Thunderspire Labyrinth #6
Yeah, I know I’ve been neglecting updating the blog.
I’m pretty far behind really, but I’ve been on overtime at work for the past 3 weeks (and counting) and my wife has a big career-related test coming up that she has to do a lot of studying so that means I have to pick up the slack as best I can.
I’ll try to catch up, or not get farther behind.
Don’t put any bets on it though.
Anyway, this is generally how our combats go with 4E:
Early rounds – The monsters use their offensive powers, putting the party on the defensive while they recover.
Middle rounds – The party recovers then uses offensive powers to specific targets.
Late rounds – If they’re doing well, the party mops up the field. If not, they’ll use their reserves as best they can until they barely eek out a win.
Of course which class and player combinations are present affect that.
Example: When Ander uses his daily power Spiritual Weapon, Valenae is able to attack that target and gets his sneak attack damage all from range, and for the entire encounter.
Our lineup for this session:
Aaron, playing Valenae, the level 7 eladrin rogue
Scott, playing Earl, the level 6 dragonborn paladin
Mike, playing Ander, the level 5 elf cleric with some ranger multi-classing
Brian, playing Hadarai, the level 5 eladrin wizard
If all goes well, this next session should have everyone.
Last session we stopped with party having cleared out half of the last tower (north) of the Horned Hold.
The next step on their path of destruction was a room holding a dozen slaves, an elite duergar theurge, a couple of duergar guards, and a pair of spined devils.
The party heard voices through the door, so they were ready for combat.
The duergar were on alert, so they were ready for combat as well.
In other words, there was no surprise round and no chat. We just jumped right into initiative.
The slaves were in large pits, so they were safe for the most part.
The devils used those pits to their advantage. They could easily use their ranged attacks against the party while anyone coming after them had to around the pit. Even then, the devils could just fly to another spot, forcing that person to go around the pit again and again giving the PC only opportunity attacks.
The theurge was able to lay down a barrage on the party early on leaving several of them blind and prone. She repeated this as often as she could. But it also made her a prime target. When the party targeted her, she didn’t last too long.
The guards were nothing more than speed bumps meant to buy time for the rest of the group.
Scott: “I actually killed something for a change.”
(Earl tends to take the hard hits rather than giving them.)
The combat took plenty of time, and drained a fair amount of resources from the party.
It didn’t help them that teamwork was a bit lacking this time around as everyone seemed to do their own thing.
But they still won and freed the slaves; 8 from a village the Bloodreavers had raided not long ago, 3 prospectors from within the labyrinth that were nabbed by the Bloodreavers, and a goblin that was once a Bloodreaver but they decided to sell him.
The slaves were in poor shape, but healthy enough to leave, yet too afraid to leave the place without the party killing the leader of the Horned Hold, Murkelmore Grimmerzhul. He’s particularly vicious and ruthless duergar who would do worse than re-enslave them if they were caught.
Luckily Murkelmore’s room was not far from their current location. In fact had the party picked an east door instead of a north door, they’d probably have fought him first.
They knew they found the right room when they heard the crackling of a large fire and some angry ranting.
They opened the door to find a large and opulently decorated room. It was guarded by a pair of duergar shocktroopers, another duergar theurge, and a paladin of Asmodeus – Murkelmore.
Murkelmore shouted a challenge to the party and combat began, once again, with no surprise or chitchat.
Since this was the final fight of the Horned Hold, the combat was especially vicious. So vicious the party had some second thoughts halfway through the first round of combat as Murkelmore charged at them and theurge blinded them.
Hadarai responded with a Web spell which delayed the shocktroopers from getting to the party so soon, but gave the theurge a good buffer so she could last longer and gave her more opportunities to recharge her powers.
Earl does the best he can at being defender and he takes a beating in the process. He uses his daily powers to buff up the party with a zone that boosts AC and a power that gives everyone +3 to damage. Both of them pay off in the long run.
The shocktroopers do nothing more than hack away at any target that is near enough too them. The party is not thrilled when the shocktroopers expand to large size like Rundarr did last session (large size, 2 reach, and +5 to damage).
The party just kept taking a beating and quickly ran out of usable powers.
Ander, who usually has several powers to use, was down to at-will powers halfway through the combat. And this was the norm for the combat for everyone.
Murkelmore was a huge nuisance with nearly 200 hit points, at least a 20 in each defense, had powers that could push someone away, and he even had a rechargeable healing power (which really angered the group).
The fight was getting desperate when the party had only dropped a single shocktrooper, and had to use most of their powers to get that done.
