The Valley #29-30
Everyone welcome Dan to the group.
Everyone say to goodbye to Dan.
He very much fit into our group, but quickly found out that work + family sometimes doesn’t leave much room for D&D. So rather than linger on as an “I think I can make it” player, he chose to exit in a friendly manner so that he could rejoin us if his schedule can consistently open up.
Given what we’ve seen in this group, we appreciate that a lot.
So thanks for not taking our group for granted Dan.
For Session 30 I decided to try something a little different.
I set up a scaled set of encounters and allowed the party to pick the difficulty on a scale of 1-5.
Difficulty 1 would be a standard, equal level encounter (100% XP for 4 PC’s), while difficulty 5 would be twice as hard (200% XP for 4 PC’s), and the other difficulties would scale.
The higher the difficulty, the more treasure and XP to be given, and the more time it takes to finish the combat. It’s going to take some tweaking to get right, but so far I like it.
The setup will be clarified more in Session 30’s write-up.
Session 29
Admon (Scott); level 11 human war wizard
Edward (Aaron); level 11 human paladin of Brekaneth
Ander (Dale); level 11 halfling sorcerer
Kabret (Dan); level 11 human cleric (it may be Kabert, I have forgotten)
Due to time issues I made Dan’s PC for him since he’d only really played low level 4E games.
Considering that, he did pretty good adapting to a paragon level PC.
Plus he wanted to play a cleric.
That’s a big jump from our usual of “I guess I’ll play a healer (sigh).”
For the time being Kabret is a cleric of Brekaneth under the command of General Songrider. The general decided that Erdrick can be put to better use for his plans so he places his trusted Kabret to support the party for their part in taking back the town of Theven’s Wharf.
We jumped into the action as the party poured into an open section of the town wall. There was more action going on, but to keep things simple (as in no huge numbers of minions on each side that would attack each round) I pitted the PC’s against several dozen orc warriors in a town setting with a lot of buildings near the breached wall.
The plan was to kill the orcs’ leader Bromock, and then lure out the devil Ozim.
The PC’s charged in and had to deal with dozens of orcs throwing spears from behind buildings and from above while dealing with more of the paralyzing ghoul’s teeth.
(After a good chunk of time was wasted dealing with the 4+ dozen orc minions on the table, I decided to just assign a number of attacks each PC would receive a round.)
Once several orc warriors had been killed Bromock and his pair of bloodragers arrived to fight.
The 3 orcs hit maybe 10% of the time, but when they hit they put a hurting on their target. Add the 2-4 attacks per round from the minions, and you have yourself a nice sum of damage each round.
The PC’s won but used half of their healing surges.
The reward choices:
Bromock’s Greataxe (Vicious Greataxe +3)
Bromock’s Attitude Adjustor (Bracers of Mighty Striking – Level 12)
Bromock’s Clawed Feet (Assault Boots)
I believe they went with Bromock’s Clawed Feet.
Now that Bromock is dead, Ozim goes on a rampage and he eventually finds the party.
The general had told them that whoever Ozim goes after, they were to hold him off until the general can join with his crew.
The party rested near the docks until they heard Ozim and his devil horde coming.
The party didn’t quite know what they were up against, so instead of delaying Ozim, they decided to let loose with their most powerful attacks.
When they found out what Ozim could do, they were not happy.
Ozim isn’t your normal bone devil. Instead of the usual Aura of Obedience (which does damage to bloodied devils, but they do more damage, and if they die the bone devil heals 10) he had the ability to absorb the devil minions into him to heal.
With Ozim bloodied in the first couple of rounds, the party was enjoying a series of crits from their dailies.
Then they were not happy when he was back to full health by the time the fourth round came along.
Later the players stated that they didn’t like the way that the combat worked out. But other than maybe limit the number of minions absorbed per round, limit Ozim’s teleporting, and make it clearer that “keep him occupied” means just that, I liked the encounter as it was.
Once the party realized that the minions were mobile healing potions…they still chose to attack Ozim.
What I expected to happen:
The party tries to take him on alone - Check
Ozim heals up - Check
The party’s damage dealers change their focus to the minions - D’oh!
General Marcum Songrider arrives - Check (eventually)
The party achieves a lockdown on the minions as Marcum faces off against Ozim and Marcum’s forces join the party in controlling Ozim’s minions - Check
Ozim is defeated - Check
So what really happened vs. what I thought would happen was not that much different.
It just scared the party.
DM’s job done – check
Session 30
Dan was unable to make it, so Erdrick rejoined. The way things are looking, Erdrick may be with the party a lot.
