RotRL Obituaries


Rise of the Runelords

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Name of PC: Barric Lord of Lightning half-orc
Class/Level: 14 paladin(read magus) of all the law gods, especially asmodeus
Adventure: Sins of our saviors
Catalyst: angelic aspect greater and smacking the broken rod

Story: The Lord of lightning was struck down by the mirror image of his fellow paladin. The magic nulling effects of the holy form left him with only his scimitar to fight. He may have been able to survive the onslaught if only Domitia his tiefling summoner companion had not smacked the rod in the abjurant halls removing the magic from all his equipment forever( as far as the party knows)

Name of PC: Tsuna half-elf
Class/Level: 14 fighter
Adventure: Sins of our saviors
Catalyst: smacking the broken rod in the abjurant halls

Story: Tsuna had only been with the sandpoint PD for a few days. he had been given new great magical equipment upon joining. Alas, it was all lost when the rod was struck. Determined and full of pride he took on one of his doppelgangers fighting beyond what many would expect a man to. Ready to strike the last blow on his double, his head was removed by a backswing from the true paladins dark reflection.

Name of NPC: Eaondara warrior of wrath
Class/ level: 1 fighter/5 evoker/ 2 eldritch knight
Adventure: Sins of our saviors
catalyst: Angelic aspect greater

Story: The only survivor of the massacre in the halls of wrath, eaondara swore fealty to the man who now wears the mark of wrath only to be betrayed when his reflection cut off her magic and reduced her to unidentifiable bits


fujisempai wrote:

Name of PC: Barric Lord of Lightning half-orc

Class/Level: 14 paladin(read magus) of all the law gods, especially asmodeus
Adventure: Sins of our saviors
Catalyst: angelic aspect greater and smacking the broken rod

Story: The Lord of lightning was struck down by the mirror image of his fellow paladin. The magic nulling effects of the holy form left him with only his scimitar to fight. He may have been able to survive the onslaught if only Domitia his tiefling summoner companion had not smacked the rod in the abjurant halls removing the magic from all his equipment forever( as far as the party knows)

Name of PC: Tsuna half-elf
Class/Level: 14 fighter
Adventure: Sins of our saviors
Catalyst: smacking the broken rod in the abjurant halls

Story: Tsuna had only been with the sandpoint PD for a few days. he had been given new great magical equipment upon joining. Alas, it was all lost when the rod was struck. Determined and full of pride he took on one of his doppelgangers fighting beyond what many would expect a man to. Ready to strike the last blow on his double, his head was removed by a backswing from the true paladins dark reflection.

Name of NPC: Eaondara warrior of wrath
Class/ level: 1 fighter/5 evoker/ 2 eldritch knight
Adventure: Sins of our saviors
catalyst: Angelic aspect greater

Story: The only survivor of the massacre in the halls of wrath, eaondara swore fealty to the man who now wears the mark of wrath only to be betrayed when his reflection cut off her magic and reduced her to unidentifiable bits

Wow, the Mirrors of Opposition really tore up your party. My party was smart and as soon as the rogue peeking around the corner triggered the creation of his doubles, they all closed their eyes until they managed to break the mirrors.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Kalshane wrote:
fujisempai wrote:

Lots of death

Wow, the Mirrors of Opposition really tore up your party. My party was smart and as soon as the rogue peeking around the corner triggered the creation of his doubles, they all closed their eyes until they managed to break the mirrors.

What is this talk of carefulness and rogues? One should just send the 2 people least likely to get hurt into all of the possible traps. The paladin also made sure I added in all of the bonus and resistances that he usually forgets about, because "hard mode"


Name of PC: Zukuto
Class/Level: 11 Ninja
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: an extra fiesty kobold

Story
the party chased after the kobold, ignoring the necklace she dropped in flight. as she turned and lobbed a pearl from the necklace of Fireballs at the group (resulting in a chain reaction), Zukuto, with 3 hp remaining from the prior fight, could not withstand the 22d6 fire damage.
He used his hero points to cheat death.


Name of PC: Davosk
Class/Level: Wizard 7
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Medusa’s Mask

Story:

The Heroes had been making short work of the Shadowclock tower up until they met the Golden Lady at top of the tower. The monk, Elron, realized that he could not climb the stairs while enlarged and changed his tactics accordingly. He climbed the outside of the tower, scaling it faster than the rest of the party could climb the stairs! Egorian, the paladin, led the way up the stairs while Davosk, the wizard, flew by his shoulder. Using message, the three of them timed their arrival to be simultaneous with the other three party members spaced appropriately and ready behind them. Mosali, the bard, launched into a story of a hero’s epic conquest over a greater demonic evil as her compatriots led the way into the final room.

Egorian, Elron, and Davosk bore witness to a ritual in its final stages. A woman strapped down to an onyx alter with a succubus and two Alu demons leading two cultists in prayer. The succubus was wearing golden armor and flying above the ritual through smoke and incense. Serena went first with a 27 on initiative, dashed into the room and cut down one of the Alu demons with a surprise attack. Much to her surprise, her elven curved blade passed straight through the demon with no resistance. She could not believe her eyes as the demon still stood before her. Davosk himself did not believe it either, the succubus was still there!

At this point, the true Golden Lady revealed herself and opened up on Egorian the Paladin of Sarenrae. Her spear struck him and he felt a sense of sadness and nausea overcome him. From here, chaos broke out. Davosk let loose a powerful fireball, which he deftly converted into an iceball. Mosali attempted to confuse the demons, cultists and the true Golden Lady causing a cultist to begin blabbering in a strange language.

After being struck by the iceball the Golden Lady turned her attention to the flying Davosk. The buildings below him seemed toy like and dizzyingly far away. The bottom of the massive Irespire seemed nearly within touch, only thirty feet above his head. The gem in the Golden Lady’s crown glowed bright green and she pointed a finger at him as she shouted a single word in the language of magic. Davosk heard it clearly. “STONE!” He looked down in horror as his fingertips stiffened and became cracked. He raised his hands to his wide eyes as his green skin turned a dark grey, the color of a weather beaten statue. He knew he had failed this test. He knew he was succumbing to the magic of the spell and with the drop below him that he was all but dead. The Golden Lady watched him with a smug smile.

With a cry of rage, anguish and fear Davosk reached deep inside himself and defied the spell that had taken root within him. He steeled his mind and forced the stony magic from his body. He had never heard of such a thing in his studies. He did not know how exactly he pulled it off. All he knew was that he lived and that the Golden Lady was going to die.

To be continued???

