Badb Firegrinder Dwarf Knight 9
Adventure: Fortress of the stone giants
Catalyst: Teraktinus the dwarf slayer!
Story:

Does a character need an Obit, if he was raised at the temple afterwards? If so...

Alaric
5th lvl Elven Rogue (Explorer variant-HB)

Fell victim to one of the Haunts in Foxglove Manor. He failed his save, had bought the defensive training feat, so the fighter, who won initiative, failed to disarm him, stabbed himself in the throat with a pointy stick, rolled minimum damage, and still failed his coup-de-gras save (DC 12, yes he has a 10 Str, rolled minimum damage)...

Talk about timing. He had just picked up Defensive training as his 5th level feat.. and I think he was regretting his 8 Con right about then too...

Luckily he had good friends that were willing to donate a hefty sum to have him brought back at the temple of Abadar.

Name of PC: Rolfsnudder
Class/Level:Fighter/Ranger 9/1
Adventure:Start of Fortres of the Stoen Giants
Catalyst:Teraknikus and his pick
Story:
Rolfsnudder was doing great against stone giants and dire bears when them attacked Sandpoint. Mainly he killed enemies but then he noticed "sneaking" Teraknikus and followed him. Suprise charge failed badly so two rounds and Rolfsnudder had only 4hp left [about 27/88 before this fight]. Then teraknikus critted and it was over, 160 points of damage taken. Orc ferocity let him strike one more time before he hitted ground, dead as THAC0.

Battle of Sandpoint is still unfinished, maybe more PCs will be slaughtered?

Name of PC: Abiyram
Class/Level: Rogue/4
Adventure: Burnt Offerings (PFRPG)
Catalyst: Shadow

Kross Chelaxian Cleric/Radiant servant of Serenrea 6/5
Adventure: Fortress of the stone giants
Catalyst: Mokmurian of DOOM
Story:

Name of PC: Elsbyth
Class/Level: Paladin of Iomedae 8
Adventure: The Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Jaagrath's Hook

Story: After taking out the majority of the ogres, the party found Jaagrath in the former chapel of Fort Rannick. The PCs dove into the fray, and Elsbyth challenged the ogre Pappy in the name of Iomedae. Well, Jaagrath landing an amazing hit (a crit with his ogre hook). 114 points of damage later, Jaagrath dashed her broken body against the chapel floor.

and

Name of PC: Tamaze
Class/Level: Ranger 8
Adventure: The Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Hookmaw's Hook

Story: In the same battle with Jaagrath, Hookmaw and Dorella overheard the combat and joined in. Hookmaw charged the ranger, and drove his hook right through her (another crit with an ogre hook). 104 points of damage this time, and Tamaze died.

The party raised Tamaze, but Elsbyth decided to remain dead. Her player is bringing in an Oracle of Battle.

Ok, I've been running RotRL for a while now. Had 4 character deaths and we're just finishing out book 3 now. Here's the details.

Character: Shan Wei Half-elf monk 1/ Paladin 1

Location: Catacombs of Wrath beneath sandpoint.

What Happened: I changed the encounter with Erylium slightly and gave the effect of the pool a 10' radius to add a more tactical element to the fight. The barbarian was the first through the field along with the rogue. Rogue made his save. barbarian did not. After some attempts to subdue the barbarian while still fighting Erylium and her Sin Spawn. Shan Wei essentially sacrificed herself to stop the barbarian's madness.

Kill 2 and 3

Character: Brandark Dwarf Cleric 7
Varg Barbarian 7

location: Graul farm (hook mountain)

What happened: After some hard fighting against Crowfood, Sugar,Hograth,and Jeppo the group continued in to the barn and engaged Biggun! the Graul's pet. Tired and virtually depleted of spells the group elected to rest inside the barn rather than drag one of their paralyzed companions back to Turtleback Ferry. I decided that the Graul's didn't like squatters on their turf so they came out to restock their food stores with some adventurer meat. Brandark was demolished by lucky Graul as he seperated himself from the group while simultaneously calling for healing.

Varg went down moments later under the combined assault of three zombie Graul's and Mammy. The remainder of the group retreated leaving their paralyzed companion to her fate. Rather than kill a third character I elected to have the Graul's torture her while the remaining characters came up with a rescue/attack plan.

kill 4

Character: Ahtt Monk 8

Location: Kreeg Clan Hold entrance

What happened: After the diviner's Arcane eye was noticed by the denizen's of the Kreeg Hold an alarm was raised and the ogres began setting up a defense. The two front guards now noticed the party and readied themselves to stop these invaders. They performed admirably. After one of the ogres fell, his cousin in a fit of rage tore out Ahtt's heart with a well placed blow from his hook (Triple damage critical hit).

Name of PC: Etherion Fenix
Class/Level: Rogue 4 / Sorcerer 2
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Faceless Stalker's Mwk Longsword

Name of PC: William Glascow
Class/Level: Rogue 4
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Faceless Stalker's Slam

Story: After arriving to Magnimar, the Paladin of Iomedae went to his church and left the other three characters free to roam around and be roguish and do non-lawful-good stuff. After selling the loot they had gathered on Sanpoint they decided to put their time to use and went to Foxglove's townhouse without the Paladin and without full HP courtesy of a Random Encounter placed to level some of them up on their way to Magnimar.
When they entered the house, Etherion having totally forgoten about his half HP, placed himself in the middle of the two Faceless Stalkers and by round two was finished.
William tried hold the line but saw it was no use and retreated to recover with a potion. After another round, he decided to escape but fell two rounds later at 15ft from the nearest escape.
Ertathor (the party's wizard) made himself invisible and quietly escaped the house and decided to get the paladin's help.
Eventually the combined tactics of the Diego, the Paladin and Erathor, the Wizard defeated the Aberrations.

