Order of the Mithril Dolphin #9

At the time of me writing this the PHB2 has been released, but I do not yet have a copy. Next session expect some ret-conning of some PC’s, specifically Renald who I believe will turn into a half-elf.

After this next session I will be out for 2 weeks as I’m going on vacation.

All but Justin made it this session (all level 4 I think).
Kal (Brian), human swordmage, defender
Sephira (Scott), dragonborn cleric, leader/striker
Shamash (Aaron), dragonborn fighter/cleric, defender
Renald (Mike), human bard, leader
Wildeyes (Me), halfling ranger/rogue, striker
Jessail (NPC), halfling sorcerer, striker

Justin was out for his wisdom teeth being removed and he was medicated.
A phone call verified that he was indeed medicated.
I doubt he even remembers we called him.

We’ve been cruising through the combats recently, but that changed this session.

We were also reminded of a lesson that I learned a while ago when I put 12 goblins and 12 worgs together against the party in 3E. I learned then that tripping can make an easy fight a very tough one. Had there been only a few trippers it would not have been so bad, but every PC had two creatures around them that could virtually negate their turns.

It didn’t help that last week we blew our dailies and action points because we thought a fight was the last one for the night. But that’s a discussion for later…

Last week we had finished off some strong zombified dogs, and found out that the three crypts nearby were 200 years old and contained some evil inside of them that called undead to it or even raised the dead to unlife because they were once part of a temple to Orcus.

In the first crypt we checked, the one with the most damage from weather and time, we found no creatures of any kind, though we did detect evil and magic coming from within.

The only object of note and the obvious source of the evil was a half-sized human skull made of onyx. Wildeyes evaluated the skull to be worth at least 250gp intact, or 90gp in pieces (though one could argue that anything that could spontaneously bring the dead to unlife to be worth much more). It also appeared to be part of something else, such as the head to a staff.

Wildeyes kept the information of its value to himself and the group smashed the thing to dust. This action got Wildeyes a free “DM favor” for following his alignment.

When smashed, the skull emitted a psychic scream.

Rather than rest like we should have, we pressed on as several of us had action points and a couple people had a daily or two left.

The next crypt had several zombies and skeletons cornering a frightened yet armed and armored old man. That screamed trap, but on the offhand chance that we were wrong we had to spring the trap; in this case by giving free attacks to the monsters while the “old man” gave flanking.

The skeletons were mostly standard (normal soldiers and a boneshard) and your normal non-minion zombies, but the old man turned out to be something from Open Grave called a pale reaver. When he actually joined combat he turned insubstantial (or phased or whatever) - it takes half damage, can’t be slowed by terrain, and can move through walls.

Our response was to use a power that actually knocked it through the wall and prone (supplied by Renald I think), thus giving us a round to work on the other undead before he came back to attack.

The normal undead were easy to deal with, but the pale reaver was a pain. He ended up running away from us (through a wall) once it was obvious we would take him down.

Unfortunately he would return later.

We searched the crypt and found a trap door leading down. It was a narrow passage so we had to enter the next room while in a line. When the room opened up there were several columns making maneuvering difficult.

There were also 5 ghouls.

Notes for reference:
1 claw hit from a ghoul means damage plus you’re immobilized until you make a save.
1 bite from a ghoul means damage plus you’re stunned until you make a save.
This means that 1 ghoul on you is an irritation, 2 ghouls on you is painfully irritating, 3 ghouls on you means your turns will usually consist of making saves only.

We knew we were in bad shape, yet we had no clue how much worse it was for us as we didn’t know the above at the time. In all previous versions of the game you weren’t automatically paralyzed by the ghouls, you made a save at the time of the attack. The 4E change to ghouls makes them very tough, and that toughness can make them a real challenge for many levels beyond previous versions.

Then, as we were realizing how poorly off we were, the pale reaver returned.

5 ghouls + limited space + overcrowded hallway + limited movement = our front line is surrounded with no way out

This is one of those fights that proves that controllers do have a legitimate place in a group as a wizard could have places a Burning Sphere somewhere and limited the ghouls’ options against us.

The only person in our group that was consistently hurting the ghouls was Jessail, and her involvement ended when the reaver returned and went after our backline.

Wildeyes was reduced to negative hit points first while in the ghoul room, so I turned in the DM favor to be placed in the hallway. He was then healed up and moved to take on the reaver.

Kal was dropped as well, but Brian rolled a nat20 on the death save so he also moved to face the reaver.

This allowed Jessail to resume blasting the ghouls. Her first attack was a natural 1. I’m not sure about the released PHB2, but the information we had was that a sorcerer rolling a nat 1 on an attack = everyone in 5 squares of the sorcerer gets pushed back a square – friend or foe.

By that time the party was steadily pulling back into the hallway, and Jessail’s nat 1 actually helped that a little by clearing out some space and limiting opportunity attacks from ghouls.

Her second nat 1, 1 round later, was not appreciated, but the group recovered and was able to “plug up the stopper” that was the hallway, only permitting only 1 ghoul to face our front line at a time.

While all that was going on Wildeyes announced “We are leaving!”, as there was some confusion on what we needed to do at the time.
Then the reaver returned to material form and asked if we were actually leaving.
I said yes and rolled a nat 20 with a bluff check.

The next round I stabbed him and got a crit. It didn’t kill him, but it did bloody him and he was dead by Ian’s sword before he could go “ghosty” again.

By then our side had stabilized while the undead were on the ropes. When they were all dead we immediately returned to town, utterly exhausted (read “out of healing surges”).

We rested up then talked to the townsfolk, informing them of what had gone on. They sent a messenger to get a priest that could consecrate the area to remove the evil.

We couldn’t wait around for the priest, so we returned to check out the third crypt to find it empty. If there was something there it had left during the night.

So now we’re back on track to find the black dragon (Growlgretch – yes Dale reuses names) that has the gem Jessail is looking for.

That’s when we met Tuck…the fairy dragon.

That’s also when Aaron, Brian, and I shuddered.

Scott and Mike were concerned about our sudden attitude change.

You see Dale likes to play a few iconic characters that travel from campaign to campaign.

One character is a cleric named Elvis. He talks in a deep wavering voice and thinks highly of himself.

He also likes to plays very playful, and incredibly irritating, fairy dragons who like to impose their sense of humor on the party – especially the most cynical members of the group.

Granted, that’s how fairy dragons are supposed to be. But don’t judge our disdain of Dale’s special NPC’s until you’ve met them.

Dale made Tuck useful to the party and is now a companion of sorts to Renald (who Tuck took a quick liking to). Every day Dale will give Tuck a special power, based on a die roll from a chart.

I’m not sure the trade-off is worth the cost.