Davosk failed his save against the magic within the Golden Lady’s crown. Fortunately, he had a hero point which he used to save his life. Without that Hero Point, he would be a scattering of smashed stone as he took 20d6 fall damage. Even worse would be the mess that he would leave behind after he reverted to flesh in 1 minute’s time.

We were not able to finish the fight last session. So far, two Hero Points have been burned. The second prevented a faceless stalker crit from dropping Elron unconscious. The Heroes have healed up and harried the golden lady as she tried to heal up. The expectation is that she is preparing to attack again.


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Name of PC: Grungar
Class/Level: Shaman 6
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Slime and Snails or Puppy Dog's Tails

Story:
On their way to Magnimar the party did not expect the GM to design a not so random encounter as a homage to David Bowie and Alan Rickman. So, near the end of their first day of travelling south, during particular bad weather that included thunder and lightning, they found a destroyed small Goblin village. Of course only the tails of a bunch of puppys, nailed near the nearest tree, made them realize that this village was once inhabited by Gobbos. A huge trail of slime led the to the source of the destruction: A giant slug, slowly making it's way to the swamps nearby.
While they were still planing their attack, a voice behind a tree warned them to not hurt 'Snaily, his friend!', but to late. A readied action made little to none damage to the Giant Slug, but enough for Grabthar, a mad ce cleric/sorcerer who escaped Habe's months ago, to attack them and to alert the Slug.
While the Slug very slowly crept into reach for its acid vomit attack, Grabthar fought bravely with his spells as well as his Warhammer. Long enough for his friend 'Snaily' to crit the Shaman and make 76 damage.
The acid burned through his upper body as he dropped dead. Luckily, the rest of the party defeated Grabthar and the slug soon after that and they found out that Grabthar's Hammer was a unique item that had a couple of charges of Ressurrection left


Name of PC: Elron
Class/Level: Monk of the Lotus 7
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: 98 damage in one round.

Story:

Picking up where Davosk's story ends.

The Heroes battled on against Xanesha despite watching their wizard nearly plummet to his death. After a couple rounds they had all but destroyed her mirror images and had her surrounded. Elron (monk) and Egorian (sword and board paladin with sheild bash) where both enlarged to mitigate her reach advantage and it was beginning to show.

Xanesha decided to retreat and regroup. She climbed out of the tower and onto the roof where she turned invisible. Mosali (bard) craftily hit her with glitterdust. Not wanting to waste her advantage Xanesha decided to retreat temporarily and heal up. After failing a save against a second glitter dust, being harassed by summoned eagles and peppering arrow fire from the stairs leading up the tower.... Xanesha finally waited out the glitterdust. The Heroes prepared for the upcoming attack by spreading out with the still enlarged Elron in the middle of the tower.

Serena was hiding in the pillows with her bow out when she saw a blurred shape pass right next to her hiding place. Xanesha returned! Serena's arrow missed but was able to at least show her compatriots where the Lamia would strike from.

Xanesha's spear found the flatfooted Elron once for a maximum damage softening hit and again for a critical that pierced his chest, shredding his insides......

or would have if it where not for the quick reactions of Serena, standing adjacent, and the flatfooted Sorez, standing some distance away, who both lept forward and yanked Elron away from what would have been a killing blow! Xanesha's spear still slammed into Elron's bicep, nearly severing it. He stood before her horribly injured and bleeding profusely, but alive.

Although it did not kill him, Elron still took two maximum damage hits (25 each) which left him at 1 HP. Sorez and Serena both burned Hero Points to save Elron's life.


Name of Pc: Vale
Class/Level: Ranger 10
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Not flying high enough while shooting at 2 advanced stone giants.

The party was defending Sandpoint from the Stone Giants. Vale wanted to be near enough to a couple of stone giants so he would have good aim, but was too far away to both close-in AND fly high enough so the giants could not reach him. The giants charged at him, and he was dropped easily to the floor.

Name of PC: Amadis
Class/Level: Inquisitor 10
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants (King of the Storval Stairs)
Catalyst: Trying to heal a party member's companion.

On their way to the Storval Plateau, the party met their old friend the druid Davor, who asked them to help defend the Storval Stairs until a Pathfinder Society caravan comes through. After cleaning the stairs from the hill giants and harpies that inhabited it, the party made camp at the bottom of the stairs. On the second night they were attacked by some hill giants and Lucrecia, riding a huge hill giant cleric. While the party were busy fighting the mooks, Lucrecia, well familiar with the party's strengths and weaknesses cast two dismissal spells on the summoner's eidolon, removing the party's meat shield and main damage perpetrator. Next, the hill giant cleric attacked Davor's tiger companion Ugly, and dropped him dying on the floor. Amadis ran to Ugly in order to revive him, but failed to assess the situation correctly and allowed the cleric to make multiple attacks against him, turning him into pulp. All the party could do was teleport away with his body in order to regroup.


Name of PC: Sarah
Class/Level: 12 Sorceress
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Big Daddy M

Story
Failed save vs disintigrate as a squishy class. Nothing to see here.
spent hero points to cheat death.

Name of PC: Rothgar
Class/Level: 1 Fighter/11 Summoner
Adventure: Fortress of the Stone Giants
Catalyst: Big Daddy M

Story
Mok dimension doored out of the room after taking a few hits, but came back as the party was looting, surprising Rothgar with a Flesh to Stone. There is nowa Rothgar-shaped statue on the ceiling outside his chamber.


Name of GMPC: Ameiko Kaijitsu
Adventure: Boggards in Brinestump Marsh
Catalyst: Critical Hit Shillelagh

Story
I decided to use the Brinestump Marsh sidequest in my game last sunday, but I changed it a little bit to make the final boss battle a bit more interesting and challenging for my group of six players. In my version, a swamp druid barbarian half-orc lady had been repeatedly cursed by the big bad, and she was also dominated with an amulet from old Thassilon.

As it turned out, only four of my players were able to attend, so I decided to involve Ameiko in both the hook and the adventure. She was quite useful, especially with Feather Step, so I think the group liked dragging her along.

Long story short, at the start of the final encounter my swamp druid barbarian lady popped out from hiding and cast Shillelagh on her club. The PCs were too far away to reach her though, and simply moved about the area, trying to position themselves. The actual big bad was not yet present. The PC cleric made his Sense Motive check to realise swamp druid barbarian lady was not quite herself, and planned to help her out.

One round too late, however. The repositioning of the group's characters incidentally left Ameiko as the most accessible target for swamp druid barbarian lady. It's not like I was going to start picking sides, so I felt obligated to have her charge Ameiko.