Got my first pathfinder PC kill today

Name of PC: Khegan
Class/Level: Inquistitor 3
Adventure: Burnt offerings
Catalyst: being the only one who succeeded the will save against the hounds baying
Story:
Having cleared most of the first level the PC's entered the Lamashtu chapel via the side door. Intrigued by the altar Khegan stepped forward to investigate and though he made a good perception roll failed to notice the two yeth founds hiding in the shadows (thanks to a natural 20 on their stealth check). The first yeth hound took Khegan by surprise and threw him to the ground with a vicious bite attack. The other yeth hound emerged from behind the altar and started to bay. The whole party (a monk, a wizard, a barbarian and Orik) except for Khegan failed their saving throws and became panicked for 7 rounds and fled Thistletop, going as far as jumping off the cliff once they came to the surface. Poor Khegan, left to fend for himself, tried to crawl away but was soon flanked by the hounds and torn to bits.

Name of PCs: Erok and Michael
Class/Level: Level 2 druid (Erok) and fighter (Michael)
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: 80 ft. fall into rocky water
Story: So, the PCs made it to Thistletop, fought to the rope bridge, and even determined that the rope bridge was hazardous, and could not support the weight of more than a couple of medium sized creatures at once. They even crossed it one at a time, fought some goblins, and made a foray into the Thistletop fort. But, due to allergic reactions to goblin dogs, they decided to pull back and camp for the night and try again in the morning.

The next morning, however, a new group of goblins, back from patrol and ordered to replace the dead guards, were waiting for the PCs across the rope bridge. Erok cast Entangle and the party started to range the goblins and goblin dogs camped outside of Thistletop, not realizing that these goblins were actually pretty good with bows at ranged. Erok took a crit arrow to the throat and went down, but the party's wizard, Cerrik, had a potion ready and brought him to his feet. When he got up, Erok saw that only one goblin was left alive on the rope bridge, and was engaged in melee with the party's monk (Corrin) and the party's fighter (Michael). And so Erok decided to take his wolf animal companion (Runner) and charge across the bridge. That'd put three medium creatures on the bridge for the first time.

So, bridge collapsed. Corrin made his reflex save and managed to grab part of the bridge and hang on. Runner jumped back to the cliff face. Erok rolled a Nat 1, and Michael failed his save by a single point. Erok only had 8 HPs left from the potion and a single charge of a Wand of Cure Light Wounds. He dropped well below 0 upon hitting the surface of the water, and drowned one round later. Michael actually had 16 HPs left, but I rolled close to max damage from falling, and he was knocked unconscious and also drowned.

Corrin almost joined them due to a low Swim check when he tried to gather up the bodies. He then almost joined them when he decided to check out the underwater sea cave by himself, not realizing that Pathfinder had creatures that were an amalgam of seal and shark. Luckily, Corrin can climb and bunyips cannot.

Name:Apollo

Class:Cleric of Sarenrae 8

Catalyst:Not killing Lucrecia in Fort Rannick

Adventure:Hook Mountain

Story: The group had just managed to take down the hag covey and learned about Barl's capacity as a Necromancer and that he is a big nasty stone giant. Moving in to engage the Kreeg's leader the party elected to have the Paladin and the druid's animal companion hold off the giant zombie (I added the zombie since I'm dealing with 6 players)and Barl while the rest of the group dealt with the stone giant bodyguard.
Having not killed Lucrecia at the Fort she was near Barl which had been discovered by the Diviner earlier in the adventure. Unfortunately she was using invisibility (I amended her spell list a bit) to remain and hidden and surprised the rear ranks of the group.

Now, I decided that since she was having difficulty hitting the very high AC members of the group that her tactics would switch up a bit. She started using her melee touch ability as her primary attack to sap Wisdom from players while her off-hand attack was still the dagger. Needless to say since she had quite a few attacks player wisdom was a precious commodity. A retreat was called but Apollo was not fast enough and took a pair of critical hits from Lucrecia's wisdom drain. The rest of the party fled as Barl crushed the poor cleric's head with his earthbreaker.

Name of PC: Leomaris
Class/Level: Magus 6
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Coup de Grace from Xanesha

Name of PC: Diego Cervantes
Class/Level: Paladin 6 of Iomedae
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Coup de Grace from Xanesha

Name of PC: The One Born in Shadows (translation from his Duergar Name)
Class/Level: Monk 5
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Scorching Ray from Xanesha

Story: After dealing with the Scarecrow, venturing up the stairs and defeating three faceless stalkers, the party of four found themselves on the top of the Shadow Clock in a Silenced zone about to fight a Succubus, little did they know (thanks to the silence) that the last team member (Leomaris) was being attacked by Xanesha. After attacking the illusion they realized the Succubus was not real and by that time the Monk and the small earth elemental from the Magus had also been defeated (the monk was at 1hp and the magus at exactly 0hp and the elemental dead).Diego, the Paladin realized what was happening and attacked his foe.
Before the silence spell ended Xanesha petrified the party's wizard (Erathor Thoralmyr, the powerful) with her mask's gaze attack.
The battle became increadibly difficult. Just moments after the Leomaris broke Xanesha's Impaler of Thorns he fell comatose from Wisdom damage, followed closely by the paladin.
With the Wizard in stone form and only the monk alive, Xanesha toyed with him until she finally scorched him out and by the player's decision his character fell 180ft. to the floor.
By now the Erathor was out of the stone form and gave a lesser restoration potion he had to the paladin in hopes of him being able to save the day. Diego ended up falling by wisdom damage again and Erathor fell from the tower. By a combination of web, feather fall, a good acrobatics check and cheer luck on dice the wizard survived the fall and ended up entangled in his own web. He later on proceeded to flee the scene before Xanesha noticed he had survived.
Out of a party of four, three fell against Xanesha. The one who escaped, escaped by cheer luck. By now he knows what she can do and she is missing her weapon.
A new party would be formed by the sole survivor since the beginning of the Adventure Path and their friends legacy would live through their actions.

