Order of the Mithril Dolphin #11

Well we finally got back to a point in Dale’s campaign where it’s actually his campaign and not just a few fights thrown together for the sake of doing something.

That means I can write about it once again.

The previous session Mike added some Arcane Power options to his bard Renald. The result was a PC that helped other PC’s at the cost of his own actions. The results were less satisfying than he had hoped.

So Mike dumped Renald in favor of Gorak, a human barbarian. Gorak literally jumps into battle, bypassing blocking soldier types to get straight at the softer back line.

So far it appears our combats have Gorak and Wildeyes going after the controllers and artillery while Kal, Shamash, and Sephira battle it out with the front line and Ergot going for targets of opportunity or nuisance control. The description is a generalization, but an accurate one.

Valley-wise, for similar reasons that Mike dumped Renald, I’ve removed bards from the list of allowable PC’s. Their abilities disrupt combat flow way too much for my liking.

Back in 1E AD&D, combats took 15 minutes and you could fit a dozen in a night. With 4E, and 3E, they traded the quantity of fights for more dynamic fights that gives each class something more than just to roll dice, but at the cost of much longer fights.

So unless I want to dust off my 1E books or play Hackmaster, I have to adapt and accept these changes as best I can.

First off, and I accepted this back in 3.5E, the days of a dozen combats a session are gone. So I’m only going to plan for 2 to 4 combats and/or challenges a session. That means “yard trash” fights have to go or be incorporated into other fights.

Something we’ve been doing is to call a fight over when it’s obvious the rest of the fight is just a waste of time. Usually this is when only a couple uninteresting targets or situations remain. The DM estimates how many more rounds the combat is going to go and gives the monsters that many attacks, if just to soak up healing surges. So far no one at the table has complained about making rounds 7 to 10 go away.

I’ve also decided to add a time goal to certain fights. For non-crucial (non-boss) fights I may add a time goal and reward. If we make the goal, the party gets the reward. In most cases the reward will be bonus XP, but I’m sure I could occasionally make it something the party wants.

The goals could have a possible side effect of everyone making a quick combat, nova-type character. To that I respond, be careful. While I wholeheartedly agree that every PC in the group must pull their weight in a fight, having everyone do the same thing guarantees a bad end.

To me every group should be set up in this manner:
Someone to tank (high defenses, high hp, marking ability)
Someone to heal and remove afflictions (a second healer couldn’t hurt, but a third is a waste)
Someone to control the battlefield (sliding friend and foe to better positions)
Everyone else does as much damage as they can, usually as fast as they can.

While that doesn’t account for every situational possibility, it covers enough.

Now I’m sure someone is saying “What if I want to take a less effective power in favor of more flair or role-playing reasons?”

My response is – it depends on your campaign, but for me role-playing is usually not done during a combat on a level where powers are used.

A less nice way to say it is “You are stealing the XP your teammates earned because you wanted to try something ‘cool’”.

Alright, enough of my soapbox again.

This session (levels 5-7 I think).
Shamash (Aaron), dragonborn fighter/cleric, defender
Sephira (Scott), dragonborn cleric, leader/striker
Wildeyes (Me), halfling ranger/rogue, striker
Gorak (Mike), human barbarian, striker
Kal (Brian), human swordmage, defender
Ergot (Justin), dwarf druid, controller

Our previous session left us back in Hillside after a variety of undocumented sessions that had us fighting satyrs, grey dragons, shadow beasts, demons, and undead.

We started off with another audience with Korg Ironfist, mayor of Hillside.

The last time we talked to him the prevention of fishing mithril river dolphins was left somewhat unresolved as the Fishermen’s’ Guild were claiming our goals would hurt them too much.

This time I believe we resolved the issue once and for all.

It just required a simple application of Occam’s Razor, a mentioning of new licensing money for fishing, fees for illegal fishing, and proving that Kal did indeed carry the sword of the Sea King.

And to knock the Fishermen’s Guild for a loop, we convinced Korg to pit the fishermen against each other by offering a portion of the fines as a reward to any fisherman that rats out another fisherman. We thought that bit was particularly humorous.

With that resolved we went about using our long gathered monetary treasure and converted it to magic items via item creation rituals.

Wildeyes got himself a set of Quickhit Bracers, so when he hits the same target with both melee weapons he adds another 1d6 points of damage, and a daily power that gives him a free swing too.

For an example of Wildeyes “going nova” (and I doubt this is as powerful as he could be); assuming the target is already affect with Hunter’s Quarry, the target is flanked, all daily powers and action points are available, and I rolled enough to get all hits but not crits, Wildeyes would use Sneak Attack, Ruffling Sting, Jaws of the Wolf, Two-Wolf Pounce, and his Quickhit Bracers for 1d8 + 13d6 + 26 and 2d6 + 4 to an alternate target (an average of 76 and 11 damage).

The above will most likely not happen, but it’s nice to think about. My current damage record to a single target is 49 and my current attack bonus with my short swords is +15/+14 (MH/OH, with flanking).

After our shopping was done we chatted with Burgoyne, our “adventure finder”. He had heard of someone who might know where to find a special sapphire that can be added to the Sea King’s sword to increase its power. All we had to do was find someone named Sammath Narr in the Underdark and he might know where this sapphire is.

The trail we took led us down a “mushroom forest” path and of course there were combats.

Our first one was against a gibbering mouther, a grell, and a pair of gricks.

This fight sucked thanks to the dazing power of the mouther and the grell’s stronger abilities (grells are elite).

Shamash and Wildeyes took forever with the grell. Gorak and Ergot took out the mouther first, and Kal and Sephira held out as best they could until the rest of us joined them to take out the gricks at which point Dale declared the combat over.

The next combat was yet another “give us money or die” toll road, this time with troglodytes.

We owned the trogs. Gorak and Wildeyes bypassed the soldiers and started bashing their soft backside early. Once the soldiers were locked down Shamash and Sephira put their damaging zone powers to use. After that it was just a matter of time and one dropping per round, even with fairly decent defenses and hit points.

Now it was getting a bit late, and Dale expected the next combat to take more time than we had, so I mentioned the time vs. goal system and Dale decided to try it out.

If we were done by 11:30 he’d give bonus XP.

The combat itself was not that hard, but it was irritating as Shadar-kai have some complicated attack abilities and some good evading abilities.

After the first few rounds, when we’d exhausted all our big powers, we started going on rapid auto-pilot, including Dale.

To note, we finished by 11:29 and the bonus XP just barely put me up a level.

The next session I have to miss for personal reasons and the one after that is canceled since it’s the holidays.