Thunderspire Labyrinth #2
Here’s a little side effect of having monsters with a variety of special powers; monsters that have no cool special powers are boring to run.
Hobgoblins should never be boring. They’re D&D’s uruk-hai and the hobgoblin soldier’s special abilities all have to do with being in formation and a pre-emptive chance at a saving throw.
Give me an ettin with its double-actions and “swat” abilities that make rogues cry.
Something I haven’t done much of (in these two whole sessions I’ve run) is do a lot of role-playing. And I think everyone in the group is ok with that for now. At the moment we’re more interested in figuring out the game and getting new powers and how best to use them.
Now as time goes on and we become more comfortable with the edition, we’re going to add in more role-playing.
But for the time being we’re just jumping into the action with just enough role-playing to get by.
Our lineup for this session:
Aaron, playing Valenae, the level 5 eladrin rogue (guess who’s made it to all of the sessions)
Justin, playing Stout, the level 4 dwarven fighter
Scott, playing Earl, the level 4 dragonborn paladin
Mike, playing Ander, the level 4 elf cleric
Brian, playing Hadarai, the level 4 eladrin wizard
We last stopped with Valenae having returned a magical drow music box to Gendar.
Now the only course of action the party had presented to them was going after the Bloodreavers in the Chamber of Eyes, but they didn’t quite want to jump into that just yet.
They asked the Halfmoon halflings for any leads, but weren’t given any appealing options that didn’t sound like suicide missions into the Underdark.
Valenae didn’t want to just hang out in the Seven Pillared Hall for fear of accidentally angering the Mages of Saruun so the group decided to scout out the area of the Chamber of Eyes.
Somehow “scouting the Chamber of Eyes” turned into “raiding the Chamber of Eyes and clearing out the Bloodreavers”.
There were 2 entrances to this ancient temple of Torog. One was through a pair of doors that were locked with guards behind them. The other was through an unlocked door on a balcony 15’ up.
With a series of decent climbing checks, everyone was up on the balcony and when Valenae heard possible snoring that is when scouting turned into raiding.
Valenae saw a pair of goblins cleaning their equipment and a bugbear sleeping on a bed.
Since he was first on initiative he took this opportunity to fey step next to the bugbear and deliver a coup de grace using his vicious short sword +1. Had he dealt 2 more damage with the auto-crit from the weapon, he’d have killed the bugbear outright. But he didn’t so that made the fight a bit more interesting for him. Being alone and soon to be surrounded by 4 goblin skull cleavers and a bugbear warrior is not a safe place to be.
Well the bugbear did wallop him nicely, but with Valenae’s friends rushing to help him and plenty of cover for defense, he was fine in the end.
The combat ended up taking forever because it was just a back-and-forth fight with one snag for the party – one of the goblins ran off to warn Chief Krand that they were under attack. The party saw the goblin flee, so they were expecting the worst.
In spite of that knowledge they decided to do a pincer assault on a room.
Their option was to have either 1 long line of characters trying to enter the room, or 2 smaller lines of characters entering the room from 2 directions. Which might have worked had both doors not been locked leaving one of the groups to be pinned in a dead-end until they unlocked that door.
Stout and Ander raided from one pincer, and he was able to bust the door open with the two of them facing off against a pair of duergar warriors.
Valenae, Hadarai, and Earl were unable to get their door open, meaning they were getting attacked by a dire wolf and a goblin skullcleaver.
Now there were more Bloodreavers ready to attack, but Chief Krand felt it best to hold forces in reserve so as not to place too many soldiers in harm’s way if they weren’t needed. But once his soldiers started taking casualties, he signaled a charge.
To back up the duergar, Krand sent a hobgoblin archer and a hobgoblin warcaster.
To back up the dire wolf, Krand sent 2 hobgoblin archers, and faced off against Earl himself.
After many rounds of trying they finally got the 2nd door open, but it may have been too late; Stout and Ander had to retreat back down their hallway a bit for tactical and defensive reasons, and the archers were about to knock Hadarai out of the combat (he was really messing with their attacks).
With Hadarai down, the archers focused on Earl, bolstered by Chief Krand’s special abilities that gave them +2 to hit and damage against targets he hit with his melee attack.
Ander and Stout slowly dropped their opponents until they were able to join in to help the other group.
For several rounds Earl bounced up and down on hit points – up from his and Ander’s healing abilities (which also put Hadarai back into the fight), and down from Krand and the archers. But he couldn’t stay up round after round.