Third PC death of the campaign for us :)

Name of PC: Pippen Tasker
Class/Level: Half-Elf Rogue 5 / Assassin 2
Adventure: Hook-Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Xanesha's spear to the face

...some background removed for space...

Xanesha turned on the party assassin. (who'd been happily sneak attacking one of the Ogre Barbarians via a flank with the Knight)

She only had one attack against him, but thats all she needed. She had one crit, meaning something like 6d6+27 damage, rolling 51 damage, taking him to fairly healthy to dead in one hit. We took it that she managed to thrust her spear straight through his head.

Not quite an party obituary, but I have to tell all that Pippen Tasker finally got his revenge on Xanesha last night.

The group were deep in the fortress of the Stone Giants, and had sided with Conna, who'd told him about Mokmorian having both Xanesha and Lucretia running his above ground operation. Lucretia was now undead, thanks to Mokmorian throwing her corpse in the Runeslave Cauldron (much to Xaneshas disgust and anger) so I'd given her a suitable undead template.

The group ran in to Lucretia with the two Lamia clerics. Battle started, Lucretia spent most of the fight held by a Hold Monster spell, and the fight was joined by Galenmir and then Xanesha (who'd I'd given the advanced template)

Xanesha went for her sworn enemy, the party sorceress who'd blinded her in their last encounter. The sorceress hit Xanesha with a couple of negative levels before turning invisible to get away.

This gave Pippen time to study Xanesha (while invisible himself) for a few rounds, before striking with his death attack. Thanks to the negative levels, she failed her save by 1.

A collective cheer went up from the table. Pippens player was beaming all the way home... (and probably still is) :)

Near tpk, or rather a technical tpk....
Boseephus, halforc fighter/barbarian 6/6
adventure: sins of the saviours
Catalyst: Scribbler is scary
Story:

Near tpk, or rather a technical tpk....

Boseephus, halforc fighter/barbarian 6/6
adventure: sins of the saviours
Catalyst: Scribbler is scary
Story: ** spoiler omitted **

Take 2 after the first post was eaten...

I'm a player in a relatively new RotR campaign, and we've had a stunning seven fatalities so far in Burnt Offerings.

Character(s): Gareth, Human Fighter 1/Warblade 1; Meric, Human Wizard 2; Elf Hexblade 2 (name forgotten); Human Swordsage 2 (name forgotten)
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Shadows are very hard to kill for low level characters.
Story:

Character(s): Rune, Ghaele Eladrin 2; Gnome Cleric 2 (name forgotten)
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Shadows are really ridiculously hard to kill for low level characters, especially when they outnumber the party.
Story:

Character: Vraar, Half-Orc Barbarian 2
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Mostly greed.
Story:

Tonight a second PC fell victim of the horrors in Thistletop.

Name of PC: Huron
Class/Level: Barbarian 3/Rogue 1
Adventure: Burnt offerings
Catalyst: To many shadows, not enough PCs and not enough tools
Story:

The party had already explored most of Thistletop but stopped short of entering the crypt when they decided that with Nualia taken care of, the rest of the dungeon could be sealed off. They acted as body guards for the a couple of masons from Sandpoint whose job it was to seal the crypt forever.

But the Huron wanted to explore deeper into Thistletorp and convinced the paladin who wouldn't have any of it to stay upstairs and guard the masons while he and the party wizard made sure everything was safe downstairs. They went down and opened the tomb. While Huron was examining one of the sarcophagus he was swarmed by the shadows. He retreated slightly and started to throw down on one. On their turn they all threw back causing 14 str damage in one round. Cornered and seeing no way out for both him and the wizard, Huron made one last stand and threw the door closed right infront of his ally, shutting himself in with the shadows so the wizard could flee.

The following round the shadows sapped the last life out of the barbarian and Huron was no more.

In hindsight i feel kinda guilty that i didn't nerf the encounter abit, but everyone agreed that as deaths go, this was a good one.

Name of PC: Corrin
Class/Level: Monk / 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Fully buffed Nualia with a bastard sword and a crit
Story:
Everyone failed their Will saves against Nualia's pet Yeth Hound except for the Halfling Rogue. As everyone else fled, he started slamming doors shut behind the party, forcing Nualia to open them for the Yeth Hound to pass through. When the rest of the party finally recovered, they tried to set an ambush for Nualia and the Yeth Hound. However, since they were running for so long, Nualia had plenty of time to cast every single buffing spell she knew. The Yeth Hound engaged the party first, and Nualia came in right behind, rolled a crit against the buffed Monk, dealt 36 points of damage, and killed him instantly.

On the plus side, the party's sorcerer landed a crit with a Shocking Grasp on Nualia a few rounds later and did just enough to drop her. Sweet, sweet revenge.

Name of PC: Helmut AusDenBergen
Class/Level: Human Paladin 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Tangletooth the firepelt
Story: The party of four (half-elf ranger, human rogue, elf wizard, and Mr. Soon-to-Be-Frisky-Vittles paladin) arrived at area C1 outside the briar maze. After a bit of farting around, the ranger discovers the entrance, and both he and the rogue make their way inside to case the joint in as stealthy a fashion as possible.

