The Valley #24-25

Yes, it’s been a bit since I’ve posted last.

The reason is simple: available time for me to write + how often we’ve gamed recently = longer intervals between posting.

From what I’ve heard of the PHB3, I’m not buying it.

Anyone who’s read this blog long enough knows that I hate psionics; mainly because in the previous editions it used an alternate version of “magic” to create the same effects.

I know that a lot of people hated the cast and forget version of the Vancian magic system. I actually liked it until high levels, but even then, it wasn’t bad.

Psionics used points. So while it had effects like magic, it wasn’t used like magic.

I honestly thought that with 4E the whole point system would be unneeded as everyone would use the at-will/encounter/daily power system.

From what I’ve been told, I was wrong.

So no thanks WotC/Hasbro. You once again failed to listen.

Ok WotC/Hasbro, listen to me now.

I’m not buying your books unless there is something of value in them that is more than a dozen pages of things I can and will use.

So unless you put value in those books by making them more than rehashed and failed ideas, and include a download for the pdf so I can copy/paste information from it for ease in making modules and characters, then I see no reason to spend $30-40 of my money on you when I can use it to buy something else for me, like a WoW game card.

Session 24
Admon (Scott); level 10 human war wizard
Edward (Aaron); level 10 human paladin of Brekaneth
Ander (Dale); level 10 halfling sorcerer

Justin had to cancel at the last minute, so my planned adventure had to be partially scrapped and reworked (and thus we ended our night a bit earlier than usual).

Dale is back in all of his usual low-rolling glory.

I wrote Duncan out of the module by saying that he went back to Silverhome to figure out what the runes from last session meant, since they appear to be created by dwarven hands.

While he was doing that, Admon and Edward rested at the runed door.

Eventually Ander showed up, and there was an “Oh, it’s you.” kind of reunion.

Ander had been wandering in this direction because he felt that another Chaos Spark was coming, and it led him here.

Rather than wait for Duncan to return, they decide to check out the door, and if possible, open it.

They could faintly hear something moving around in water on the other side.

They were also able to roughly translate the runes to be saying “do not enter”.

After that they opened the door by beating and blasting on the dried clay until it opened.

Inside they found a pair of vine horrors (with spellcasting abilities) and a pair of very large and very hungry snakes.

This fight was entertaining to me. They started the battle by nuking the vine horrors so hard that both were bloodied by the end of round 1, and one was at 1hp by then end of round 2.

I thought I was going to have to find a way to pump up the encounter, but then my dice rolls kicked in.

Every round it seemed that there were always 2 PC’s that had been blinded by the vine horrors, and 1-2 of them grabbed by the snakes.

Soon it was the PC’s who were in bad shape, but not so bad they couldn’t recover and kill both snakes and one horror and take a moment to rest.

Then the Chaos Spark arrived and Ander felt that it felt “off”.

It spit out some warped humanoids that were only interested in killing PC’s and then it started randomly attacking the group with a set of shadowy tentacles that dazed people for two rounds straight.

The fight was not all that tough on the party, and the group got the Chaos Spark under control (using rituals in the form of Arcana skill checks).

When it finally closed, it burst back open for a brief moment and a human-shaped figured fell to the ground.

The figure was Girvan Torl but something had happened to him.

He was utterly hairless, wearing his armor, drenched in sweat, and had a death grip on his sword.

He was in such agony that he did not seem to respond to anyone or anything until they got him back to the Grand Temple of Brekaneth. Only then did he seem to make a change for the better and relax just a touch.

Due to Edward’s less than positive view of Torl, the group made sure to bring him openly into town, rather than secretly.

Father Adrek thanked and told them they had done a good job, but the party knows that they had just been lucky.

After the clerics removed Torl’s armor (he still could not be coaxed into releasing his sword) they found something else different about Torl. On his chest, upper arms, and back were tattoos of a symbol; 5 purple “T”’s joined at the bottom in a star formation.

Edward immediately began suspecting that whatever was on the other side of the Chaos Spark had tainted Torl.

In actuality, Aaron is just looking for an excuse to say “taint” more often.

While Edward and Ander were having fun at the church, Admon decided to take the frozen package of vine horror to the mayor.

Admon attempted to carry on the same way with the mayor that Duncan does, but the mayor was very business-like and not at all cordial. But the mission was accomplished, so it wasn’t a big deal.

The following day they resumed reading Ivellios’s tomes and were able to get some data deciphered about Ivellios’s dealing with outsiders of the plane.

There was information about a lust devil named Stefforri that he conversed with using arcane means. She was unable to subvert him in any form, but he was able to get information about her which more or less allowed the group to find out what special powers Stefforri had.