Admon (Scott); level 11 human war wizard
Edward (Aaron); level 11 human paladin of Brekaneth
Ander (Dale); level 11 halfling sorcerer
Erdrick (NPC); level 11 human priest (modified cleric)
The day after the town was liberated there was much work going on.
Ander finally met up with a sorcerer from Ander’s cabal. This particular sorcerer had been instructed by Polaris to join up with General Songrider’s army, and it has been the best thing for him. Songrider has given this sorcerer purpose and has done so without prejudice.
At that particular point in time the sorcerer’s job was to simply send up flares into the sky to notify that those hiding at sea that it was safe to return. Ander decided to hang out with him and do some fishing.
Admon spent his time assisting in rebuilding the town. The army supplied the materials required, so Admon was casting a lot of Mend Object rituals.
Edward escorted Kabret to the Valley to report in and to facilitate the eventual arrival of General Songrider to the Valley.
They could only spend a day in the Valley as there were still some residual issues left over from liberating Theven’s Wharf.
While many orcs fled, they were too few in number to be an issue for an army to worry about. But the dragons that escaped could do much more damage, singly or in numbers.
Many of them fled to a nearby dormant volcano, and they were looking for some revenge. If they could reignite the volcano, they could bury Theven’s Wharf under a lava flow.
And we can’t have that now can we?
The general grabbed his best soldiers and were going to strike at as many nests as they simultaneously could.
General Songrider gave the PC’s the option of which nest they could attack.
This was the role-playing excuse I used to allow for the options in difficulty. I gave the party an option of 1-5 with each option representing roughly 100% standard XP for their numbers and level, 125%, 150%, 175%, and 200%.
Difficulty 1
1 Lava Spray (modified level 9 blaster trap from the DMG)
1 Young Red Dragon
2 Red Dragon Wyrmlings
2600XP, 600gp, 600sp, & 1 quartz (500gp)
Difficulty 2
1 Lava Spray
1 Young Red Dragon
4 Red Dragon Wyrmlings
3400XP, 750gp, 750sp, & 2 quartz (500gp each)
Difficulty 3
1 Lava Spray
2 Young Red Dragon
2 Red Dragon Wyrmlings
4000XP, 900gp, 900sp, 2 quartz (500gp each), 1 topaz (500gp), & a 1 level 12 Item
Difficulty 4
1 Lava Spray
2 Young Red Dragon
4 Red Dragon Wyrmlings
5000XP, 1000gp, 1000sp, 2 quartz (500gp each), 2 topazes (500gp), & a 1 level 12-13 Item
Difficulty 5
1 Lava Spray
3 Young Red Dragon
2 Red Dragon Wyrmlings
5600XP, 1200gp, 1200sp, 2 quartz (500gp each), 2 topazes (500gp), & a 1 level 12-14 item
The items to pick from:
Level 12:
The Ascendant Noble’s Cudgel (Resounding Mace +3)
Felix’s Bane (Orb of Indisputable Gravity +3)
Keoghtom’s Ointment
Level 13:
Sill’s Singed Robes (Robe of Defying Flames +3)
Fizzigan’s Third Arm (Force Wand +3)
Nerm’s Failed Hope (Winged Boots)
Level 14:
Sill’s Focus (Bracers of Iron Arcana)
Lavender’s Eyes (Goggles of Night)
Zee’s Oily Amulet (Amulet of Bodily Sanctity +3)
The party chose Difficulty 4, which surprised me a little. I expected them to go with 2 or 3.
The cave they entered was large, with several columns, and the dragons just waking up from the disturbances they were hearing.
The combat didn’t move from where the party started the encounter; the 20’ wide entrance area.
Admon was able to immobilize half the dragons before they were able to get an action off, and that saved the party a lot of trouble as half the dragons had to sit out round 1 and some for even longer.
The party had to arrange themselves just right or they’d give an opening for one of the larger dragons (young reds) to get right in the middle of the party and lay waste.
Admon also gave Edward a buff for 17 points of resistance to fire, but they decided that for future combats that it should go to Ander as he absorbed half the healing that was doled out during combat.
This turned out to be a slugfest with the dragons’ huge amount of hit points and many fiery breath attacks.
The combat also took way too long; so long that I had to declare that there would not be any further encounters for the night.
Then the party let go.
They had been holding back some daily powers for the next fight. With that no longer being required, the dragons were shredded fast.
With Ander being a constant beating target, they gave him some protection with Sill’s Singed Robes. Dale protested, stating he had just gotten a magic dagger the previous week. But they insisted that he being better protected would help everyone else since he would need less healing.
And we stopped there.
For the next 3 sessions it is Dale’s campaign, so I may post something else on the blog.