They manage to check out enough of the maze to hear the goblins whinging in one corner and Tangletooth and Gogmurt's collective yawns and mutterings in another, and make their way back to the entrance where the paladin and wizard await them.

They decide that trying to fight the goblins inside the maze is just dumb. A better idea, they think, is to taunt the goblins into coming out to fight. Not a bad strategy, all things considered. So they array themselves in ready formation around the entrance, weapons drawn, and the ranger calls out a challenge.

The sound of little feet approach rapidly! Unfortunately, instead of a hapless goblin running out into a bunch of readied blades, the heroes are instead shocked at the sight of a leopard-like cat bounding out of the doorway at full speed. The paladin moves to intercept, and is the victim of a pounce-and-bite attack. The other heroes attempt to render aid, and get one or two shots in, but to their added dismay Gogmurt steps out of the maze off to their right and starts blasting them with fireballs. In the ensuing mayhem, Tangletooth *drags* the paladin well back into the briar maze and proceeds to savage him with tooth and claw. As soon as Tangletooth has the paladin inside, Gogmurt steps back into the maze, and emerges in the tunnel next to Tangletooth to help put an end to the silly mailed man. His flame blade proves ready to the purpose.

THE END.

Of the paladin, that is.

Name of PC: Merisiel
Class/Level: Elf Rouge 3
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Not listening to the fighter
Story: After following Iesha's revenant down to the caverns and helping her dispatch her loving husband the party read the letter from the Brotherhood and decided to search the caverns for more clues. The fighter who had enough of the haunted and foul house waited upstairs for the group to return so they could make their exit. He tried to convince the others to join him, but they refused. The rest of the party met up with the undead dire bat in its lair and were quickly paralyzed. He made a meal of Merisiel and the wizard. Luckily for him the Druid awoke and was able to fell the foul beast. He healed the wizard who was near the brink, but was unable to bring the Rouge back from her untimely demise. The remaining party members head out of their quickly after meeting back up with the fighter.

Name of PC: Merisiel

Class/Level: Elf Rouge 3
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Not listening to the fighter
Story: After following Iesha's revenant down to the caverns and helping her dispatch her loving husband the party read the letter from the Brotherhood and decided to search the caverns for more clues. The fighter who had enough of the haunted and foul house waited upstairs for the group to return so they could make their exit. He tried to convince the others to join him, but they refused. The rest of the party met up with the undead dire bat in its lair and were quickly paralyzed. He made a meal of Merisiel and the wizard. Luckily for him the Druid awoke and was able to fell the foul beast. He healed the wizard who was near the brink, but was unable to bring the Rouge back from her untimely demise. The remaining party members head out of their quickly after meeting back up with the fighter.

Level 3? Should she not have been at least Level 4 at that point (Lvl 5 being more likely)?

Level 3? Should she not have been at least Level 4 at that point (Lvl 5 being more likely)?

They had enough XP to level to 4th, but hadn't actually done it yet. I'm running it with Pathfinder, not 3.5, medium XP track.

I thought that the older 3.5 adventures were supposed to use the "Fast" track because that is the best approximation of the level advancement rate that the 3.5 APs were designed for. (Yes, all Pathfinder era APs - i.e., Council of Thieves and so on - use the Medium track.) Either that or you will need to add a bunch of additional encounters to keep them up to level.

Else your heroes will fall further and further behind the curve, and PC deaths will become more common (eventually leading to a TPK when they can't keep up any more).

Keith McVay wrote:

Level 3? Should she not have been at least Level 4 at that point (Lvl 5 being more likely)?

I thought that the older 3.5 adventures were supposed to use the "Fast" track because that is the best approximation of the level advancement rate that the 3.5 APs were designed for. (Yes, all Pathfinder era APs - i.e., Council of Thieves and so on - use the Medium track.) Either that or you will need to add a bunch of additional encounters to keep them up to level.

Else your heroes will fall further and further behind the curve, and PC deaths will become more common (eventually leading to a TPK when they can't keep up any more).

Hah! I knew he was out to kill us!

Lord Fyre wrote:

Keith McVay wrote:

Level 3? Should she not have been at least Level 4 at that point (Lvl 5 being more likely)?

They had enough XP to level to 4th, but hadn't actually done it yet. I'm running it with Pathfinder, not 3.5, medium XP track.

I thought that the older 3.5 adventures were supposed to use the "Fast" track because that is the best approximation of the level advancement rate that the 3.5 APs were designed for. (Yes, all Pathfinder era APs - i.e., Council of Thieves and so on - use the Medium track.) Either that or you will need to add a bunch of additional encounters to keep them up to level.

Else your heroes will fall further and further behind the curve, and PC deaths will become more common (eventually leading to a TPK when they can't keep up any more).

Hah! I knew he was out to kill us!

(If you are a player in a RotRL campaign, why are you reading this specific message board?)

Name of PC: Blaer
Class/Level: Gnome Ranger Druid 5/5
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Teraktinus
Story:

(If you are a player in a RotRL campaign, why are you reading this specific message board?)

I directed my group to the thread since we had a fatality and thought they'd like to read it. Also, I let them know they can read anything from Burnt Offerings since they are done with that chapter.