Unfortunately, I tried to put a tiny bit of emphasis on a specific ability of hers, but they missed it.

During Session 25, while repeating the information to Justin, I did the same thing. Once again, they missed it.

Let’s see if you can see what they missed:

Charming Kiss (std, at-will): Charm:
+14 vs. AC; on a hit, make a secondary attack against same target
Secondary Attack: +12 vs. Will; target cannot attack Stefforri, & if adjacent to her when she is targeted by a melee or a ranged attack, the target interposes itself & becomes the target of the attack instead. The effects last until the succubus or one of its allies attacks the target or until the succubus dies.
If the target is still under the effect of this power at the end of the encounter, the succubus can sustain the effect indefinitely by kissing the target once per day. The succubus can affect only one target at a time with its charming kiss.

Session 25
Admon (Scott); level 10 human war wizard
Duncan (Justin); level 10 Silverhome dwarven cleric of Moradin
Edward (Aaron); level 10 human paladin of Brekaneth
Ander (Dale); level 10 halfling sorcerer

We jumped back in time with Duncan, to give him an opportunity to find out more about the runes, but he found out nothing more than what the party already had.

The next morning they had already taken care of business without him.

The party is still searching for “living silver blood”, but can find nothing of what that could be.

They keep returning to the conclusion of dragon’s blood, but the dragon’s are stonewalling them on that idea.

So Duncan goes to talk to Thlyria Isara to see if any elven scholars would know of something like that. She promises to ask, but does not expect them to know anything that Ivellios would not already have recorded.

He asks her if there is anyone else who may know. She responds with Lord Tonus.

So they look around town for him and can’t find him until they say his name aloud.

He appears and politely asks them what they need.

They tell him and he points them in the direction of a hermit wizard. The wizard never keeps the same name for long but he specializes in many odd magicks.

He lives in a magically cut cave not far from Heroes’ Rest.

Ander asks Tonus what has happened to all the sorcerers. They seem to have disappeared.

Tonus flatly tells him that several are probably working for the dragons, and some have died, like Fiermach (by an accident he caused).

Almost immediately they head out to where Tonus had pointed them.

Well where Stefforri, in the shape of Tonus, had pointed them.

The ambush scared the party at first – a hill giant, a wyvern, ogres, worgs, and goblins all magically appeared and surrounded them.

Unfortunately for the monsters, this party can dish out some damage, including some nasty blast attacks.

A few rounds later only the wyvern and giant were left. When the giant was dropped the wyvern flew off.

It was barely a challenge to the party, though it did scare them at first.
(How would you like it the DM put 8 large minis on the map, plus a dragon, and some scattered other minis?)

Among the loot was a piece of parchment with their pictures with skulls next to them and a pile of gold bars on it. They had been set up.

In spite of the expectation of a setup, they found the cave, but it was long abandoned. It was empty and held the faintest traces of powerful magic that had once been used here.

Empty handed, they return to town.

Over the next few days Duncan begins to pay money out of his pocket to begin his campaign for the city council.

He also tells the mayor his plans, and the mayor tells him he can get some people to help him out.

Girvan Torl is up and moving around at this point. He’s still hairless and very weak, but refuses to not wear his armor or carry his sword.

Edward feels that Torl may know about what’s on the other side of the “chaos sparks”.

With the faintest of voices, say “I sure hope he’s not tainted.”

Torl hears the comment and immediately calls Edward on it.

He orders Edward to the training grounds for an immediate lesson.

With a decent crowd surround them, Girvan makes several misses.

(Edward has 29+ AC while I kept rolling 3’s and 4’s).

Edward missed with a roll of 19 (not a total of 19, a roll of 19), so he switches to attacks that targets Torl’s Reflex defense and proceeds to roll 19, 20, 20, and 18 while Torl continues to or barely hit.

Edward knows he’s in bad shape, because even the minor attacks are forcing him to lay on hands and maneuver well.

Then Torl gets a crit with an at-will, and deals 50 points of subdual damage.

A few minutes later Torl slaps him awake with “learn some respect.”

Ander tries to talk to the dragons, but he gets their “answering machine”.

He searches for members of the sorcerers’ cabal and comes up empty yet again.

He heads home and sees a man on his balcony.

Tonus says, “I hear you were looking for me.”
“We were. I thought we had found you.”
“You my friend are in a scary situation. You have all the information you need to see clearly, but your not looking around. You’re failing to read the fine print. Whoever you saw yesterday was not me. I am simply here to say read the fine print.”

(As you can tell, I’m getting pushy with the “open your eyes” hints. But since we’re all guys at the table, hints do not get noticed.)