Everyone say to goodbye to Dan.
He very much fit into our group, but quickly found out that work + family sometimes doesn’t leave much room for D&D. So rather than linger on as an “I think I can make it” player, he chose to exit in a friendly manner so that he could rejoin us if his schedule can consistently open up.
Given what we’ve seen in this group, we appreciate that a lot.
So thanks for not taking our group for granted Dan.
For Session 30 I decided to try something a little different.
I set up a scaled set of encounters and allowed the party to pick the difficulty on a scale of 1-5.
Difficulty 1 would be a standard, equal level encounter (100% XP for 4 PC’s), while difficulty 5 would be twice as hard (200% XP for 4 PC’s), and the other difficulties would scale.
The higher the difficulty, the more treasure and XP to be given, and the more time it takes to finish the combat. It’s going to take some tweaking to get right, but so far I like it.
The setup will be clarified more in Session 30’s write-up.
Session 29
Admon (Scott); level 11 human war wizard
Edward (Aaron); level 11 human paladin of Brekaneth
Ander (Dale); level 11 halfling sorcerer
Kabret (Dan); level 11 human cleric (it may be Kabert, I have forgotten)
Due to time issues I made Dan’s PC for him since he’d only really played low level 4E games.
Considering that, he did pretty good adapting to a paragon level PC.
Plus he wanted to play a cleric.
That’s a big jump from our usual of “I guess I’ll play a healer (sigh).”
For the time being Kabret is a cleric of Brekaneth under the command of General Songrider. The general decided that Erdrick can be put to better use for his plans so he places his trusted Kabret to support the party for their part in taking back the town of Theven’s Wharf.
We jumped into the action as the party poured into an open section of the town wall. There was more action going on, but to keep things simple (as in no huge numbers of minions on each side that would attack each round) I pitted the PC’s against several dozen orc warriors in a town setting with a lot of buildings near the breached wall.
The plan was to kill the orcs’ leader Bromock, and then lure out the devil Ozim.
The PC’s charged in and had to deal with dozens of orcs throwing spears from behind buildings and from above while dealing with more of the paralyzing ghoul’s teeth.
(After a good chunk of time was wasted dealing with the 4+ dozen orc minions on the table, I decided to just assign a number of attacks each PC would receive a round.)
Once several orc warriors had been killed Bromock and his pair of bloodragers arrived to fight.
The 3 orcs hit maybe 10% of the time, but when they hit they put a hurting on their target. Add the 2-4 attacks per round from the minions, and you have yourself a nice sum of damage each round.
The PC’s won but used half of their healing surges.
The reward choices:
Bromock’s Greataxe (Vicious Greataxe +3)
Bromock’s Attitude Adjustor (Bracers of Mighty Striking – Level 12)
Bromock’s Clawed Feet (Assault Boots)
I believe they went with Bromock’s Clawed Feet.
Now that Bromock is dead, Ozim goes on a rampage and he eventually finds the party.
The general had told them that whoever Ozim goes after, they were to hold him off until the general can join with his crew.
The party rested near the docks until they heard Ozim and his devil horde coming.
The party didn’t quite know what they were up against, so instead of delaying Ozim, they decided to let loose with their most powerful attacks.
When they found out what Ozim could do, they were not happy.
Ozim isn’t your normal bone devil. Instead of the usual Aura of Obedience (which does damage to bloodied devils, but they do more damage, and if they die the bone devil heals 10) he had the ability to absorb the devil minions into him to heal.
With Ozim bloodied in the first couple of rounds, the party was enjoying a series of crits from their dailies.
Then they were not happy when he was back to full health by the time the fourth round came along.
Later the players stated that they didn’t like the way that the combat worked out. But other than maybe limit the number of minions absorbed per round, limit Ozim’s teleporting, and make it clearer that “keep him occupied” means just that, I liked the encounter as it was.
Once the party realized that the minions were mobile healing potions…they still chose to attack Ozim.
What I expected to happen:
The party tries to take him on alone - Check
Ozim heals up - Check
The party’s damage dealers change their focus to the minions - D’oh!
General Marcum Songrider arrives - Check (eventually)
The party achieves a lockdown on the minions as Marcum faces off against Ozim and Marcum’s forces join the party in controlling Ozim’s minions - Check
Ozim is defeated - Check
So what really happened vs. what I thought would happen was not that much different.
It just scared the party.
DM’s job done – check
Session 30
Dan was unable to make it, so Erdrick rejoined. The way things are looking, Erdrick may be with the party a lot.