Natural bloody 20. Confirm? Yup, with a 19 on the die. It was oh-so tempting to fudge the roll in Ameiko's favour, but the dice had spoken, and she was absolutely devastated by 49 damage from swamp druid barbarian lady's shillelagh great club. I described Ameiko's form as giving way to the force of the blow, her crushed remains subsequently flung 10 ft to the side.

Bright side? I'm pretty sure the players plan to invest in Reincarnate for Ameiko. I'll definitely try to have that effect decide her appearance in Jade Regent, if I ever get there.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Name of the PC: Bret
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Class Level: Investigator/3

Cause of Death: The Yeth Hounds in the Chapel of Lamashtu. Righteous indignation from this Sandpoint native caused him to take a stand here and say; "No more." With two of the four companions having fled from the magic induced fear of the Yeth Hounds, needless to say, not the best place or instance to decide to take a stand. This young investigator became dog chow

Silver Crusade

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Do deaths count if they were only dead less than 6 seconds?

Name of PC: Selkirk
Class/Level: Ranger 13
Adventure: Sins of the Savior
Catalyst: Arkhryst the white dragon, aka FreezeMaw
Story:

The group successfully collected the 7 keys from the circle of stone heads, but the obvious noise from the magic statues woke the dragon. Following the tactics in the adventure (anniversary edition), Arkhryst buffed, flew in invisibly, and hit the group with his breathe weapon in the surprise round.

Unfortunately for Selkirk, Arkhryst won initiative in the regular rounds, and went for the fly by attack bite and snatch on the ranger, rolled a crit, and did enough damage from the Greater Vital Strike crit to knock Selkirk to -9 HP. The following round, the dragon dropped him from 40 feet up before attacking the rest of the party, doing just enough falling damage to kill the poor half-elf.

Luckily, party flame oracle Relyn has Breathe of Life as a known spell, Wings of Fire that activate as a swift action, and a 60 ft fly speed, so he was able to get there in a single round to heal Selkirk back to life and get him back in the fight.

The Exchange

Basillicum wrote:

Name of GMPC: Ameiko Kaijitsu

Adventure: Boggards in Brinestump Marsh
Catalyst: Critical Hit Shillelagh

Story

Bright side? I'm pretty sure the players plan to invest in Reincarnate for Ameiko. I'll definitely try to have that effect decide her appearance in Jade Regent, if I ever get there.

Being a noble and part of the wealthiest family in Sandpoint it would seem to me that Ameiko's estate can come up with the remaining funds for a Raise Dead. What's the point of being a wealthy noble if you can't be yourself?


Qakisst Vishtani wrote:
Basillicum wrote:

Name of GMPC: Ameiko Kaijitsu

Adventure: Boggards in Brinestump Marsh
Catalyst: Critical Hit Shillelagh

Story

Bright side? I'm pretty sure the players plan to invest in Reincarnate for Ameiko. I'll definitely try to have that effect decide her appearance in Jade Regent, if I ever get there.

Being a noble and part of the wealthiest family in Sandpoint it would seem to me that Ameiko's estate can come up with the remaining funds for a Raise Dead. What's the point of being a wealthy noble if you can't be yourself?

Since Raise Dead isn't available in Sandpoint, and all of Ameiko's family is gone, I let the party choose how to deal with it. And they chose Reincarnate.


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Raise Dead costs 5,000 gp plus caster hiring cost. Reincarnate costs 1,000 gp plus caster hiring cost. That party is a bunch of cheapskates! :)

(And have probably gained a Greed point each?)


Name of PC: Vex
Class/Level: Wizard 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Shadows
Story: The party had no Ghost Touch weapons. Tge encounter was made more exhausting due to the fact that Vex, the Magic Missile happy Wizard went down pretty quick. Weirdly, they had an okay time with Malfeshkor immediately after.

The Exchange

Going to agree with Bellona here. Magnimar isn't that far; but it is the party that is paying so they do indeed get to chose.


Name of NPC: Johan Ma'Cloud
Class/Level: Unbreakable Fighter 13 level
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast - The Wendigo Siege
Catalyst: He just isn't afraid of death anymore.
Story: Party identified wendigo at it first howl. As story in the cabin progressed, they were thinking that Karviek will be wendigo. Then there was the fight with his ghost and frost worm, and second howl with blizzard. People formed a circle in preparation to fight wendigo, but th last decided to wait. So party teleported back to the cabin. Summoner casted calm air, Johan laid Karvieks bones down. And while they were doing that, wendigo transformed from air walk form back behind their backs. Initiative roll - wendigo first. Flyby to attack witch player, whose cohort Johan is. After some moves from other players, Johan flied to wendigo. To kick his ass. As expected - full-attack from wendigo sent Johan to see River of Souls again.

Name of PC: Dio Saxomond
Class/Level: Unchained Summoner 15 lvl
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast - Giant Sentinels
Catalyst: Playing a harmonica.
Story: Dio is so greedy that he fashions himself as next Runelord of Greed. When he saw that Golden Road and calculated how much gold there is, he just went to play a song of happiness on harmonica. And brought attention of Bjormundal and his Cloud Giants. Cloud Giants legally reduced him to minus hp, so he would be dead. But his contingency kicked in, restoring him to full hp.


Name of PC: Antonino
Class/Level: NE Aasimar Summoner 8/Mythic 2
Adventure: Hook Mountain
Catalyst: Overconfidence combined underestimating the destructive capabilities of a mob of ogres
Story: In the previous sessions before the Christmas holidays the characters had infiltrated Fort Rannick. The PCs had gained a pair of mythic tiers in a hard fought side plot that involved slaying the Sandpoint devil and a remodeled Ladys Light populated by the minions of a drow enchantress who had been mindseeded by Sorshen. In addition they had Shalelu, the three black arrows and Razmus tagging along with them. Therefore as one can imagine their combat capabilities had increased exponentially and I decided to populate the forts courtyard with a good deal more ogres making use of Monstrous Codex to do so.
The parties half-drow rogue (Valmi) and tiefling ninja (Mardra) trapped 15-20 off duty ogres inside the fire-trap of a bunkhouse before rigging it with an untoward amount of alchemist fire, fireworks and explosives that turn it into merry conflagration. The sound of fireworks was the signal for the rest of the party to emerge from the tunnels to retake the courtyard, Fane (Human Fighter) and Somar (Fetchling Evoker) had highest initiative and crossed to the rubble leading up to the Eyrie so that they could cover the advancing rangers.
I had rolled well on initiative and perception checks, therefore the erstwhile duo were swamped with a five man team of ogres and their Kreeg sergeant. This gigantic (hur hur) combat included another ten normal ogres and sergeant, an ogre mage, two ogre barbarians and three ogre sneaks most of whom were on the other side of the courtyard looking (some laughing) at their burning comrades.
Thankfully, Aborgail (Tiefling Cleric of Cayden) dropped a well timed Holy Smite before this ensuing mob of brutes could close with the embattled characters and Somar opened up with his Mythic fireball which slowed the enemy down considerably.
Thus did Antonino take the first overconfident steps to his doom, we had been allowing him to use enlarge person on his Eidolon (foolish I know) which he had gotten recently at mythic. Bestride his now gargantuan mount he rode forth and trampled directly into the mob of holy smite blinded ogres who flailed ineffectually and a good number died in response. It was around here that we ended up having to leave the game which went on haitus for nearly two months due to a mixture of christmas holidays and university exams, my work schedule etc. etc.