Eventually he dropped, but he had bought enough time for the two groups to get back together.
Valenae was able to spend a round hiding and then pop out and sneak attacking Chief Krand, dropping him.
This week’s quote - Aaron: “Haha, stole your kill”
It was spoken several more times that night by different players.
After that it was only a matter of time for the combat to end.
In their searching for treasure they found a contract for the Bloodreavers to sell their slaves for 1000gp, signed by Murkelmor Grimmerzhul two days ago.
That named sounded familiar to the group, but they didn’t know why until later.
(Also while the party was searching and resting, there were a few straggler Bloodreavers that ran off.)
Since the Seven Pillared Hall was only 250’ away from the Chamber of Eyes, Valenae ran off to ask Gendar information about the Bloodreavers and Murkelmor Grimmerzhul. It cost him 20gp (10gp for the information + 10gp for Gendar to forget he was asked) and Gendar filled him in that some Bloodreavers had come to the Seven Pillared Hall a short while ago, entered the Grimmerzhul Trading Post and then went off into the Underdark.
That caused some pieces to fall in place, so Valenae returned to the Chamber of Eyes.
The party rested there for the night, then effectively locked the place up returned to the Seven Pillared Hall where they were greeted by Brugg, the ogre in the employ of the Mages of Saruun. He less than politely told the party to be careful and to not cause any more trouble.
They gave 10gp entice names from Brugg of who had been talking about them, but Brugg said nothing and kept the 10gp.
With that the party went to the Halfmoon Inn.
The Halfmoon’s were pleased to hear that the Bloodreavers were out of business and they confirmed what Gendar had said and pointed out the Grimmerzhul Trading Post to the party.
On the plus side, Gendar finally delivered the Create Magic Items ritual to the group, the party safely delivered Chief Krand’s head to Fallcrest to collect the 1000gp reward, and finally they safely traveled all the way back to Winterhaven so Valenae could finish his FedEx quest for Bairwin.
Then, with the group’s slowly accumulated wealth, they went about making magic items.
Next week we may have only 3 PC’s, so I’m going to make a side quest that might work for 2 strikers and a controller.
Hobgoblins should never be boring. They’re D&D’s uruk-hai and the hobgoblin soldier’s special abilities all have to do with being in formation and a pre-emptive chance at a saving throw.
Give me an ettin with its double-actions and “swat” abilities that make rogues cry.
Something I haven’t done much of (in these two whole sessions I’ve run) is do a lot of role-playing. And I think everyone in the group is ok with that for now. At the moment we’re more interested in figuring out the game and getting new powers and how best to use them.
Now as time goes on and we become more comfortable with the edition, we’re going to add in more role-playing.
But for the time being we’re just jumping into the action with just enough role-playing to get by.
Our lineup for this session:
Aaron, playing Valenae, the level 5 eladrin rogue (guess who’s made it to all of the sessions)
Justin, playing Stout, the level 4 dwarven fighter
Scott, playing Earl, the level 4 dragonborn paladin
Mike, playing Ander, the level 4 elf cleric
Brian, playing Hadarai, the level 4 eladrin wizard
We last stopped with Valenae having returned a magical drow music box to Gendar.
Now the only course of action the party had presented to them was going after the Bloodreavers in the Chamber of Eyes, but they didn’t quite want to jump into that just yet.
They asked the Halfmoon halflings for any leads, but weren’t given any appealing options that didn’t sound like suicide missions into the Underdark.
Valenae didn’t want to just hang out in the Seven Pillared Hall for fear of accidentally angering the Mages of Saruun so the group decided to scout out the area of the Chamber of Eyes.
Somehow “scouting the Chamber of Eyes” turned into “raiding the Chamber of Eyes and clearing out the Bloodreavers”.
There were 2 entrances to this ancient temple of Torog. One was through a pair of doors that were locked with guards behind them. The other was through an unlocked door on a balcony 15’ up.
With a series of decent climbing checks, everyone was up on the balcony and when Valenae heard possible snoring that is when scouting turned into raiding.
Valenae saw a pair of goblins cleaning their equipment and a bugbear sleeping on a bed.
Since he was first on initiative he took this opportunity to fey step next to the bugbear and deliver a coup de grace using his vicious short sword +1. Had he dealt 2 more damage with the auto-crit from the weapon, he’d have killed the bugbear outright. But he didn’t so that made the fight a bit more interesting for him. Being alone and soon to be surrounded by 4 goblin skull cleavers and a bugbear warrior is not a safe place to be.