Name of PC: Brydon
Class/Level: Human Ranger 12
Adventure: Sins of the Saviours
Catalyst: HighLady Athroxis and the greatest Prismatic Spray ever
Story: After slaying the her guargantuan demon companion the players closed in on HighLady Athroxis. Unfortunatley they were a little to close and she was able to catch 4 of them in a Prismatic Spray. And all of the failed their saves. The halfing sorcerer was turned to stone, the shoanti cleric was rendered insane, the shoanti barbarian took 80 points of electrical damage (which pretty much negated the Heal he received the previous round), and Brydon was hit by two rays.

The first was the fire ray (made save no damage) the second was the poison ray, against which he failed his save. Dead.

I gave her prismatic spray when I converted her to Pathfinder and had to add a level (standard races CR are class level -1). In a fight where she missed so many SR rolls and saving throws this hit almost turned the tide.

She still died though.

Name of PC: Rakesh
Class/Level: Human Sorcerer5/Dragon Disciple 4
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Giant #4
Party:
Shalelu - Rgr 7
Magnar - Ftr1/Bard8
Duriken - Ftr1/Rgr8
Trudge - Cleric of Torag 9
Rakesh
Story:
This is Rakesh's second session with the group. As part of his background story, Rakesh is not yet aware of his four levels of Dragon disciple and the powers that come with it. Until his 'awakening', we agreed to let him play as a Sor7.

As Duriken speeds up the stairs towards the four giants above, Rakesh and Shalelu focus their ranged fire on giant #1, quickly causing him serious harm. Giants #2, #3 and #4 focus their fire on Duriken but miss; however the boulders keep rolling down the stairs and Rakesh fails his reflex save. Giant #1 and #2 score big hits on Rakesh while he's still recovering from the landslide, and a final critical hit from Giant #4 drops him into negative hit points.

From halfway up the stairs, Trudge uses a hero point to race back down to his fallen friend using acrobatics, cast Breath of Life on Rakesh, and aiming his shield towards the rest boulders that continue to fall from the top of the stairs.
Meanwhile, Rakesh uses his last breath to spend his hero point, discovering his latent Dragon Disciple powers.
He engulfs himself in flames using his newly discovered breath weapon, cauterizing his injuries (Breath of Life, indeed), uses the next round to rise up in the air using his newly found fly spell, and finishes the battle by nuking the beegeevus out of the remaining Giants at the top of the stairs with a very, very lucky fireball roll.

as cliché as it may be to use a near death experience as an 'awakening' of hidden powers, the party enjoyed it very much.

Name of PC: Quiray
Class/Level: Level 4 Half-elf Bard
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Origins of Lichdom Haunt
Story: PCs make it into the basement of Foxglove Manor just fine, with no real damage, but lots of creepiness. Everyone is on edge. The barbarian enters Vorel's Workshop and is affected by the Haunt, which causes him to turn and run. Everyone rolls initiative. Both Quiray and the halfling rogue, Sidney, roll higher than Eldrick, the barbarian. Sidney, mounted on his dog, decides to run up stairs to try to close doors and stuff to prevent Eldrick from running outside, thinking that the sorcerer will just cast Charm again, not realizing that I wasn't going to let Charm Person work this time around. Quiray jumps in front of Eldrick and casts some spell that doesn't work. Eldrick sees what appears to be a lich jump in front of him, goes into a rage, power attacks, and crits. Does 60+ points of damage with his greataxe. Quiray dies instantly.

Funny bit is that the cleric of Iomedae in the party now intends to bring this giant Shoanti barbarian in for justice in Magnimar, and no one else in the party will let him, so there's some party conflict.

Also, when Quiray's player went to grab a character sheet to roll up his new character, Eldrick's player asked for one as well, and was outrighted refused. There are some hurt feelings floating around, now.

Name of PC: Rolfsnudder
Class/Level:Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian 13/1/2
Adventure:Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst:Champion of Shalast
Story:
Party encountered champion of Shalast and noticed that she hits really hard and her AC is really high. After couple of rounds fighting Rolfsnudder went like -50 because orc ferocity left him standing. Next round breath of life brought him back and heal to almost full hp's. Then one fullround and again went Rolfsnudder to negatives.

They managed to win in the end and fight fun 'till end. Or so I as GM think.

Name of PC: Thorak
Class/Level:Barbarian 2
Adventure: Catacombs of Wrath (Burnt Offerings)
Catalyst:Sinspawn
Story:
Embarassing death for our mighty barbarian, he got killed by the 2 sinspawns in the prison cell room. Two lucky crits and thorak was done-not much to say.

Name of PC: Vergain
Class/Level: Paladin of Erastil 1
Adventure: Catacombs of Wrath (Burnt Offerings)
Catalyst:Vargouille
Story:
Our Paladin got kissed and afterwards morphed (no one tended his "Problems") into a vargouille....not funny...

Name of PC:Hamhock Smock
Class/Level:Tiefling Rogue (Swashbuckler) 5
Adventure:Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst:Carrionstorm Swarms
Story:

Name of PC: Eldrik
Class/Level: Barbarian, level 5
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Scarecrow
Story:
PCs deciphered the journal of Ironbriar and made their way to the Shadow Clock. There, they discovered Scarecrow dude. Barbarian, being barbarian, charged. They went back and forth a few rounds while the rest of the party dicked around trying to figure out an effective means of engaging the thing. They waited too long and Eldrik went down. Preventable death, but that's not the way things ended up.

The rest of the party decided to keep exploring the clocktower, made their way to Xanesha, and she rocked their world. No one died, though, just went unconscious, and I decided Xanesha would attempt to charm the party into doing her bidding. That's where we ended the session. We'll see how things work out next week.

