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.
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.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 2:45 PM
1 Comments:
Hi, Just saying i enjoyed reading your campaign Diary. I'm currently running the pathfinder version of RA myself.
Cheers.
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