Thunderspire Labyrinth #3b
(Sorry for the delay in updates, we’ve had some computer issues and did some traveling for my twin’s first birthday.)
Welcome to week 2 off non-module gaming.
You’d think that with 7 total people in the group we’d be able to consistently have 4 players and a DM, but not at the moment.
Really 3 players and a DM isn’t that bad, it’s just that the WotC modules are written for 5 PC’s. I could scale the module, but I’d have to reduce the toughness of the modules by around 40%. I’d rather increase the difficulty later than reduce it now.
Instead I’m just going to run quick and easy modules I make up.
Really we’re still learning the ins and outs of the 4E system, and running a combat-oriented mini-module is pretty good for all involved.
Those who miss don’t miss the module.
Those who show get XP, some treasure, and learn to how to deal without key members of the group.
I get some experience in the nuances of making encounters for 4E.
Man oh man do I enjoy making those encounters. I never realized how much more fun it could be to actually add things to the map to make it harder on the party and easier on the monsters. And yes, I make sure to adjust XP for too easy and too hard maps.
Though in my future campaigns, players who have a tendency to miss more than others will have to have their PC’s put in to more of a background role and to play a class that isn’t crucial to the group.
For this week, I brought Dieter back so that party could have an extra target. I also set up the module to be scalable in case they didn’t want Dieter back.
So our lineup for this session:
Aaron, playing Valenae, the level 5 eladrin rogue
Scott, playing Earl, the level 5 dragonborn paladin
Brian, playing Hadarai, the level 4 eladrin wizard
Sean, controlling Dieter, the level 4 human fighter (bodyguard) DMPC
We hand waived Brom moving on and Hadarai stepping in, as the group rested near the waterfall from last week.
After a nice breakfast cooked by Splug they were about to head back to town when a small bird flew up to the group. It seemed frantic and smelled like smoke.
The bird flew to the party, then away, then to them, then away, so they curiously followed it until they could see the outline of a small forest in the distance with a smoky haze over it.
Being heroes, they knew what they had to do.
The bird led them to a trail in the trees before it flew out of sight.
Valenae took lead, which was the best option, as the ettercap and his two pet deathjump spiders had set a trap.
Valenae did not fall into the 30’ pit (with spikes and poison) thanks to his passive perception and then we went on initiative.
This was supposed to be a semi-easy fight that ended up a bit tougher than it should have been.
The map was mostly forest except for a 10’ path, the trap blocking forward movement, and the ettercap added some lovely webbing to the area early on the combat. All of this really hurt the mobility of the party.
The spiders jumped into spots where they could poison someone while not be totally surrounded while the ettercap did his best to restrict movement even more.
The party was frantically trying to bring down a spider with their very limited movement.
At one point Dieter was hit by so many effects he was immobilized, slowed, prone, and taking an ongoing 5 poison damage.
Once they dropped the first spider, the rest of the combat was much easier to deal with. The fight sucked at least one healing surge from everyone though.
After searching and resting they got back on the trail, which slowly changed from a claustrophobic forest to a friendlier place where the trees seemed to beckon the party forward.
Eventually they came to a high-canopied area that was almost a clearing. At one edge of the clearing was a large, root-covered stone tablet with glowing gold runes on it that Hadarai determined was a stone of healing (5hp per round, and regain a healing surge once per day while adjacent to it).
As they were using the stone a slightly charred but healing treant made himself known.
(The treant had a name, but no one ever asked him for it.)
The treant requested help from the party to aid in destroying a force of orcs that were rampaging through the forest.
Of course the party agreed, and with a wave of the treant’s hand, a new path in the trees opened for the party to follow until their noses told them where to go.
When they saw and smelled increasing amounts of smoke they attempted to go into stealth mode, but only Valenae had results that were good enough to hide from your deaf grandparents.
This encounter was all forest except for 10 burning forest squares. At the end of each round, each burning forest square had a chance to go out and leave rough terrain or had a chance to expand and create another burning forest square. Actions in combat increased the chances for either result.
A group of 4 orc minions, a pair of hell hounds, and a harpy were here simply to wreak havoc in the forest. The party was going to stop them, and without using fire type spells and abilities.