Valenae had one chance to take out the theurge when she was blinded. He had to fey step behind her, effectively cutting him off from the party. If he hit he’d probably deal enough damage to take her out. But he missed, was very low on hit points, and had no one around that could help him.
“So Stout will lead a new group of adventurers into the dungeon.”
- Mike
Had I rolled a little bit better, it would have been a TPK. But the party finally was giving more than they were getting and when they finally killed Murkelmore they half cheered, half breathed a sigh of relief.
Given the party’s current state, the remaining 2 duergar were still a real threat to them.
First they carefully took out the theurge, and then surrounded and hacked away at the shocktrooper until he died.
And all they won in treasure was a few hundred gold and a flaming maul +2, which none of them use.
After a quick rest they gathered the freed slaves and made their way back to the Seven Pillared Hall (the goblin disappeared along the way).
Before they entered the Hall, Valenae snuck into Gendar’s Curios and Relics to take care of the business with the skull-topped rod and to make sure the Mages of Saruun weren’t going to destroy them for meddling in the business of the Grimmerzhuls.
Gendar told Valenae that the Mages have no interest in what happens outside the Hall so long as it doesn’t affect what happens in the hall.
Gendar then asked that Valenae sneak back out of his shop as he wanted to problems with the Grimmerzhuls.
After that the party boldly marched the ex-slaves into the Seven Pillared Hall, making sure to wave hi to the duergar standing outside the Grimmerzhul Trading Post. They then led them to the exit of the mountain where the villagers and company fled to the nearest city.
The exhausted party was about to rest for the evening when Brugg, the foul-tempered ogre in the employ of the Mages of Saruun, came up to the party with fury in his eyes demanding that the mages wanted to see them.
He led them to a magic circle near the giant minotaur statue in the Hall.
A few moments later a humanoid person appeared in the circle, wearing a golden mask.
The Mage of Saruun told the party in a flat voice that one of their numbers had disappeared, named Paldemar.
He tasked the party to find Paldemar, and if he was alive, to kill him.
He then disappeared.
That wasn’t much information to go on, but conveniently the next morning a runt of a kobold brought them a sealed scroll.
It was a note from someone working with the duergar who wants to get out of working with them. He would be willing to give the party information if they were to help him get out of the organization.
And with that, we stopped.
I’m pretty far behind really, but I’ve been on overtime at work for the past 3 weeks (and counting) and my wife has a big career-related test coming up that she has to do a lot of studying so that means I have to pick up the slack as best I can.
I’ll try to catch up, or not get farther behind.
Don’t put any bets on it though.
Anyway, this is generally how our combats go with 4E:
Early rounds – The monsters use their offensive powers, putting the party on the defensive while they recover.
Middle rounds – The party recovers then uses offensive powers to specific targets.
Late rounds – If they’re doing well, the party mops up the field. If not, they’ll use their reserves as best they can until they barely eek out a win.
Of course which class and player combinations are present affect that.
Example: When Ander uses his daily power Spiritual Weapon, Valenae is able to attack that target and gets his sneak attack damage all from range, and for the entire encounter.
Our lineup for this session:
Aaron, playing Valenae, the level 7 eladrin rogue
Scott, playing Earl, the level 6 dragonborn paladin
Mike, playing Ander, the level 5 elf cleric with some ranger multi-classing
Brian, playing Hadarai, the level 5 eladrin wizard
If all goes well, this next session should have everyone.
Last session we stopped with party having cleared out half of the last tower (north) of the Horned Hold.
The next step on their path of destruction was a room holding a dozen slaves, an elite duergar theurge, a couple of duergar guards, and a pair of spined devils.
The party heard voices through the door, so they were ready for combat.
The duergar were on alert, so they were ready for combat as well.
In other words, there was no surprise round and no chat. We just jumped right into initiative.
The slaves were in large pits, so they were safe for the most part.
The devils used those pits to their advantage. They could easily use their ranged attacks against the party while anyone coming after them had to around the pit. Even then, the devils could just fly to another spot, forcing that person to go around the pit again and again giving the PC only opportunity attacks.
The theurge was able to lay down a barrage on the party early on leaving several of them blind and prone. She repeated this as often as she could. But it also made her a prime target. When the party targeted her, she didn’t last too long.
The guards were nothing more than speed bumps meant to buy time for the rest of the group.
Scott: “I actually killed something for a change.”
(Earl tends to take the hard hits rather than giving them.)
The combat took plenty of time, and drained a fair amount of resources from the party.
It didn’t help them that teamwork was a bit lacking this time around as everyone seemed to do their own thing.