When we resume this carnage Somar decided to kick off Wall of Fire and trap the ogres surrounding Hector and his master and prevent them from joining the ongoing brawl. Upon his next action, Antonino used evolution surge to grant Hector wings and proceeded in one last foolish trample attempt before fleeing. The remaining ogres took their attacks of opportunity, pasting Hector and causing him to return to Abaddon and leaving Antonino about 20ft odd above the ground and falling what ogres remained after the fire and trampling. Unfortunately for Antonino he had done very poorly on initiative and none of his companions had line of sight (due to the roaring flames) or were in a position to help him. The closest Ogre barbarian proceeded to then confirm a critical hit upon the already wounded summoner and splattered him, his companion tore the dying man limb from limb much to the horror of the only onlooker from her position on the walls: Mardra.

Another quite entertaining and fitting death for my campaign, allowing me an early opportunity to have Charon make an offer to a certain Summoner... restoration to life in exchange for his eternal servitude.


Name of PC: Janus
Class/Level: Arcane Trickster 14
Adventure: Sins of the Saviours
Catalyst: Clone Wizard

In Xanderghul's wing a Phantasmal Killer brought back a terrible memory in terrifying form for the poor Varisian trickster, who could not endure it.


TPK Last night.

Adventure: Interlude during the Skinsaw Murders, running Dawn of the Scarlet Sun.

Names of PCs:
Pullo Scarnetti - Human Warpriest 6
Penlope Pixen - Gnome Druid 6
Dagna Redlocks - Dwarf Fighter 6
Izzy Viskanta - Human Rogue 1 Ranger 5

The party encountered a Succubus running a cult that was killing worshipers of Sarenrae. Within three rounds of combat the Succubus managed to summon a Babau ally, cast Flameblade, and dominated the Fighter. The fighter failed both her saves for the Domination and the order to help the Succubus.

The party failed to realize they should run until it was far too late. Succubus crit the Warpriest and dropped him, then moved on to the Ranger the next round and dropped her. The Druid attempted to run, but failed to make it out of the dungeon before being pinned by the Babau and killed

All the party members, now in the negatives, were placed on an altar and had their hearts removed. They were all sacrificed to Lamashtu.

Last words from the Warpriest before being killed:
"I know it looks bad, but we always prevail!"

R.I.P.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Yeah...Dawn of the Scalet Sun is a rough mod. Keep in mind, though, dominate person is a 1 round casting time, so the party should have had a full round to interrupt her casting.

Still, not the best of times.


Just remembered I had a "casualty" to report. First of the campaign.

Name of PC: Dolgen
Class/Level: Dwarven Fighter 13
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: failed breath weapon saves, power attack, critical on bite attack

Arkhyrst caught the group unawares while getting the keys. His flight gives him considerable mobility and they struggled to engage him. Eventually though the fighter was given flight (via wand from wizard) and could engage in actual melee attacks. Unfortunately he failed a saving throw vs breath weapon while getting there and took a full attack action from the dragon shortly thereafter. The confirmed bite critical was a key element in pushing the dwarf well into negative hit points. He used hero points to cheat death. The cleric got him up and running with a heal the next round. The group forced the dragon to retreat a few rounds later. The dragon would die the next day - in his lair, with less mobility and with the group prepared for a white dragon (resist energy nerfs the breath weapon nicely) he was much less of a challenge. My group retreated for a day (via teleport) and in my view a dragon who is at full hp (via the potions) would not let his hoard get looted.


Name of PC: Feivel
Class/Level: Samaran Witch 16 lvl
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast - Krak Naratha
Catalyst: Designated target
Story: Party wandered in Krak Naratha to see what's there, to look at any remaining aurorchs and speak with remaining kuchrimas. They where soon stoped by four of them, who demanded to know why party is in the citadel. When summoner said that they are here to kill Karzoug, kurchimas decided to went their anger from 3 failed rebellions on the party. Leader choosed Feivel as first target for his dozen and so it began. Poor witch was killed twice. Second time with a critical hit to the hearth (we play with critical hit cards), while hiding behind summoner, laying prone and having aid to boost AC. After second revival by summoners breath of life scroll, he decided to shadow step away for a round.

Name of PC: Dio Saxomond
Class/Level: Unchained Summoner 16 lvl
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast - Krak Naratha
Catalyst: Don't stand behind like a statue when you are a caster.
Story: After Feivel, kuchrimas went for him. Some lucky shots, a crit and he was almost killed. Why almost? Contingency kicked again and healed him from 0 hp.


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Name of PC: Romnir
Class/Level: Half-elf Paladin of Arshea (chosen one) 1
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Bad DMing

Name of PC: Bertio
Class/Level: Half-orc Ranger 1
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Bad DMing

Story: I've got a few years of DM experience under my belt, but occasionally I still make mistakes. This was one of them. My party was on the verge of going into the Glassworks (they would have recieved Tsuto's letter to Ameiko the next morning), but a player was absent and I didn't want the remaining 3 to tackle it without her. So, I added in a side mission that I found in the Pathfinder Comic that involved goblins in Mosswood - I figured I could give them an exp boost and introduce them to Shalelu at the same time (who would be played by a friend of mine who stopped in to watch the game).

So my first mistake was setting up the encounter. Instead of facing the enemies (3 goblin rangers 1, 3 goblin rogues 1, a wolverine and a goblin cleric of lamashtu 6) in stages, I just dumped them all on the board and told the party to roll initiative, thus making a group of 3 level 1s and a level 6 NPC take on a CR 7 encounter. The party was easily overwhelmed by the goblins long before the goblin cleric joined the fight - mostly due to the goblin ranger's favored enemy hitting against both the half-humans.

