up to make for what I would hope to be an interesting final fight in this dungeon.

We last stopped with Skwee dispelling the Arcane Lock on the steel door they originally thought was a trap.

The first (secret) door they came to along the hallway had an odd buzzing sound coming from beyond it. As with many things in this dungeon, they were paranoid. It reminded them too much of the hellwasp swarm from the WLD.

Paranoid or not, curiosity won out. So they opened the door.

The room seemed to pull the door open once it was opened. Inside was a large pit that was actually bottomless (kind of).

Of course the PC’s only saw a pit that was much deeper than their light sources showed them.

The pit bottom was actually a gate to the Astral Plane. Anything falling into it would be lost for a good long time.

But the PC’s avoided the pit as best they could, and found out that the buzzing sound was a couple dozen giant bees in adjacent room working away. They left the bees alone and left these rooms and returned to the hallway.

About 30’ farther down the hall an apparition appeared before them, warning them not to proceed or their deaths would meet them.

The PC’s decided to only slightly listen. Saver cast Rope Trick and the party rested.

But at some point in the night the spell ended, possibly by dispelling, but the party saw nothing out of the Rope Trick that would cause that.

In actuality it was the same person who created the apparition illusion. He was a transmuter (gestalt transmuter/sorcerer) who was invisible and cast a silent Dispel Magic.

When the party moved back to the steel door and cast Rope Trick again, the transmuter repeated the Dispel Magic spell.

Thus the party returned to the stairs near the Temple of Orcus and was finally able to rest safely in the Rope Trick.

When they were fully rested they once again ignored the warnings of the apparition and entered the area he warned them of.

The first room was a 20’ tall room with walls covered in metal plates (as would be most of the area), and filled with a couple dozen zombies which the party cleared in three rounds.

While still buffed they headed to the next room and found a room full of monstrous combinations of creatures. The transmuter had mixed pig and elephant DNA, or something like that.

All of the creations were in cages, and appeared to be ready to die. The only “normal” creature was a mother dire tiger with a pair of nursing cubs.

The party only saw three things not in cages, a large fire elemental, a flesh golem, and a human woman who looked like a caster.

They did not see the transmuter who invisibly flew above them in the room, making a large nuisance of himself once combat began (which was immediately).

Note: On a humorous level, they blamed the woman for all the spells that the transmuter was raining on them. When all she really did was cast Invisibility on herself and flee the first chance she could. For most of the combat they kept calling the transmuter “her”.

The party took out the fire elemental pretty quickly, as expected. The flesh golem didn’t last much longer either.

The transmuter had laid some stones on the ground previously that were actually 4 polymorphed and angry cockatrices. He dispelled the polymorphs (and some party spells) causing some fun for him.

The party didn’t take out the cockatrices quickly enough, and Dargotu was actually turned to stone. I don’t think we’ll get the opportunity to see Dargothree.

The cockatrices were not allowed a second opportunity for that.

In spite of the general chaos the transmuter was causing early on, his minions weren’t able to protect him for long. In fact I thought he’d be dead by round 5 once an enlarged Brad was able to hear him cast spells.

(It takes a DC20 listen check to pinpoint the square of a spell being cast.)

Once they found his general location they were able Glitterdust him and keep him somewhat confined in the large room.

At that point the transmuter was constantly on the defensive, spending more than one round drinking healing potions. Even when he’d dispelled the Glitterdust, they had him webbed, still giving away his position to the party.

He was eventually forced to cast a Wall of Force to keep the party away, especially Brad.

It all wasn’t bad on the transmuter. He had plenty of spells to protect him, like Shield, Stoneskin, Protection from Fire, and Contingent Resist Energy (which ended up being acid). Though at one point the Protection from Fire was dispelled.

Those resistances were ticking off Dale and Justin, especially Justin who lost a lot of spells to the transmuter’s defensive spells and my uncanny knack for rolling nat 20’s on saves.

Eventually the use of tactical movement spells (Dimension Door, Benign Transposition, and Baleful Transposition) changed the game to a form of D&D chess which the transmuter was able to use to get out of the confinement the party had him in.

But it was temporary. Saver was able to figure out approximately where the transmuter was and cast Coldball on him, severely hurting the transmuter and killing the dire tiger cubs – sending momma tiger on a “kill Saver” frenzy.

In response the transmuter cast Disintegrate on Saver. Saver failed his save, leaving him at -50 hp. Saver is now a pile of ash. The tiger then became a wild card, but played no other part in this story.

Both side’s had spell durations running out, so both sides had a bit of urgency.

The transmuter had to drink some more healing potions, and his other spells were ineffective because the PC’s kept making saves.

The transmuter was finally brought down when a now normal-sized Brad was able to lasso the transmuter and pulled him down to the ground and Skwee hit him with a Fireball.