But they still won and freed the slaves; 8 from a village the Bloodreavers had raided not long ago, 3 prospectors from within the labyrinth that were nabbed by the Bloodreavers, and a goblin that was once a Bloodreaver but they decided to sell him.
The slaves were in poor shape, but healthy enough to leave, yet too afraid to leave the place without the party killing the leader of the Horned Hold, Murkelmore Grimmerzhul. He’s particularly vicious and ruthless duergar who would do worse than re-enslave them if they were caught.
Luckily Murkelmore’s room was not far from their current location. In fact had the party picked an east door instead of a north door, they’d probably have fought him first.
They knew they found the right room when they heard the crackling of a large fire and some angry ranting.
They opened the door to find a large and opulently decorated room. It was guarded by a pair of duergar shocktroopers, another duergar theurge, and a paladin of Asmodeus – Murkelmore.
Murkelmore shouted a challenge to the party and combat began, once again, with no surprise or chitchat.
Since this was the final fight of the Horned Hold, the combat was especially vicious. So vicious the party had some second thoughts halfway through the first round of combat as Murkelmore charged at them and theurge blinded them.
Hadarai responded with a Web spell which delayed the shocktroopers from getting to the party so soon, but gave the theurge a good buffer so she could last longer and gave her more opportunities to recharge her powers.
Earl does the best he can at being defender and he takes a beating in the process. He uses his daily powers to buff up the party with a zone that boosts AC and a power that gives everyone +3 to damage. Both of them pay off in the long run.
The shocktroopers do nothing more than hack away at any target that is near enough too them. The party is not thrilled when the shocktroopers expand to large size like Rundarr did last session (large size, 2 reach, and +5 to damage).
The party just kept taking a beating and quickly ran out of usable powers.
Ander, who usually has several powers to use, was down to at-will powers halfway through the combat. And this was the norm for the combat for everyone.
Murkelmore was a huge nuisance with nearly 200 hit points, at least a 20 in each defense, had powers that could push someone away, and he even had a rechargeable healing power (which really angered the group).
The fight was getting desperate when the party had only dropped a single shocktrooper, and had to use most of their powers to get that done.
Valenae had one chance to take out the theurge when she was blinded. He had to fey step behind her, effectively cutting him off from the party. If he hit he’d probably deal enough damage to take her out. But he missed, was very low on hit points, and had no one around that could help him.
“So Stout will lead a new group of adventurers into the dungeon.”
- Mike
Had I rolled a little bit better, it would have been a TPK. But the party finally was giving more than they were getting and when they finally killed Murkelmore they half cheered, half breathed a sigh of relief.
Given the party’s current state, the remaining 2 duergar were still a real threat to them.
First they carefully took out the theurge, and then surrounded and hacked away at the shocktrooper until he died.
And all they won in treasure was a few hundred gold and a flaming maul +2, which none of them use.
After a quick rest they gathered the freed slaves and made their way back to the Seven Pillared Hall (the goblin disappeared along the way).
Before they entered the Hall, Valenae snuck into Gendar’s Curios and Relics to take care of the business with the skull-topped rod and to make sure the Mages of Saruun weren’t going to destroy them for meddling in the business of the Grimmerzhuls.
Gendar told Valenae that the Mages have no interest in what happens outside the Hall so long as it doesn’t affect what happens in the hall.
Gendar then asked that Valenae sneak back out of his shop as he wanted to problems with the Grimmerzhuls.
After that the party boldly marched the ex-slaves into the Seven Pillared Hall, making sure to wave hi to the duergar standing outside the Grimmerzhul Trading Post. They then led them to the exit of the mountain where the villagers and company fled to the nearest city.
The exhausted party was about to rest for the evening when Brugg, the foul-tempered ogre in the employ of the Mages of Saruun, came up to the party with fury in his eyes demanding that the mages wanted to see them.
He led them to a magic circle near the giant minotaur statue in the Hall.
A few moments later a humanoid person appeared in the circle, wearing a golden mask.
The Mage of Saruun told the party in a flat voice that one of their numbers had disappeared, named Paldemar.
He tasked the party to find Paldemar, and if he was alive, to kill him.
He then disappeared.
That wasn’t much information to go on, but conveniently the next morning a runt of a kobold brought them a sealed scroll.
It was a note from someone working with the duergar who wants to get out of working with them. He would be willing to give the party information if they were to help him get out of the organization.
And with that, we stopped.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 10:41 PM
1 Comments:
I know how Scott/Earl feels. My Paladin can soak up a lot of hits, but so far he is the lightweight of the group when it comes to hurting back. Luckily, that is not his job.
Jay
Post a Comment
<< Home