As expected, the minions were nothing but a nuisance. The hell hounds were very rough on the party with their fiery aura dealing free damage to them every round. And the harpy held back until there was an opening for her to start using her abilities.
Dieter did his best to hold back one hell hound while Valenae and Earl the party took care of the other.
Hadarai took care of the minions and blasted whoever made the best target.
When the harpy finally let loose, she played the game of charming the group and keeping them off guard until her screeching attack recharged. It was a rough dance, but eventually the party was able to nickel and dime her to death.
The party put out the fires on the area and rested and healed up, more healing surges gone.
Afterwards they followed their noses until they came to a large swath of the forest that was now barely burning embers and scattered everywhere were hundreds of dead creatures of the forest, slaughtered for sport by the orcs.
The party and the orcs saw each other at the same time. With a shout the Eye of Gruumsh (orc priest) ordered his troops to charge (8 minions, 4 berserkers).
The party quickly formed a line as best they could by some burned down trees, but that didn’t stop the orcs from flanking them.
This combat beat the party up bad. Nearly everyone in the party had fallen at one point, some of them more than once, heal checks and powers got them back up.
After the last orc died the party was nearly spent. Everyone except Earl was down to their last healing surge or two, and no one had any dailies left. But the fighting wasn’t over.
When they were about to head back to the healing stone, they heard some maniacal laughing and shouting from someone.
With the party not too far away, Valenae scouted this rocky area out. He found a human mage investigating a large brass cup sitting on a marble pedestal. The mage was emanating heat and holding an iron staff forged in the shape of a tall flame.
Near the mage were his two pets, a magma claw and a magma hurler, and his bodyguard, an ogre.
Valenae was given the option to get a surprise round or to warn his friends. He chose the surprise round and threw his dagger at the ogre (I wonder if Aaron thought they only had 50 hp like they did in 3E).
He rolled a nat 20 and did and impressive 35 points of damage with a simple dagger +2, but that didn’t even bloody the ogre. Worse, his targets were closer to him than allies were.
“Destroy him my pets!”
The two sides collided at a choke point on the map. The party was in very bad shape resource-wise, but were in a slightly better tactical position.
The ogre smashed, the magma hurler lobbed balls of molten rock, the magma claw ripped into them, and the mage blasted the party with fire spell after fire spell.
Valenae did his best to hide and throw daggers, Hadarai did his usual blasting from behind, Dieter moved up to block movement to protect the backline, while Earl took on the ogre as best he could.
The ogre and Dieter were the first to fall, but the party was taking a horrible beating from the mage. He was a human mage with the Scion of Flame template added, wielding a Staff of Fiery Burning +2, which meant his measly Magic Missiles were actually Fiery Magic Missiles that did 2d4+6 fire damage, or 14+2d8 fire damage on a crit. Plus anyone that hit him with a melee attack took 4 fire damage, and the party was out of healing.
Next Earl dropped then the magma claw, then the magma hurler.
This week’s quote of the week:
Sean: “Haha. He stole your kill.”
Brian: “I don’t care. I want that thing off of me.”
The mage was standing, and he wasn’t bloodied.
Hadarai was standing. He had 2 hit points left and no healing surges.
Valenae was standing, and he also had 2 hit points left, no healing surges, and two healing potions.
Healing potions are worthless without a healing surge, so Valenae dumped both of the potions down Earl’s throat (who still had 5 healing surges) while Hadarai occupied the mage.
Once Earl was up and standing he charged the mage while the other 2 PC’s hit him with their ranged attacks.
When the mage finally dropped, even Earl was down to single-digit hit points.
After the party did their usual search and rest, the treant found them (many orc parts and pieces hung from his many branches), and thanked them for their heroism.
He also explained to them that the fire mage would have gained nothing from the brass cup once it was removed from its pedestal.
After that it was late, so we stopped for the night.
Welcome to week 2 off non-module gaming.
You’d think that with 7 total people in the group we’d be able to consistently have 4 players and a DM, but not at the moment.