Name of PC(s): Gerald and Sydney
Class/Level: Gerald: Cleric 6/Cavalier 1, Sydney: Rogue 7
Adevnture: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Ogre hook crits
Story:
So, party manages to get into Fort Rannick. They burn down the New Barracks. They surprise Xanesha (long story, see above post, Xanesha and Lucrecia are the same person in my campaign), hit her hard, and chase her up the stairs. They go after her, clearing out the first level of the Fort. They then clear out the ogres in the courtyard via sniping from the roof (rescued rangers are with the party). They don't find Xanesha as she's holing up with all the big bads on the top level. Ambush is set. Ambush is sprung. Hookmaw takes out Sydney as the second part of a Cleave. He crits. He does 75 points of damage to a level 7 rogue. Dead. Gerald is trying to hold Pappy or whatever his name is in the temple room. Pappy attacks and drops Vale, then turns on Gerald. He's critted and dropped in a single hit. Party runs, sorcerer dropping two Firewalls behind them to cover the escape.

Sorta happy ending: While struggling to get out of the gate (they had a head start due to squeezing rules and a Haste spell), remaining party members defeat three ogres and an ogre fighter with a single Fireball and flurry of arrows from Jak (who is being played, apparently, like Rooster Cogburn). Ugly woman ogre sorcerer lady uses Dimension Door to try to finish the party off, bring Xanesha with her. Another Fireball, another volley of arrows, and the ogre is dead. Xanesha drops everyone else except the party's monk (who flees) and Shalelu, Sydney's once cohort. Shalelu crits Xanesha. Survivors end up pulling in 8k exp.

Name of PC:Vern
Class/Level:Cleric 1 (worshiper of Sarenae)
Adventure:Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Koruvus (sp?)
Story:

Vern (Constitution of 8) had discovered he was having a lucky night with his scimitar, scoring two critical hits earlier. Got one look at said 4-armed goblin holding 3 weapons, charged, and slashed him with a scimitar. Koruvus, unappreciative of Vern's scimitar work, focused all three of his weapons on Vern, hitting with all three. Rolling up 20+ points of damage, Vern died instantly, with a hatchet embedded in his skull. The rest of the party quickly made good on their revenge, but there was no hope for Vern...

In retrospect, appreciating the amount of damage Koruvus was capable of, I probably shouldn't have focused all 3 weapons on the cleric, but I was trying to act from Koruvus's perspective...Then again, maybe Vern shouldn't have been so rash as to charge a mutant goblin with such low constitution...

awesome to see this thread still getting use :)

Name of PC: Ezren
Class/Level: Wizard 6
Adventure: The Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Jaagrath's Hook

Story: After sneaking into the barn at the Graul Farmhouse and rescuing the captive rangers the party returned to check out the farmhouse the next morning. It was abandoned so the party headed to Fort Rannick and entered via the cave behind the waterfall. They had some monumental battles against Lucretia and ogres on the second floor. As the party was laying waste to the orge sorceress and fighter at the end of the hall, Jaargrath opened to door to the chapel and struck the wizard who watched the combat from the hallway from behind. He was severely wounded and felled as he tried to flee the next round. Sadly, had he survived he would have had enough XP to almost be 8th level.

got a couple here to get caught up with... first off
Name of PC:Nuatani
Class/level: Cavalier 3rd
Race:Shoanti
Adventure:Skinsaw
Catalyst: Chopper

Story- After the skinsaw murders started, regardless of the notes the pcs became absolutely convinced it was some sort of undead(which was correct...) and that it must be Chopper come back!(huh?) After some interrogation they found the folk had just buried chopper on his isle in a shallow grave and left, so they took it upon themselves to go investigate. Since chopper WAS actually an ideal canidate for undead based on unhallowed ground he was buried on and the runewell, they found his Wight(undead cursed by anger and wrath.. it just worked perfect) still going through the motions of carving birds in the temple of Pazuzu. During the fight the Cavalier did a bit of over taunting of the crazed anger maddened undead, and took a critical level drain to the face... Of course the fun really started a couple rounds later, after the damaged group finally slew chopper, only to turn around and find their cavalier's corpse rising up with hate filled eyes.....

Name of PC:Thomas
Class/Level: Cleric 10 -Cayden Calliean
Race:Dwarf:
Adventure:Fortress of the stoner giants
Catalyst:Avenging the beer

Story- Much craziness was happening in the assault on sandpoint, with people running around everywhere trying to stem the depredations of the giants, and a dragon had just appeared in the sky. Of course things got even better when Longtooth torched the dwarven clerics favorite bar.... Seeing it as his divine mission from Cayden to find the best beer around and return home with it in triumph... this really pissed off the Dwarf. Resulting in him casting fly, and charging longtooth as he settled on top of the building to amuse himself. The big dragon was somewhat surprised at the critical dwarven axe to the face from a projectile dwarf screaming obscenities, and decided to focus his attacks on the strange flying morsel. One round of full attacks later and a confirmed critical biting, and Poor Thomas was at -2 hp right away. The dragons next action was of course to chew, swallow, and make commentary about lovely beer marinated meat...

Name of PC: JAcian D'arnthas
Class/level:Bard 12
Race:human
Adventure:fortress of the stoned giants
Catalyst: Mokumorian doesn't like classical music

Story- being the first person out of the solid fog, the bard immediately began playing music and trying to guide his companions out. Mokumorian took exception to this and immediately cast flesh to stone on the lil singing thing, resulting in a lovely stone statue. Having no other real targets on his next action, mokumorian proceeded to disintergrate the statue, laughing all the while, leaving only a pile of clothes and some odd bits of equipment left behind when the rest of the group finally managed to engage the big guy, needless to say, some of the group was a bit worried after that....