The Valley #22-23

Here’s a particular danger I’ve fallen into at least twice now: If your group stops their session w/o a chance for a rest, remember that when designing the next session.

You’d think it was a minor thing, but since we’ve been only gaming every other week recently, it’s easy to forget such a minor detail.

Luckily you can just wave your magical DM hand and fix it. Players usually don’t mind.

My players usually don’t mind because I tend to drain them of their resources like it’s my job (it is).

As for getting new players, we’ve not had any luck.

Dale should be returning soon. I’ll probably give his sorcerer a level boost to bring him closer to the group. It would not be fun and would be unfair to him and the group if he was 5 levels behind everyone else and they had to babysit him.

Mike still might return with Kergan for a game or two, but that’s up in the air at the moment.

One thing I, surprisingly, miss writing out on the blog is the combats like I used to. But 4E combats aren’t as easy to write about. So many special powers, movement, healing, and the like are too hard to keep track of. Not to mention that the combats take a lot more time, real time and number of rounds.

More hit points and less damage does not good drama make. (Wow the grammar checker didn’t explode on that last sentence.)

I try to put in as much of the role-playing as I reasonably can while not outright dumping everything that was said. What I do write feels light, but I also don’t want to post giant pointless walls of text that won’t get read.

I’m not a good story writer and never will be. Hell, I can’t even keep the past/present tenses correct in 90% of the sentences I write.

What I think I’m good at is making the game sessions connect and flow well in a fantasy world. When something strange happens in the game the party will say “Hey, that’s strange.” and not say “Here’s another mistake he made.”

At least that’s what I hope they say.

The Valley may not be the most realistic campaign world, but I’m not shooting for that. I want something fun for me and the group. I get to tell my story (stories) and they get to have PC’s that grow in any manner of directions (power, popularity, etc.).

If you think it’s just improbable for all these people to survive in a secluded, giant hole in the ground for 300 years then I will explain it after you explain to me in real world physics how spells are cast, how beholders work, and then you find me a real green dragon living who’s been to the Feywild.

Anyway…

Session 22
Admon (Scott); level 10 human war wizard
Duncan (Justin); level 9 Silverhome dwarven cleric of Moradin
Edward (Aaron); level 10 human paladin of Brekaneth

Kergan had just left the group to their task while he had to hurry off on his own.

He left the Vial of Purity with them and told them that this should be able to delay the total collapse of the undead elf prison now known as Ivellios’s Shame.

The Vial of Purity is actually a powerful artifact, so powerful it decreased the amount of XP the party would get for each fight.

First off it removed the fatigue of the party (free extended rest) and could generate a turn undead power each round as a minor action of the person holding it.

The three party members stepped through the failing shimmering purple “skin” of the prison entryway.

Their knowledge of history and religion (translated = skill checks) told the party that they should find the central heart of the prison and place the Vial there.

The magically cut tomb was freezing and was getting colder with each step they took further away from the exit.

The first room of the tomb had been altered recently with artificial walls being put up around the room.

This was done to make it easier for the banshee to go where she wanted to without being easily pursued.

The banshee and a trio of four-armed skeletons beat the hell out of the party the first round as the DM rolled a lot of 16’s and better.

This went on for a couple of rounds until Duncan used the Vial’s power. Then the combat became manageable for the party (which is surprisingly what the DM expected – a tough fight that balanced out once the Vial was used).

Before the banshee was hacked down she screamed out “They have something that hurts us.”

There were several “doors” of the same shimmering purple skin at each passage, and the party chose to head straight which the undead may have helped them make that decision because the undead were yelling out to one another that the intruders were probably heading to the “heart”.

The next room was no real surprise; a bunch of armored dead bodies laying about the corners of the floor. When the bodies jumped up to attack, no one was surprised.

The fight itself was not so easy though. The chill of this room was even colder on an unnatural level that cause the party’s attack rolls to be at -1 (-2 for the Vial).

The battle-wights were tough and the party had left Admon a bit exposed, so the battle-wights pounced on him for a round.

But after that the party had managed to gain control of the combat, it made the rest of the combat an exercise in rolling d20’s.

The final room was beyond freezing (like -40) and the attack penalties were double the previous room.

This room’s defenders were simple ghouls and ice zombies mixed with the frigid cold of the room and a ramped floor that had ice that made combat a chaos of tripping and painful cold.

But at the end of the room was a barely glowing ruby that flickered with fading power.

Halfway through the combat a wall of cold magic separated the room, and forced the party to pass through it and fight the remaining ice zombies on their terms.

As expected, the party won (their biggest opponent was actually the icy floor).

They place the Vial next to the heart and notice immediate changes.