Really 3 players and a DM isn’t that bad, it’s just that the WotC modules are written for 5 PC’s. I could scale the module, but I’d have to reduce the toughness of the modules by around 40%. I’d rather increase the difficulty later than reduce it now.
Instead I’m just going to run quick and easy modules I make up.
Really we’re still learning the ins and outs of the 4E system, and running a combat-oriented mini-module is pretty good for all involved.
Those who miss don’t miss the module.
Those who show get XP, some treasure, and learn to how to deal without key members of the group.
I get some experience in the nuances of making encounters for 4E.
Man oh man do I enjoy making those encounters. I never realized how much more fun it could be to actually add things to the map to make it harder on the party and easier on the monsters. And yes, I make sure to adjust XP for too easy and too hard maps.
Though in my future campaigns, players who have a tendency to miss more than others will have to have their PC’s put in to more of a background role and to play a class that isn’t crucial to the group.
For this week, I brought Dieter back so that party could have an extra target. I also set up the module to be scalable in case they didn’t want Dieter back.
So our lineup for this session:
Aaron, playing Valenae, the level 5 eladrin rogue
Scott, playing Earl, the level 5 dragonborn paladin
Brian, playing Hadarai, the level 4 eladrin wizard
Sean, controlling Dieter, the level 4 human fighter (bodyguard) DMPC
We hand waived Brom moving on and Hadarai stepping in, as the group rested near the waterfall from last week.
After a nice breakfast cooked by Splug they were about to head back to town when a small bird flew up to the group. It seemed frantic and smelled like smoke.
The bird flew to the party, then away, then to them, then away, so they curiously followed it until they could see the outline of a small forest in the distance with a smoky haze over it.
Being heroes, they knew what they had to do.
The bird led them to a trail in the trees before it flew out of sight.
Valenae took lead, which was the best option, as the ettercap and his two pet deathjump spiders had set a trap.
Valenae did not fall into the 30’ pit (with spikes and poison) thanks to his passive perception and then we went on initiative.
This was supposed to be a semi-easy fight that ended up a bit tougher than it should have been.
The map was mostly forest except for a 10’ path, the trap blocking forward movement, and the ettercap added some lovely webbing to the area early on the combat. All of this really hurt the mobility of the party.
The spiders jumped into spots where they could poison someone while not be totally surrounded while the ettercap did his best to restrict movement even more.
The party was frantically trying to bring down a spider with their very limited movement.
At one point Dieter was hit by so many effects he was immobilized, slowed, prone, and taking an ongoing 5 poison damage.
Once they dropped the first spider, the rest of the combat was much easier to deal with. The fight sucked at least one healing surge from everyone though.
After searching and resting they got back on the trail, which slowly changed from a claustrophobic forest to a friendlier place where the trees seemed to beckon the party forward.
Eventually they came to a high-canopied area that was almost a clearing. At one edge of the clearing was a large, root-covered stone tablet with glowing gold runes on it that Hadarai determined was a stone of healing (5hp per round, and regain a healing surge once per day while adjacent to it).
As they were using the stone a slightly charred but healing treant made himself known.
(The treant had a name, but no one ever asked him for it.)
The treant requested help from the party to aid in destroying a force of orcs that were rampaging through the forest.
Of course the party agreed, and with a wave of the treant’s hand, a new path in the trees opened for the party to follow until their noses told them where to go.
When they saw and smelled increasing amounts of smoke they attempted to go into stealth mode, but only Valenae had results that were good enough to hide from your deaf grandparents.
This encounter was all forest except for 10 burning forest squares. At the end of each round, each burning forest square had a chance to go out and leave rough terrain or had a chance to expand and create another burning forest square. Actions in combat increased the chances for either result.
A group of 4 orc minions, a pair of hell hounds, and a harpy were here simply to wreak havoc in the forest. The party was going to stop them, and without using fire type spells and abilities.
As expected, the minions were nothing but a nuisance. The hell hounds were very rough on the party with their fiery aura dealing free damage to them every round. And the harpy held back until there was an opening for her to start using her abilities.
Dieter did his best to hold back one hell hound while Valenae and Earl the party took care of the other.
Hadarai took care of the minions and blasted whoever made the best target.