Name of PC: Can't remember, he wasn't around long enough
Class / Level: Dwarven fighter, around level 6ish
Adventure: Hook Mountain Massacre
Catalyst: Stupid monk

So, this character was a replacement for another character the PC just lost (Gerald from above). It was on top of the dam. Monk used his massive movement speed to run ahead of everyone, took a single hit from the ogre with class levels, and then started retreating. The other players cursed the monk (Erz, see below), and ran ahead to try and help him. The dwarf was in a perfect position to take on the ogre, with a massive AC and everything, but the ogre rolled a crit. The end. Player ended up going with a Druid instead.

Name of PC: Erz (and his cohort)
Class / Level: Monk / 8 (and rogue / 6)
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst Yet another lucky crit

Raid on Sandpoint. PCs are racing around all over the place trying to fight the giants. Erz runs ahead, like always, starts to solo a few dire bears (AC through the roof with buffs from the Oracle and ki points going toward AC). Stone giants come in, and his AC does nothing to double 20's. Single crit with Power Attack lays him out for the encounter.

His cohort finally catches up a few rounds later and gets mauled by a bear or something.

Beginning of next session Erz is raised, but his cohort only gets a Reincarnate. She goes from human to halfling. Much confusion abounds.

Name: Alek Felaren (sp?)
Class/ lvl: 2 Paladin
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Koruvus

Party manages to head straight to the alter and gets in a fight with Erylium who escaped deeper into the Catacombs, warning Koruvus of them coming. He waits until they reach the entrance to his room, then jumps out, smacking the paladin for some dmg. Inits are rolled, and he wins. +1 Longsowrd crit takes the paladin from Conscious to dead in one hit.

The player took it well enough, but I backed up anyway, and used the book tactics and had him use his acid breath instead. I would have kept the kill, except I had statted Erylium out as a Summoner, so the fight was going to be against her and her eidolon as well, and without the paladin, I forsaw the encounter quickly becoming a TPK, which I didnt want, so I backed up.

Im still counting it as the first kill in the game though.

Name: Larm / Cant remember
Class: rogue lvl 4 / cleric lvl 4
adventure: skinsaw
catalyst: random encounter

Well my group had just finished the haunted house and decided to camp outside before heading back to sandpoint and on second shift last hour i roll a random encounter and hit a 99% so well that means Treant. The group is alarmed and wakes up and actually stalls the treant long enough to everybody awakes but hes just too powerfull when the fighter havent got his armor on. The rogue gets a fullround atk and bones crack. The cleric charges faceforward into a AoO crit hit for just 4 under max dmg.

Name of PC: Trundlefoot
Class/Level: Sorcerer 13
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Xalast
Catalyst: Abominable Snowmen are abominable
Story:

The party has been shadowed by yeti for a few days on their way to the hidden city. The Yeti finally attacked the party one night, recklessly rushing in to the tiny hut. The party was alerted to the yeti by alarms and were ready.

The fight was brutal with multiple PC's dropping into the negatives. Trundlefoot made a pick of a target with a particularly devistating Flame Snake. His yeti tore him into chunks, with the rend putting him at -25.

His death was short lived as a well timed Breath of Life brought him to -2.

Name of PC: Rakana
Class/Level: Human (Shoanti) Fighter 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Malfeshnekor
Story:

Having dealt with Nualia and discovered the secret passageway behind the pillar of gold coins, the PCs decided to head back to town to rest. They had deduced from several of the notes and journals they found that they were going to be fighting a barghest, and the bard rolled high enough on a knowledge (planes) to get some good information about it, including its high damage reduction. So the party set about trying to get ahold of some magic weapons for the group, and I decided to be generous and let them borrow some really nice equipment from Ameiko (trading some of their own magic equipment as collateral). So off they went to face the big bad beasty, and they all pretty much piled in the room to fight it.

The two that were in range of the Barghest for melee were Rakana and a halfling cavalier, and the beast dealt out some massive damage to both of them. The halfling, however was moving back and forth with 5' steps to be out of reach whenever possible, while the proud Shoanti warrior stood her ground, thus taking a much higher portion of damage. Despite much healing from the party bard and oracle, the killing blow was delivered in the form of a critical bite with max damage rolled on the d6s, immediately chopping the poor woman in two. It wasn't pretty.

Luckily, by this time the creature was already down to 1hp, and the party was able to deal the final blow without further losses. They carried the various pieces of her remains back to Sandpoint for burial, and the entire town mourned her passing at the funeral services held in her honor.

Name of PC: Rakana

Class/Level: Human (Shoanti) Fighter 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Malfeshnekor
Story:

Having dealt with Nualia and discovered the secret passageway behind the pillar of gold coins, the PCs decided to head back to town to rest. They had deduced from several of the notes and journals they found that they were going to be fighting a barghest, and the bard rolled high enough on a knowledge (planes) to get some good information about it, including its high damage reduction. So the party set about trying to get ahold of some magic weapons for the group, and I decided to be generous and let them borrow some really nice equipment from Ameiko (trading some of their own magic equipment as collateral). So off they went to face the big bad beasty, and they all pretty much piled in the room to fight it.

The two that were in range of the Barghest for melee were Rakana and a halfling cavalier, and the beast dealt out some massive damage to both of them. The halfling, however was moving back and forth with 5' steps to be out of reach whenever possible, while the proud Shoanti warrior stood her ground, thus taking a much higher portion of damage. Despite much healing from the party bard and oracle, the killing blow was delivered in the form of a critical bite with max damage rolled on the d6s, immediately chopping the poor woman in two. It wasn't pretty.