Well the bugbear did wallop him nicely, but with Valenae’s friends rushing to help him and plenty of cover for defense, he was fine in the end.
The combat ended up taking forever because it was just a back-and-forth fight with one snag for the party – one of the goblins ran off to warn Chief Krand that they were under attack. The party saw the goblin flee, so they were expecting the worst.
In spite of that knowledge they decided to do a pincer assault on a room.
Their option was to have either 1 long line of characters trying to enter the room, or 2 smaller lines of characters entering the room from 2 directions. Which might have worked had both doors not been locked leaving one of the groups to be pinned in a dead-end until they unlocked that door.
Stout and Ander raided from one pincer, and he was able to bust the door open with the two of them facing off against a pair of duergar warriors.
Valenae, Hadarai, and Earl were unable to get their door open, meaning they were getting attacked by a dire wolf and a goblin skullcleaver.
Now there were more Bloodreavers ready to attack, but Chief Krand felt it best to hold forces in reserve so as not to place too many soldiers in harm’s way if they weren’t needed. But once his soldiers started taking casualties, he signaled a charge.
To back up the duergar, Krand sent a hobgoblin archer and a hobgoblin warcaster.
To back up the dire wolf, Krand sent 2 hobgoblin archers, and faced off against Earl himself.
After many rounds of trying they finally got the 2nd door open, but it may have been too late; Stout and Ander had to retreat back down their hallway a bit for tactical and defensive reasons, and the archers were about to knock Hadarai out of the combat (he was really messing with their attacks).
With Hadarai down, the archers focused on Earl, bolstered by Chief Krand’s special abilities that gave them +2 to hit and damage against targets he hit with his melee attack.
Ander and Stout slowly dropped their opponents until they were able to join in to help the other group.
For several rounds Earl bounced up and down on hit points – up from his and Ander’s healing abilities (which also put Hadarai back into the fight), and down from Krand and the archers. But he couldn’t stay up round after round.
Eventually he dropped, but he had bought enough time for the two groups to get back together.
Valenae was able to spend a round hiding and then pop out and sneak attacking Chief Krand, dropping him.
This week’s quote - Aaron: “Haha, stole your kill”
It was spoken several more times that night by different players.
After that it was only a matter of time for the combat to end.
In their searching for treasure they found a contract for the Bloodreavers to sell their slaves for 1000gp, signed by Murkelmor Grimmerzhul two days ago.
That named sounded familiar to the group, but they didn’t know why until later.
(Also while the party was searching and resting, there were a few straggler Bloodreavers that ran off.)
Since the Seven Pillared Hall was only 250’ away from the Chamber of Eyes, Valenae ran off to ask Gendar information about the Bloodreavers and Murkelmor Grimmerzhul. It cost him 20gp (10gp for the information + 10gp for Gendar to forget he was asked) and Gendar filled him in that some Bloodreavers had come to the Seven Pillared Hall a short while ago, entered the Grimmerzhul Trading Post and then went off into the Underdark.
That caused some pieces to fall in place, so Valenae returned to the Chamber of Eyes.
The party rested there for the night, then effectively locked the place up returned to the Seven Pillared Hall where they were greeted by Brugg, the ogre in the employ of the Mages of Saruun. He less than politely told the party to be careful and to not cause any more trouble.
They gave 10gp entice names from Brugg of who had been talking about them, but Brugg said nothing and kept the 10gp.
With that the party went to the Halfmoon Inn.
The Halfmoon’s were pleased to hear that the Bloodreavers were out of business and they confirmed what Gendar had said and pointed out the Grimmerzhul Trading Post to the party.
On the plus side, Gendar finally delivered the Create Magic Items ritual to the group, the party safely delivered Chief Krand’s head to Fallcrest to collect the 1000gp reward, and finally they safely traveled all the way back to Winterhaven so Valenae could finish his FedEx quest for Bairwin.
Then, with the group’s slowly accumulated wealth, they went about making magic items.
Next week we may have only 3 PC’s, so I’m going to make a side quest that might work for 2 strikers and a controller.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 10:01 PM
1 Comments:
Hi there, I'm sorry if I'm messing anything up in the thread. I'm a 28 year old 3E player looking for a group to play with. It's been a long time, but I'd love to get back into the game if there is room for one more your group. Please contact me. galahad2002@hotmail.com if you have an opening for another player.
Thanks,
Joshua Marcus
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