When the harpy finally let loose, she played the game of charming the group and keeping them off guard until her screeching attack recharged. It was a rough dance, but eventually the party was able to nickel and dime her to death.
The party put out the fires on the area and rested and healed up, more healing surges gone.
Afterwards they followed their noses until they came to a large swath of the forest that was now barely burning embers and scattered everywhere were hundreds of dead creatures of the forest, slaughtered for sport by the orcs.
The party and the orcs saw each other at the same time. With a shout the Eye of Gruumsh (orc priest) ordered his troops to charge (8 minions, 4 berserkers).
The party quickly formed a line as best they could by some burned down trees, but that didn’t stop the orcs from flanking them.
This combat beat the party up bad. Nearly everyone in the party had fallen at one point, some of them more than once, heal checks and powers got them back up.
After the last orc died the party was nearly spent. Everyone except Earl was down to their last healing surge or two, and no one had any dailies left. But the fighting wasn’t over.
When they were about to head back to the healing stone, they heard some maniacal laughing and shouting from someone.
With the party not too far away, Valenae scouted this rocky area out. He found a human mage investigating a large brass cup sitting on a marble pedestal. The mage was emanating heat and holding an iron staff forged in the shape of a tall flame.
Near the mage were his two pets, a magma claw and a magma hurler, and his bodyguard, an ogre.
Valenae was given the option to get a surprise round or to warn his friends. He chose the surprise round and threw his dagger at the ogre (I wonder if Aaron thought they only had 50 hp like they did in 3E).
He rolled a nat 20 and did and impressive 35 points of damage with a simple dagger +2, but that didn’t even bloody the ogre. Worse, his targets were closer to him than allies were.
“Destroy him my pets!”
The two sides collided at a choke point on the map. The party was in very bad shape resource-wise, but were in a slightly better tactical position.
The ogre smashed, the magma hurler lobbed balls of molten rock, the magma claw ripped into them, and the mage blasted the party with fire spell after fire spell.
Valenae did his best to hide and throw daggers, Hadarai did his usual blasting from behind, Dieter moved up to block movement to protect the backline, while Earl took on the ogre as best he could.
The ogre and Dieter were the first to fall, but the party was taking a horrible beating from the mage. He was a human mage with the Scion of Flame template added, wielding a Staff of Fiery Burning +2, which meant his measly Magic Missiles were actually Fiery Magic Missiles that did 2d4+6 fire damage, or 14+2d8 fire damage on a crit. Plus anyone that hit him with a melee attack took 4 fire damage, and the party was out of healing.
Next Earl dropped then the magma claw, then the magma hurler.
This week’s quote of the week:
Sean: “Haha. He stole your kill.”
Brian: “I don’t care. I want that thing off of me.”
The mage was standing, and he wasn’t bloodied.
Hadarai was standing. He had 2 hit points left and no healing surges.
Valenae was standing, and he also had 2 hit points left, no healing surges, and two healing potions.
Healing potions are worthless without a healing surge, so Valenae dumped both of the potions down Earl’s throat (who still had 5 healing surges) while Hadarai occupied the mage.
Once Earl was up and standing he charged the mage while the other 2 PC’s hit him with their ranged attacks.
When the mage finally dropped, even Earl was down to single-digit hit points.
After the party did their usual search and rest, the treant found them (many orc parts and pieces hung from his many branches), and thanked them for their heroism.
He also explained to them that the fire mage would have gained nothing from the brass cup once it was removed from its pedestal.
After that it was late, so we stopped for the night.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 6:43 AM
3 Comments:
The oddest thing of the night was that Hadarai the wizard did as much or more combat in melee than with spells. Also, given the chance to spend money on magical items, I bought him a magic longsword and armor (I'd just given him the Leather Armor proficiency), and the armor did actually prevent one hit that night. He's a very odd mage, Hadarai... Now Sean will smite him for not being more wizardy, just you wait ;).
I intentiionally smite no one in this campaign.
I just have the monsters make decisions I think they would make and let the dice fall where they may.
True, very true. The wizard has also pressed his own luck in melée and shouldn't go looking for more trouble. It is nice, though, that wizards aren't totally unprotected when the fight comes to them.
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