My second mistake was not telling my friend, who was playing Shalelu for me, to focus her attention on the goblin cleric, who was the leader of that goblin tribe. I gave him no instructions, so he had her try to draw aggro from the goblins to get them to attack her instead of the PCs.

My third mistake was when the party started to think that the goblin cleric was a druid. I wanted to make him do something that would prove that he was a cleric, so I had him channel negative energy. 3d6 damage to everyone on the board, including two unconscious PCS. Even if I had rolled poorly they still would have died - and to make matters worse, I completely forgot about the Will save they were supposed to get to lessen the damage. So 2 PCs died, another was at her negative con, and Shalelu was brought to 4 HP.

Thankfully, my players forgave me, and actually enjoyed the encounter enough that when I offered to retcon the whole thing they decided to stick with the new characters they had made (with an exp bonus to make up for me killing them unfairly). I've learned my lesson about going off-book, and am so grateful that my players are so forgiving.


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First PC deaths in our campaign, and first time for me as a DM.

Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Near consistent rolls below 5, ghouls, goblin ghasts, and an untimely skaveling.

Name of PC: Levron; Race/Class/Level: Varisian Wizard 5
Name of PC: Jaali Sho; Race/Class/Level: Chelaxian Summoner 1/Enlightened Paladin of Iomedae 4
Name of PC: Thorrogg; Race/Class/Level: Dwarven Barbarian 5

Story: After exploring much of Foxglove Manor, the party reaches Iesha Foxglove's revenant, identifying her as such. There is some murmuring about what to do with her, but the decision to see what she is up to is made by the party cleric as he removes the mirror from in front of Iesha. She races downstairs, screaming for vengeance upon Aldern, and the party follows on her heels. Jaali (the party paladin) is intent on not letting her out of his sight, and as they make their way below to the Misgivings dungeons, they continue to follow her as close as they can despite being harried by ghouls from every corner.

Soon they see Iesha jumping 50 ft into the lower level of The Vent chamber, and a couple rounds later hear her pounding upon the metal door leading to Aldern. At this point, the party decides to make a stand against the ghouls surrounding them, making the sound tactical choice to stop in the three-way intersection between three larger chambers.

After a few rounds of battle, Levron (wizard safely hanging back) starts to hear the sound of large flapping wings behind him. The player looks over his options, realises that the way ahead is too tight with occupied squares and combat to get through, and submits to the idea that this is his character's final moments (Xan-style).

By this time most of the normal ghouls are destroyed, but the party is cursed with terrible rolls on their saving throws. Only thanks to constant repositioning of paralysed fellows is the party able to keep their own from being hit with a coup de grace, and at one point all five members of the party is either stunned (from skaveling's shriek) or paralysed (by a DC 13). Due to tight corners, there is for the most part only one square from which to reach the ghouls, and they have a superior number of attacks.

On the other side of the battle, Levron survives longer than he ever dared imagine, thanks to the party eidolon climbing past him to defend against the emerging skaveling. The ravenous dire bat is squeezing and crawling incessantly through the tight cave to get to the party, and takes a bunch of damage from the eidolon and the wizard's flaming sphere, but ultimately the eidolon is paralysed and feasted upon. Of course, to the skaveling's rising frustration, the eidolon is simply desummoned as it dies. Levron yet again becomes the target of its anger, and is killed by an attack of opportunity critical hit bite as he attempts to flee. Somewhere within the next few rounds, the skaveling is destroyed after a brief tussle with Thorrogg.

Around this time, Iesha is defeated by the joint force of Aldern and his goblin ghasts, and the ghasts have been sent to deal with the party, while Aldern licks his wounds (on my roll to determine his remaining hp, he was left with 11). Two goblin ghasts climb up The Vent to flank the characters with most maneuverability, but both are one-hit-KO'd either by an earth breaker charge or a braced longspear.

Unfortunately, the remaining two goblin ghasts, coming one by one through The Grave, proved too much for the party. There are critical hits against the party every round, and in the last few rounds almost every single roll by a PC is below 5, but what's most damning is probably that all their resources are utterly spent. The first goblin eventually paralyses Jaali and attempts to coup de grace in the following round, but is downed by a lucky longspear hit from Thorrogg. The second goblin moves in to coup de grace, and Jaali rolls a natural 1 on his saving throw.

The final round starts with Thorrogg at 4 hp, and the goblin ghast at 9. Thorrogg drops the longspear, picks up his earth breaker, steps in to hit, and misses with a 3 on the die. I award him a hero point because it felt like one of those moments, and he burns it to reroll, but rolls yet another 3. The player resigns his sheet, and rightly so, as the goblin ghast full-attacks and sends Thorrogg a long way into the negatives. The party cleric, free from paralysis immediately after watching his fellows fall, casts Invisibility and flees.

Good stuff: Everyone had a lot of fun.


Great story, very well told!

Silver Crusade

Fromper wrote:

Do deaths count if they were only dead less than 6 seconds?

Name of PC: Selkirk
Class/Level: Ranger 13
Adventure: Sins of the Savior
Catalyst: Arkhryst the white dragon, aka FreezeMaw
Story:

The group successfully collected the 7 keys from the circle of stone heads, but the obvious noise from the magic statues woke the dragon. Following the tactics in the adventure (anniversary edition), Arkhryst buffed, flew in invisibly, and hit the group with his breathe weapon in the surprise round.

Unfortunately for Selkirk, Arkhryst won initiative in the regular rounds, and went for the fly by attack bite and snatch on the ranger, rolled a crit, and did enough damage from the Greater Vital Strike crit to knock Selkirk to -9 HP. The following round, the dragon dropped him from 40 feet up before attacking the rest of the party, doing just enough falling damage to kill the poor half-elf.

Luckily, party flame oracle Relyn has Breathe of Life as a known spell, Wings of Fire that activate as a swift action, and a 60 ft fly speed, so he was able to get there in a single round to heal Selkirk back to life and get him back in the fight.

And last night, his companion animal suffered a similar fate, except by fire, rather than cold.

Name of PC: Greta
Class/Level: Badger (companion animal to level 14 ranger)
Adventure: Sins of the Savior
Catalyst: Shining Children in the Iron Cages of Lust
Story:

Led by the Calistria worshiping sorceress Kalaysa, the party decided to hit the lust area first in Runeforge. They fought their way in to the succubus leader of that wing, killing the giant guards along the way, and one of her demon daughters, though the other three managed to dim door back to their mother to defend her when the party got there.