Admon (Scott); level 11 human war wizard
Edward (Aaron); level 11 human paladin of Brekaneth
Ander (Dale); level 11 halfling sorcerer
Erdrick (NPC); level 11 human priest (modified cleric)
The day after the town was liberated there was much work going on.
Ander finally met up with a sorcerer from Ander’s cabal. This particular sorcerer had been instructed by Polaris to join up with General Songrider’s army, and it has been the best thing for him. Songrider has given this sorcerer purpose and has done so without prejudice.
At that particular point in time the sorcerer’s job was to simply send up flares into the sky to notify that those hiding at sea that it was safe to return. Ander decided to hang out with him and do some fishing.
Admon spent his time assisting in rebuilding the town. The army supplied the materials required, so Admon was casting a lot of Mend Object rituals.
Edward escorted Kabret to the Valley to report in and to facilitate the eventual arrival of General Songrider to the Valley.
They could only spend a day in the Valley as there were still some residual issues left over from liberating Theven’s Wharf.
While many orcs fled, they were too few in number to be an issue for an army to worry about. But the dragons that escaped could do much more damage, singly or in numbers.
Many of them fled to a nearby dormant volcano, and they were looking for some revenge. If they could reignite the volcano, they could bury Theven’s Wharf under a lava flow.
And we can’t have that now can we?
The general grabbed his best soldiers and were going to strike at as many nests as they simultaneously could.
General Songrider gave the PC’s the option of which nest they could attack.
This was the role-playing excuse I used to allow for the options in difficulty. I gave the party an option of 1-5 with each option representing roughly 100% standard XP for their numbers and level, 125%, 150%, 175%, and 200%.
Difficulty 1
1 Lava Spray (modified level 9 blaster trap from the DMG)
1 Young Red Dragon
2 Red Dragon Wyrmlings
2600XP, 600gp, 600sp, & 1 quartz (500gp)
Difficulty 2
1 Lava Spray
1 Young Red Dragon
4 Red Dragon Wyrmlings
3400XP, 750gp, 750sp, & 2 quartz (500gp each)
Difficulty 3
1 Lava Spray
2 Young Red Dragon
2 Red Dragon Wyrmlings
4000XP, 900gp, 900sp, 2 quartz (500gp each), 1 topaz (500gp), & a 1 level 12 Item
Difficulty 4
1 Lava Spray
2 Young Red Dragon
4 Red Dragon Wyrmlings
5000XP, 1000gp, 1000sp, 2 quartz (500gp each), 2 topazes (500gp), & a 1 level 12-13 Item
Difficulty 5
1 Lava Spray
3 Young Red Dragon
2 Red Dragon Wyrmlings
5600XP, 1200gp, 1200sp, 2 quartz (500gp each), 2 topazes (500gp), & a 1 level 12-14 item
The items to pick from:
Level 12:
The Ascendant Noble’s Cudgel (Resounding Mace +3)
Felix’s Bane (Orb of Indisputable Gravity +3)
Keoghtom’s Ointment
Level 13:
Sill’s Singed Robes (Robe of Defying Flames +3)
Fizzigan’s Third Arm (Force Wand +3)
Nerm’s Failed Hope (Winged Boots)
Level 14:
Sill’s Focus (Bracers of Iron Arcana)
Lavender’s Eyes (Goggles of Night)
Zee’s Oily Amulet (Amulet of Bodily Sanctity +3)
The party chose Difficulty 4, which surprised me a little. I expected them to go with 2 or 3.
The cave they entered was large, with several columns, and the dragons just waking up from the disturbances they were hearing.
The combat didn’t move from where the party started the encounter; the 20’ wide entrance area.
Admon was able to immobilize half the dragons before they were able to get an action off, and that saved the party a lot of trouble as half the dragons had to sit out round 1 and some for even longer.
The party had to arrange themselves just right or they’d give an opening for one of the larger dragons (young reds) to get right in the middle of the party and lay waste.
Admon also gave Edward a buff for 17 points of resistance to fire, but they decided that for future combats that it should go to Ander as he absorbed half the healing that was doled out during combat.
This turned out to be a slugfest with the dragons’ huge amount of hit points and many fiery breath attacks.
The combat also took way too long; so long that I had to declare that there would not be any further encounters for the night.
Then the party let go.
They had been holding back some daily powers for the next fight. With that no longer being required, the dragons were shredded fast.
With Ander being a constant beating target, they gave him some protection with Sill’s Singed Robes. Dale protested, stating he had just gotten a magic dagger the previous week. But they insisted that he being better protected would help everyone else since he would need less healing.
And we stopped there.
For the next 3 sessions it is Dale’s campaign, so I may post something else on the blog.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 12:21 PM
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