What a day. Five hours of non-stop, die rolling action. And the fight STILL isn't over. . .
We left off last session in mid-battle. Sarril had wiped out Lady Markessa, Hazzard, a cleric and a fighter with one spell. That took out all of the enemy spellcasters, but the remaining fighters were a tough bunch. An ogre, a fighter named Bornthein (who had previously captured the party with a magic net), a really mean dwarf named Agnar, set to take revenge on Jarrus for killing his brother Ragnar, Icar the massive blind commander of the hill fort, and three wereboars were still fighting. The merchant, Alforas, was hiding beneath the table.
Sarril managed to even the odds by casting haste on the party and then following up with a slow spell against the enemy fighters. A silence was in effect, "blinding" Icar, Luapan cast a Prayer and Cadwin used Faerie Fire to provide additional bonuses to hit the enemies. If they weren't severely outnumbered and out-leveled, the party would have the definite advantage, but things were not looking up. Even slowed, Agnar was dealing massive damage to Jarrus, who was fast approaching death and still fighting with a dagger. Despite all of the magical bonuses in his favor, Pontus couldn't hit Icar, and was taking a severe beating. Cadwin transformed into a Badger Mole, which normally gets 3 attacks per round, but was hasted to twice that number. Unfortunately, he quickly realized he could not damage the wereboars, and had to move to other targets.
The wereboars recognized that Sarril was casting spells and two of them went straight after him, with the third attacking Pontus. Between Icar and the wereboar, Pontus was soon down to only 20 hit points or so, from a whopping 107. He figured he had one round left - two tops. Jarrus didn't fare much better, and was soon just one good hit away from death - and Agnar doesn't seem to miss.
Enter "Honey Badger Mole." Thanks to some ridiculous rolls of the dice (we are talking 19, 20, 18, 20, 19, 20), once Sarril took out the ogre with some magic missiles, the hasted Cadwin in badger mole form ripped through Bornthein, and was soon on Agnar in a horrific display of carnage. Jarrus, still hasted, grabbed Bornthein's long sword and net and ran to the corner of the room to conserve his remaining 9 or so hit points. Luapan kept Agnar engaged and, since Agnar was slowed, he couldn't get to Jarrus to kill him.
Sarril, still under attack by two wereboars, drank an invisibility potion and, in hasted mode, moved to the south end of the room, giving Jarrus a clear shot to toss Bornthein's Net of Entrapment over the two wereboars, taking them out. Jarrus, now in possession of a magic longsword with which he was double-specialized, moved back into the fight and made the killing blow against Agnar while Cadwin ad Pontus finished off Icar together. With only one wereboar left, Jarrus was able to easily cut it down with his magic longsword, ending the fight.
While the party was victorious, they were all severely wounded and out of spells. And they were keenly aware that the fort was on alert, and troops were being sent their way. They decided to bar the doors long enough to search the bodies and look around the adjoining rooms. Sarril was able to get many of his own lost magic items off the body of Hazzard, including his spellbook, Wand of Ice Storms and Wand of Fire - both of which would be needed as the party had nothing much left to fight with. While searching adjacent rooms, Sarril accidentally let loose a wild boar, which gored Pontus on a charge, taking him down to 4 hit points. Pontus, walking slowly and carefully while holding his guts in, began to first aid himself.
Soon the double doors to the room began to shake and troops outside attempted to batter it down. Sarril quickly hatched a plan, having Pontus open the door and step aside quickly as Sarril read a scroll of Cloudkill, which wandered down the hallway killing dozens of hobgoblin troops. That bought them some time while they figured out what to do. Continued searching of adjacent rooms revealed a staircase leading down, through which the party realized other things could come up, and a room that appeared to be Icar's quarters. Within Icar's quarters was another locked room, behind which was the voice of a woman begging to be released. The party quickly surmised that since Icar was blind, the woman must be a medusa, and they aren't going to open the door. Luapan, the only truly good character in the party, decided that leaving her there would be unethical and they should verify if it is an evil being or not. If so, kill it, but if not, they have to rescue the woman. Since everyone else, including the blind Cadwin who would have been immune to her gaze, refused to open the door, Luapan chose to open the door. Failing his save, Luapan was turned to stone by the medusa's gaze. Jarrus then put on Icar's helm, which had no eyeholes, and stepped into the room and killed the medusa easily, allowing the party to search through the treasure she was guarding. Within the treasure was three potions, which Pontus was certain would heal him, even though they were unidentified - more on that in a minute.