The fight didn't go well for the heroes early, with the party's cavalier and badger falling victim to Confusion, while the archer kept rolling badly while shooting at the succubus. An acidball (fireball converted to acid for extra damage with a draconic bloodline) from the sorceress hurt the enemies, but that's all they had going for them early.

Then, the cavalier got dominated, though the paladin managed to get up to melee and took down two of the three lesser demons defending the succubus. So she decided to bring in the reenforcements, and the shining children came from the room next door and started blasting fire at people, hurting the paladin pretty badly in their first round of involvement.

So Selkerk (realized I spelled his name wrong in my earlier post) sent Greta the badger to get in the face of the shining children, hoping they'd be less dangerous in melee. Next round, she took a ton of fire damage from both of them hitting her touch AC on every attack, driving her to one point below her negative Con score.

Luckily, party oracle Relyn came through again, running across the room to hit Greta with a Breathe of Life. It was a long, tough fight, but the heroes eventually emerged victorious, with no further casualties.


So, the Oracle did CPR on a badger?

Silver Crusade

elcaleeb wrote:
So, the Oracle did CPR on a badger?

Luckily, mouth to mouth wasn't necessary.


So where did he Breathe the Life into the badger?
On second thought, never mind...


Name of PC: Halungalom
Class/Level: Gnome Sorceror 14
Adventure: Sins of the Savior
Catalyst: Highlady Athroxis
Story:

After the party teleported into the Hall of Testing, Athroxis Cone of Colded the largest group she could, and the Gnome lost over half his hitpoints, and failed his fort save.

Adding insult to mortal injury, and just before it was reduced to negative health, Athroxis ordered the Glabrezu Demon to reverse gravity around itself, sending as many party members as possible, including itself and the posicled gnome, 60' into the fiery ceiling. The fall damage killed the demon, reverting gravity to normal, and splattering the steamed remains of Halungalom over the floor.


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Name of PC: Feivel Class/Level: Samaran Witch 16 lvl
And his brave cohort, Johan Ma'Cloud Class/Level: Human Unbreakable Fighter 14 lvl
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: That awesome crit cleaving from a Rune Giant.
Story: My party got sihedron rings from Ghlorofaex and Gamigin, but that was that. Hidden Beast in my opinion wasn't worth giving a ring by Karzoug, considering decapus motivation to be and Karzougs intention to actually visit the creature. Ghlorofaex was bumped to ancient wyrm status only to make my players at least think about possibility to talk to him (they are so overpowered that an old dragon is a fight for maximun 4 rounds, even ancient wyrm would be something like 6-7 rounds). Luckily, skulks told PCs about Gykak, and he, in turn, introduced them to the dragon in a manner that they could talk. Playing on the greed and pride of the dragon, they managed to get his ring (in exchange for their blood, some coins, and life stories - for scry and other contingency reasons). Gamigin was sent by Karzoug to kill them at Hidden Beast lair, when they were fighting the decapus (Feivel and his cohort were wearing Sihedron Medallions).
Others who had rings were Rune Giants scattered across the city. But the problem was that they were usually surrounded by hundreds of other giants, and always moved in units of 3 giants. Gykak, seeing that party has a goal that can create a distraction for his "Spartacus rebellion", agreed to help them. He showed on the map were a shift change between two units of Rune Giants happens, and promised to put his giant supporters around that place, so no help would come to targets. Ambush was scheduled for next day.
And it started. 3 giants were mazed away, another killed in first round (I maximize hp to all party foes) by summoners eidolon and 2 or 3 finishing shots from magus cohort, Shalelu. Then it got dicey. Sixth giant was lucky to survive long enough (the final 7th round) to swing his greatsword one last time. By this moment he was facing witch PC, Feivel (whos touch spell, that brought him there, was overpowered by giants +23 to will save), witchs cohort and summoners eidolon. So rune giant decided to cleave. First target was Feivel. Obviously, he was hit. With a natural 20. Confirmation was successful, and he was chopped in half like a tree by something like 85-90 damage and crit card effect. Then he went with cleave for Johan. Another hit and a critical one (critical focus feat on greatsword). Confirmed again. Player decided to cash out Johans achievement feat, Graverisen, and save the poor guy from dead. However, he forgot that critical card from the hit made Johan to provoke an Attack of Opportunity. So giant kind off returned his chopping-in-half-gargantuan-greatsword back to Johan. This wasn’t a crit this time, but enough to kill (he was pretty badly beaten before - have been brought back from death, that occurred on the second round of the ambush).


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Name of PC: Coluriel the Elf Class/Level: Ranger 1 / Rogue 2
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Bruthazmus the elf hater and the terrible slashing cage trap

Coluriel's trap sense went off, in fact the entire party's trap sense went off seeing the polished / shiny space between the statues. Coluriel decided to show his skills in disarming said trap, only to set it off (rolled a 1). Apparently he was so shocked that he set off the trap he failed to jump out of the way. Unfortunately for him, Bruthazmus and Nualia were making their final stand. Bruthazmus stepped out into the hall and plunked Coluriel with his last elf bane arrow. Only to drop to the ground (-1). Then the statues made a puree out of Coluriel (2 hits, one a crit put him at -44) then the pulpy remains were dropped down the pit.

In eulogy: The wizard stated, "Ah Coluriel, he will be missed by us...'cause he wasn't missed by anyone else."

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Name of PC: Akades

Class/Level: Cleric 12/Paladin 1 (Ragathiel)

Adventure: Sins of the Saviors

Catalyst: The party's fighter, by way of Mistress-Mother Delvahine

Story: So the party starts a fight with the succubus in her tent, and her demon daughters have already died to protect the Mistress-Mother. She's dodged some nasty spells from the party's abjurer (disintigrate missed, while she made the save on flesh to stone), and she's surrounded, making dominate person unlikely. So, she settles for the next best thing - confusion, targeting Selene (elven curve blade fighter), Setashiel (elven archer warpriest), Tinker (gnome rogue), and Harbinger (Akades' blink dog cohort). All of them fail the significant DC, meaning they all have to roll randomly to determine their actions. To a one, each of them rolls "attack nearest target," and Setashiel is next up in initiative order. The closest target? Octavius, the human abjurer. Four arrows hit their mark, and even though he does basically minimum damage, Octavius takes nearly a hundred hit points of damage.

Surprising everyone, he's still alive. Standing even.

Octavius realizes how boned everyone is, and tosses out a greater dispel magic, targeting the confusion on everyone in the burst. He removes the confusion from Setashiel and Harbinger, but Selene and Tinker are still affected when their turns come up. Selene randomly targets Akades, and he's probably the best target for these four strikes, as he has a high AC and HP.