First the “doors” strengthen, the cold of the air dissipates, and the prisoners scream in pain and rage.

From one of the bodies a spirit rises and introduces himself as Nilrathal and thanks the party for their deed. He warns them that this won’t be permanent, but has bought some time. He can feel the strength of the Vial beginning to lose its strength already.

He then instructs them that there is an item of magic on his body (simple orb +3) and gives to them in thanks.

As they leave he says “If Thlyria gives you any trouble about taking things from the tomb, tell her that “Uncle Nilrathal says ‘don’t be a silly prat little girl.’”

When that exact that occurrence played out, Thlyria Isara stops in mid-sentence.

Session 23
Admon (Scott); level 10 human war wizard
Duncan (Justin); level 10 Silverhome dwarven cleric of Moradin
Edward (Aaron); level 10 human paladin of Brekaneth

She also hasn’t seen Girvan Torl in quite a while. No one has.

They’re pretty beat up, so they head back to their homes to rest to resume their search for Torl in the morning.

Admon has made much progress at learning from Ivellios’s books, but he’s starting to hit walls when it comes to translating the higher end information.

The three of them regroup and head out to see Polaris and Ajell at Silver Lake to see if they know anything that can help them.

They get to the lake and yell out Polaris’s name. In response a dragon head made of water rises from the lake and talks with them.

The party says something that sounds a little like this, “Valley’s about to be destroyed, blah blah blah, impending doom, blah blah blah, apocalypse, blah blah blah, elves damned us all to hell.”

The watery dragon head responds with “We’ve heard all of this before and are currently dealing with other such issues as well. We implore you, great heroes of the Valley, to solve these problems as best you can.”

They then ask if they can have a sample of their silver dragon blood because they think it might help with the special silver component they need to fix their elf tomb problem.

“Do you know you need it? Dragon’s blood is not exactly weak in nature. We will not hand over something so pure and valuable without guaranteed proof that it will work as intended.”

“Then have you seen Girvan Torl?”
“No.”, and the head drops back into the water with a plash.

When they get back to town, the guards inform the PC’s that the mayor has been looking for them.”

It was a bit late, but the mayor was still in his office.

He asks the party to get him a live specimen of the vine monsters that’s part of the recipe for creating and possibly curing the zombie elixir.
A perception check says that the mayor is holding something back, so they press him for a full answer.

It turns out that someone who was working on the counter-elixir has been killed and his copy of the recipe was stolen.

They mayor wants a live capture for the city, and for the party to destroy any other such vine monsters to prevent anyone not of the city from getting their own sample.

To capture it a live specimen the mayor hands Duncan a small crystal sphere and instructs him to throw it at the base of the vine monster.

He then warns them to be careful, the cave they’re heading to is near Heroes’ Rest, a place known for being a home to monstrous humanoids, ones that are much tougher than goblins.

(The party decides that one day they’ll take back Heroes’ Rest.)

They travel to the location that the mayor gave them and find it protected by some prepared goblins.

The lead goblin says “Your kind aren’t welcome here.”
The party responds with “We don’t give a damn.”

With a lovely exchange like that it’s no surprise that a fight broke out shortly afterwards.

The goblins were able to split the party up, but that’s really about it.

The goblin boss was hard to kill, but was taken down eventually. (Actually he had plenty of hp and defenses, but dealt small damage – so I just made Edward take 50 points of damage spread over several rounds and call the combat over.)

Next they attempted to sneak down the cave opening. Edward, the plate wearer, rolled a nat 1 so Grob and Blog heard them coming easily.

This led to a lovely fight where the three well-powered PC’s faced off against an ettin witch doctor and their pet redspawn firebelcher.

Note: Ettins are bad ass in 4E.
Note: Firebelchers makes fire wizards cry because firebelchers give allies fire resistance.

Tactically I think the party goofed in focusing on the ettin. The ettin had huge defenses (and was wearing +3 armor) and was receiving fire resistance. The party’s wizard has a lot of fire spells. If you drop the belcher, the ettin loses some key protection.

The party was thinking that the ettin’s dual actions made it way too powerful to not focus on. What they didn’t know was that the ettin had triple the belcher’s hit points and was about 10 higher on all defenses but Reflex. The ettin was weak versus the wizard’s Reflex attacks, but those attacks were mostly fire-based.

The party still won, but the party had the holy hell beat out of them.

On the ettin’s corpse was a copy of the recipe for the zombie elixir, written in a nice clean hand, most-definitely not written by an ettin.

Before the party arrived the ettin was working on opening a newly built wall to the cave. The wall appeared to be of dwarven make and had magical runes on it that gave warning of “What is inside must stay inside”.

And we stopped there.