Agnar had some Keoghtom's ointment on him, which Jarrus and Pontus both used to gain a few hit points back. Feeling better, they decided it was best to camp out in Icar's bedroom and just fight whatever comes up the stairs after them, which they did. Not even an hour had gone by before several wolves and wargs, along with a winter wolf came up the stairs. Sarril easily took out most of the creatures with his wands, leaving Jarrus to finish what was left. The enemy might think twice before coming up those stairs again.
Since they weren't getting much rest, Pontus decided to see what would happen if he drank one of the unknown potions. At first it had no effect except to make him really sick, but then he slowly faded away and disappeared. The party guesses that he went ethereal, but not knowing what he drank, there's no telling what actually happened and whether or not it is permanent. Regardless, he seems to be gone, leaving only Sarril, Jarrus and Cadwin behind.
So Markessa sent a large amount of her best forces after the party and failed to kill even one of them. Wave after wave of fort troops came after a severely weakened party and still couldn't kill anyone. But the party was left to their own devices for just a few minutes and they manage to take out two of their own without any outside help. Perhaps Lady Markessa should have let them be. . .
It is still the evening of the 22nd Day of Reaping, CY 580, and the party is not yet safe. Can they make it through the night?
Do you mind revealing what level you boosted Icar and his cronies to?
ReplyDeleteShocking that nobody had a reflective surface to use for a Medusa-check from around a corner!
As for self - inflicted casualties, this felt like a page from my all - wizard homebrew ... they've taken far worse losses from their own meddling than from the schemes of enemies.
Funny thing is, there was a mirror on the wall in Icar's room. Why would a blind man need a mirror? It's one of the great mysteries. But yes, they suspected a medusa, and decided the best way to confirm it would be to luck out on a saving throw. I suspect such poor decisions are sometimes influenced by the amount of beer we tend to drink at these gatherings.
DeleteThere were some things going on that I can’t reveal because it may be integral to parts of the plot the characters have yet to discover. But I can tell you that none of the characters in this room were boosted from the printed campaign module except Hazzard, whom I had boosted to level 10 (I believe he was level 9 originally). What I did do was put most of the strongest characters in the same room at the same time, which made it tougher. It would have been impossible if they hadn’t taken out all of the spellcasters in the first round. Curtis did what he always does, and maxed out damage on his spell. Hazzard has so much protection that his saves were really low, but I failed the roll on all three spellcasters, so that was that.
ReplyDeleteAgnar was the toughest in the room as level 10, 97 hit points, 18/29 strength, and double-specialized with a magic sword. That was his build as written in the book, though the module has the party encounter him earlier in the story if they took the overland route to Elredd, but they missed him by taking the boat. They aren’t necessarily supposed to fight him in the module as written, but this party has a way of killing everyone they see, so they probably would have fought him if they had run into him. Since they killed his brother Ragnar in Elredd, I decided it made sense to bring him back.
Bornthein is an amalgamation. He is listed in the book as a 2nd level fighter with a Net of Entrapment. Elsewhere in the book is listed an 8th level fighter (no name given). I decided to combine these two into one character, using Borthein’s name and having the net, but using the 8th level fighter’s stats.
I definitely stacked the odds against the characters here. I had no idea how they would pull it off, but I knew it would be fun watching them figure something out. Most of the players resort to brute force because they know they are powerful, but Curtis usually has a trick up his sleeve, so I just let this play out. I expected them to do more talking over dinner, playing a game of intrigue with their enemies, each side trying to get the other to reveal something. But the call to action was too strong.