He probably could have survived, too, if Selene wasn't a critfishing machine. 115 points of damage later, he's on the ground, dead. Fortunately, since Setashiel was back in control of her senses, she runs up next to his fallen form and casts breath of life to bring him back.

So, yeah, nobody actually died this time, but once again, my players prove to literally be their own worst enemies.


Final session and we had our first death.

Name of PC: Dudley

Class/Level: Fire Elementalist Wizard 16

Adventure: The Spires of Xin-Shalast

Catalyst: Karzoug the Claimer

Story: We converted to 5E at the start of SotS and I have 7 players, so I pretty much had to rebuild the final encounter from scratch. Kept it pretty close the book (I used a Titan as the basis for the Warden of Runes and added a pair of Lamia Matriarchs to account for having almost double the normal party size. Karzoug was treated as a Legendary creature in his lair.) The fight went poorly from the outset (with my thinking they were in for a TPK by the end of round 2) with all the PCs rolling terrible for initiative and eating a Meteor Swarm as well as two Warden of Thunder lightning strikes before anyone except the party fighter had a chance to act.

Somehow they managed to rally back (Holy Aura from the cleric and Circle of Power from the bard helped a lot, as well as a timely deployment of an Eversmoking Bottle by the party alchemist.) Dudley, low on health, fired a Disintegrate at Karzoug, which the Claimer promptly Counterspelled. However, he didn't take this affront lightly and responded with a Finger of Death on his turn. Dudley tried to Counterspell, but couldn't overcome the the power of the Lord of Greed and then failed his save, and even though Circle of Power halved the damage, it was still enough to snuff the life from his body. Luckily for him, the cleric was able to rush over and use Revivify before Dudley returned as a zombie.


Name of PC: Elrohir
Class/Level: 13 Fighter
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Azavan/Zukuto

Story: Elrohir became possessed by the lich, attacking and knocking out the party sorceress and laying a deep, bleeding crit on the magus that eventually took him down too. While he was busy taking out the casters, the remainder of the party sliced him up, and he eventually fell to a sneak attack from the group ninja. Hero points used to not-die.

Name of PC: Sarah
Class/Level: 12 Sorceress
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Elrohir/Azavan

Story: Knocked out by Elrohir, was later hit by a Cloudkill while unconscious, chocking her to death. Hero points used to not-die

Name of PC: Skippy
Class/Level: 13 Magus
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Elrohir/Azavan

Story: Knocked out by a bleeding crit from Elrohir, then stabalized by the party summoner, was later hit by a Cloudkill while unconscious, chocking him to death. Hero points used to not-die

Silver Crusade

Fromper wrote:
Fromper wrote:

Do deaths count if they were only dead less than 6 seconds?

Name of PC: Selkerk
Class/Level: Ranger 13
Adventure: Sins of the Savior
Catalyst: Arkhryst the white dragon, aka FreezeMaw

And last night, his companion animal suffered a similar fate, except by fire, rather than cold.

Name of PC: Greta
Class/Level: Badger (companion animal to level 14 ranger)
Adventure: Sins of the Savior
Catalyst: Shining Children in the Iron Cages of Lust

And now Greta suffered a more permanent death. No Breathe of Life this time.

Name of PC: Greta
Class/Level: Badger (companion animal to level 14 ranger)
Adventure: Sins of the Savior
Catalyst: Attack of the Clones, and friendly fire
Store:

The party entered the pride area of Runeforge, and did something different and unexpected. Instead of having the normal tanks up front (paladin, cavalier), they sent Selkerk the ranger to the front to scout for traps, since he has the highest perception. The mirrors made two clones of him, and the archery focused clones started using his favored enemy: human on the real Selkerk, and both tanks, who are human. The cavalier stepped forward and also got cloned, and the real Selkerk went down to -1 HP early, so it turned into a brutal fight early. I believe one of the clone cavaliers also managed to hurt the real Greta, who was up front tanking at that point.

The party sorceress decided to cast Fear at the enemy clones, knowing it would also hit the group's paladin and Greta. The pally is immune, but Greta missed her save (even with the +4 from the pally's aura). The tactic worked to scare away two enemy clones and make the fight easier, but Greta ran forward to get away from the sorceress. This created two Greta clones, one of which attacked the party, while the other chased the real Greta into the next room.

The party finished off the clones still attacking them, and went around breaking mirrors in the hopes avoiding any more, which destroyed the remaining clones that had run away from the Fear spell, and the clone Greta that chased the real Greta. But the Vraxeris clones waiting in the next room didn't appreciate Greta's intrusion, so they Magic Missiled her while she was still running away in a panic. She went down to -10 while the party was still cautiously busting up mirrors and moving forward, and the party couldn't get to her before she bled out.

Sovereign Court

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Name of PC: Miku
Class/Level: Fighter 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Karzoug

Name of PC: Wynter
Class/Level: Wizard 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Karzoug

Name of PC: Cylyria
Class/Level: Scout 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Karzoug

Name of PC: Aislynn
Class/Level: Cleric 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Karzoug

Name of PC: Hannah
Class/Level: Paladin 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast
Catalyst: Karzoug

The PC's appeared in Karzougs domain buffed and ready to fight, and immediatly ate a meteor swarm, dragon breath, and 2 chain lightnings before anyone had a turn. The fighter subsequently was hit with baleful polymorph, while the cleric was pulped with a crushing fist.
The paladin managed to barely finish off the rune giant and the rogue put a couple of arrows into Kazoug. During that time Karzoug and the Storm Giants killed off the wizard with arrows and I think a fireball. The paladin went back to the wizard to try and help, and both of them were hit with a horrid wilting. At that point the rogue (me) gave up. We never had a chance in that fight.
Not exactly how a campaign that took 5 years of real time to finish was expected to end.


Name of PC: Marmaduke
Class/Level: Alchemist 7
Adventure: Skinsaw Murders
Catalyst: Xanesha
Story:
He failed his save vs charm in the first round, and his save versus the despair of the Impaler of Thorns, so he spent the majority of the battle fully buffed, enlarged, and dejectedly watched Xanesha pick his friends apart. He broke free of the enchantment by switching personalities, but by then was the only melee combatant left. Being somewhat of a glass cannon, he was susceptible to her maneuvers to take advantage of AoOs. He was dropped unconscious in a middle round, and healed- only to lose all the healing to the AoO he provoked moving back in to melee later on. He had 2hp left when it came to her turn, and she perforated him with 23 damage.