The next round Brad was able to kill the transmuter.

Rappan Athuk #16 - The Cold Crypts

We’re nearing the end of our Third Edition gaming.

That, of course, assumes that Fourth Edition delivers what was promised.

I expect it to for the most part. There are too many people on ENWorld who have played it and like it, or even love it.

It still has its detractors, but 3E had those too, and still do.

For this session Brian was out, and probably will be for a little while.

As expected, Aaron brought back Dargotu for the night(s).

So of 8 possible classes, 3 of them are sorcerers and two are favored souls.

I’ve stopped keeping track of levels, because let’s face it, I’m ready for 4E and I’m just going through the motions until then.

But at least I remember enough to give a decent accounting of what happened.

Since we stopped right as the fight ended last week, this week we started up with them searching around the temple for treasure and secret doors.

They dumped all of the bodies into the lava one they’d been thoroughly searched.

Other than regaining some magic items and a few new ones, the party didn’t find much.

Granted there was the large golden statue of Orcus with emerald eyes, but fearing a curse, they let it go for now.

They found the secret door the vrock came out of and checked that room out.

Inside were four sarcophagi of ancient knights and 3 spectres hiding in the walls.

Had the PC’s not had enough spells to use for Death Ward, it probably would have hurt a lot more.

Only Dargotu received a negative level, and later he was able to remove it with a save.

Once they robbed the sarcophagi (of many nice magical weapons), the left that room and checked out the only remaining, unsearched door from the temple.

It was a small room with stairs leading down.

With a Rope Trick spell, they rested right there in the tiny room.

It was almost a repeat of the 15 minute adventuring days they did back in Region N of the WLD.

The next level was very cold, with the usual visible breath and chilling aura that only undead dungeons exhume.

The stairs deposited them in a room full of ruined coffins and five wights.

The wights were lucky enough to last 3 rounds.

After searching the room and finding nothing, they left the room using the only passage available.

Halfway through the hallway they noticed a 10’ plate of metal blended in with wall.

Sensing a trap, they searched every inch of the hallway and wall before moving past the plate.

Once everyone was past it, Skwee decided to tap on the metal and heard a bong as if there was nothing behind the wall.

Noting that for later, they still moved on to the next room – another room full of ruined coffins.

There were no wights this time around.

They next explored a series of foggy rooms, with the only thing interesting about them being a large green slime on the ceiling that missed them and was summarily burned out of existence.

The next room was yet another large room full of ruined coffins, this time there were a dozen wights and a special wight wearing plate-mail armor.

Other than Dargotu getting confused by the gaze of the special wight, the combat was pretty easy and lasted maybe 6 rounds and sadly no one lost a level.

The next room was a soot-filled room with two large, magically heated cauldrons filled with glowing molten rock or metal.

Sensing another killer death trap they searched every inch of the wall and floor.

The only exit out of the room was one that was blocked by a set of portcullis that Brad (Aaron’s fighter/rogue) lifted easily and made sure wouldn’t fall back down.

Beyond was yet another set of stairs leading down to a new level.

Something in the air was making their heads a little fuzzy (-2 to concentration checks).

I had warned the group of this level, but didn’t realize they’d get to it already.

It’s a level full of mazes, and at the bottom of the stairs the hallway ended with a T-intersection. No matter which direction the party chose, east or west, they would be entering a maze.

Of course the party was unaware of this as of yet, and headed east.

Quickly a mustard jelly attacked them, but multiple Scorching Rays ended its reign of terror before the end of round 2.

The party was un-phased by the jelly, but they were not happy with the 5’ passages they were seeing, so they back tracked before they were even actually in the maze.

So they turned around and went west, to a different maze.

They had to scorch away another mustard jelly, and were about 60’ deep into the maze before they finally figured out that it was a maze and turned around.

But it was too late. They hadn’t been paying attention to their steps coming into the maze, and made a wrong choice on the way out.

They spent at least an hour (game time, not real) in the maze before they escaped from the maze.

And rather than me just constantly ask “left or right?” to the party, I just asked them “left or right” when it came to an intersection that might have an outcome that may not end in a dead-end.

Once they got out of the maze they were relieved for about 10 seconds, that’s when a squad of 4 hellhounds jumped them, with a mind flayer holding their reigns.

They were expecting a minotaur.

Three of the hellhounds died from a Coldball. The fourth died on round 2.

Brad and Skwee failed the save versus the mind blast from the mind flayer, and were effectively stunned out of the combat.

But in spite of half the party being down, the mind flayer was in trouble and Plane Shifted when he determined that he could do nothing to these adventurers, yet.

With that the party headed back upstairs to the metal plate they suspected might be a door.

Skwee cast a couple of Dispel Magic spells, and eventually the plate twisted open, revealing a turn-style type door.

And we stopped there.