Luckily, by this time the creature was already down to 1hp, and the party was able to deal the final blow without further losses. They carried the various pieces of her remains back to Sandpoint for burial, and the entire town mourned her passing at the funeral services held in her honor.

** spoiler omitted **

Name of PC: Trundlefoot

Class/Level: Sorcerer 13
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Xalast
Catalyst: Abominable Snowmen are abominable
Story:

The party has been shadowed by yeti for a few days on their way to the hidden city. The Yeti finally attacked the party one night, recklessly rushing in to the tiny hut. The party was alerted to the yeti by alarms and were ready.

The fight was brutal with multiple PC's dropping into the negatives. Trundlefoot made a pick of a target with a particularly devistating Flame Snake. His yeti tore him into chunks, with the rend putting him at -25.

His death was short lived as a well timed Breath of Life brought him to -2.

As an aside Trundlefoot was also closer to permanent death than any 14th level character I've seen. He was cursed by the Wendigo, and had dropped to 4 Wisdom before anyone had noticed. The party wasn't able to dispell it with the spells they had prepared, so they were going to wait until the next day to concentrate on removing it.

The cleric cast several lesser restorations but wasn't certain if they worked (he didn't immediately look any wiser), and didn't want to risk the 100gp on a normal restoration, just in case the lessers worked.

So the next morning if he failed his save (likely) and I rolled higher than a 2 on d4, he'd have teleported off to find a halfling to eat, and become a Wendigo before anyone would've noticed.

I rolled a 2...

Name of PC: Rakana

Class/Level: Human (Shoanti) Fighter 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Malfeshnekor
Story:

Having dealt with Nualia and discovered the secret passageway behind the pillar of gold coins, the PCs decided to head back to town to rest. They had deduced from several of the notes and journals they found that they were going to be fighting a barghest, and the bard rolled high enough on a knowledge (planes) to get some good information about it, including its high damage reduction. So the party set about trying to get ahold of some magic weapons for the group, and I decided to be generous and let them borrow some really nice equipment from Ameiko (trading some of their own magic equipment as collateral). So off they went to face the big bad beasty, and they all pretty much piled in the room to fight it.

The two that were in range of the Barghest for melee were Rakana and a halfling cavalier, and the beast dealt out some massive damage to both of them. The halfling, however was moving back and forth with 5' steps to be out of reach whenever possible, while the proud Shoanti warrior stood her ground, thus taking a much higher portion of damage. Despite much healing from the party bard and oracle, the killing blow was delivered in the form of a critical bite with max damage rolled on the d6s, immediately chopping the poor woman in two. It wasn't pretty.

Luckily, by this time the creature was already down to 1hp, and the party was able to deal the final blow without further losses. They carried the various pieces of her remains back to Sandpoint for burial, and the entire town mourned her passing at the funeral services held in her honor.

** spoiler omitted **

Karzoug Victorious!

After three and a half years of gaming (with some slow stretches) my Rise to the Runelord campaign has come to an end, but alas, with an unhappy ending for the adventurers. They were down on resources, had already lost a cohort, and their cleric was so far lamia-drained that he was unable to cast any of his remaining spells, but before they decided to retire to return another day, the foolish cleric struck Karzoug's anima focus with his runeforged domineering mace and thus opened a portal to the Eye of Avarice. Lured by Karzoug's taunts, they entered the Eye, but they proved to be no match for the mighty Runelord. The fight took 16 rounds and in the end Karzoug was victorious. His return will be glorious!

We mourn the passing of these brave but foolish heroes:

Jal, human monk, killed by finger of death
Zalabrinah, half-elf bard cohort, withered to death by horrid wilting
Aubrecht, human conjurer, killed by wail of the banshee
Yvanek, human warlock, also killed by wail of the banshee

and finally

Aleksandar, human cleric of Desna, killed in melee with Karzoug's burning glaive.

Previously, the same day, Samantha, human ranger cohort, was crystallized by a crtical hit with Chellan by Viorian Dekanti.

It remains unclear whether this, in the end, is for better of for worse, as during the run of the campaign, Aubrecht had become a rival in greed even to Karzoug, though not yet in power. His goal was to become Runelord in place of the Runelord, and it is doubtful that his possible victory over Karzoug would have been an improvement for the destiny of Golarion.

We will now start over with Serpent's Skull!

Karzoug Victorious!...stuff...

Yippee! Go Karzoug!

Axion, male human fighter 4: Slit his own throat with a haunted shard of wood while his friends were ogling the pretty paintings in the adjoining room of Foxglove Manor.

Unnamed male human paladin 4, same player's replacement character for his recently deceased fighter: Refused to back down from Iesha's revenant because she radiated evil. Died in two rounds, ten minutes after his predecessor.

Man, I love this AP.

Name of PC: Trundlefoot
Class/Level: Sorcerer 14
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Xalast
Catalyst: The worlds luckiest Phantasmal Killer
Story:

Finding the Hidden Beast, the party's various see invisible and true seeing's foiled the creatures illusionary deception. Winning initiative the Beast readied to cast Phantasmal Killer on the first PC to cast a spell. Trundlefoot flew in the room and began casting a Greater Dispell. The Hidden Beast fired off the Killer first.

The Beast beat the SR of 26 (rolled a 17). Trundlefoot failed his will save (with a +4 from remove fear), he needed a 5 and rolled a 1. Then he failed his fort save, rolled a 4.

That was the first time I've ever had the spell work.

He was raised shortly after the Beast was finally put down.