Name of PC : Miaranda
Class/level : Cleric 1
Adventure : Burnt offerings
Catalyst : Mockmaw (another PC)
Story :

It was a little absurd. The players where going for die hard roll playing. And the one player beated the other to dead ! That was an easy night for the DM.

Name of PC : Black Arrow
Class/level : Ranger 7
Adventure : Hook Mountain
Catalyst : end boss (the giant one)
Story :

One of the player's wanted to play a ranger with who has lost his memory of his mind. It was a lucky shot that he took the name black arrow. Once the campaign took on the hook mountain adventure his memory was comming back. And the last fight he choose to take the lead in battle and took just to many blows.

Then there was the last battle with Karzoug ... well sometimes a GM must look the other way wen he has roll another 20. It is the ultimate battle for this grand campaign but it also can be the downfall for a campaign that has been runned for some years.

On the other hand I sometimes love to see the tears in a player's eyes wen I finish off his so fantastic PC with his shiny armor and his +20 longsword. mwha mwha mwha 'evil GM' :)

Grand Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Name of PC: Xiangnala (aka Nala)
Class/Level: Male Tiefling Alchemist (Chirurgeon) 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast, Eye of Avarice
Catalyst: Adult Blue Dragon
Story: During the battle with Karzoug, Nala was hit with the effects of a symbol of weakness and was unable to move. He continued (weakly) to assist his fellow heroes with healing bombs, but the Adult Blue Dragon in Karzoug's lair put and end to him. He was resurrected by a flash of positive energy from the Runewell after Karzoug's defeat.

Name of PC: Lai'ki
Class/Level: Female Elven Ranger 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast, Eye of Avarice
Catalyst: Karzoug the Claimer, Runelord of Greed
Story: During the battle, Lai'ki (an archery specialist) harassed Karzoug by readying attacks when he cast spells. Toward the end of the battle, Karzoug cast unwilling shield on Lai'ki. As she lay unconscious from Karzoug's finger of death spell, the heroes were forced to make a difficult decision: attack Karzoug (knowing that Lai'ki would take half the damage, likely killing her) or try to save Lai'ki first. The heroes decided that the only way to save them all, and Varisia, was to put Karzoug down once and for all. Her sacrifice was not in vain, for she was resurrected by a flash of positive energy from the Runewell after Karzoug's defeat.

Name of PC: Tolgun Ebonhammer
Class/Level: Male Dwarf Cleric of Angradd 12 / Fighter (Weapon Master) 3
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast, Eye of Avarice
Catalyst: Karzoug the Claimer, Runelord of Greed
Story: During the battle with Karzoug, the heroes had Karzoug seemingly on the ropes by surrounding him. On his last turn, Karzoug cast caustic eruption and Tolgun took a hefty, but manageable, amount of acid damage. Moments later, Karzoug was struck down, but before the heroes could celebrate, Karzoug's caustic eruption continued to burn and Tolgun succumb to his woulds. He was resurrected by a flash of positive energy from the Runewell after Karzoug's defeat.

-Skeld

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

So I figure out I should start writing these things? This happened over month ago, but better late than never I guess. Assuming it does count even when character gets reincarnated cast on them :p Anyway, gonna keep chars anonymous in case players start googling though some bizarre chain of events. Because I'm uber private and easily embarassed person plus I want to avoid them accidentally spoilering themselves.

Class/Level: Human wizard 4 iirc.
Adventure: Thistletop, Burnt Offerings.
Catalyst: Moving between big bad and bodyguard.
Story: So party I run it for did the amazing thing of "So wait, they have ceremony on that day and are all gathered in same room? Awesome, let's attack them on that day." thing. So yeah, they engaged all encounters(plus Erylium since she run away after runewell was shut), including tentamort at same time on second floor. They did have Shalelu, Terrible Tup(from song of silver bonus npcs for rotr) and Orik with them and they did do great since they had gotten stinking cloud wand from one of comic bonus encounters I run for them but... Well, wizard got greedy, tried to use color spray on Ripnugget and Nualia and got critted by Bruthazmus' heavy flail for his troubles. Player did make nice description of being hit straight into Nualia's bastard sword. But yeah, he got reincarnated into changeling later, so no perma death.


Name of PC: Elrohir
Class/Level: 14 Fighter
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: Vraxies Simulacrum

Story:
After managing to destroy 2 of the other Sims while Feebleminded, the others decided the threat was to great to ignore any longer, and hit him with a Phantasmal Killer, causing him to scream to death.


Name: Aldamir
Class/Level: Male Elf Wizard (Conjuration) 14
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors
Catalyst: High Lady Athroxis and Warriors of Wrath
Story:

I may have gone a bit overboard - I don't subscribe to "<creature> stays in its lair until the pc's get around to killing it" tactics. So since there is an alarm to warn all Hall of Wrath occupants of intruders and Athroxis is specifically listed as having a wand of clairvoyance - I had the residents of the halls prepared for an intrusion. And I had Athroxis and her glabrazu minion (and its summoned vrocks!) join the fight in the barracks after a couple rounds. Some warriors from the fleshwarping lab also joined. After a furious battle, the pc's forced Athroxis to retreat to the lab with a handful of remaining warriors. The pc's could have retreated but chose to follow her (after a few rounds of additional healing and buffing.) They walked into a barrage of readied fireballs (which knocked the wizard unconscious but he was quickly healed.) More furious rounds of fighting later with multiple prismatic sprays and fireballs and scorching rays, the Highlady and some of the warriors were in a line so the wizard dimensionally stepped into position and used a hero point to take an extra action to hit them with an acid stream. Over the next couple rounds Athroxis hit the group with a cone of cold and the surviving warriors threw fireballs. Aldamir got off a flame snake but he failed too many saving throws (even after the bard used Saving Finale to let him reroll the last one - he got a 1 on the reroll) and hit -19.

The cleric hit him with Breath of Life a few segments later but he was technically dead, so I count it :)

The Highlady was not so lucky - she ended up next to the dwarven fighter that very round and well, it wasn't pretty. Only a couple warriors are left having fled the room under a fear affect from the bard. They likely fall next session and so will end the Warriors of Wrath.


Name of PC's/Class/Level Talis (Lv. 1 Paladin Lv 2 Oracle), Krauzer (Lv 3 Barbarian)and Derrin (Lv 3 Swashbuckler)
Adventure:Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: DM overreach/ Poor tactical decisions (Pc's)/DM not rolling his usual Nat 1's for attack rolls/ Malfeshnekor/
Story:

The beginnings of what could have easily been a TPK for this 6 person party began back in Sandpoint. The Barbarian has played ROTR before so I have had to modify several things to keep him of guard. He has helped the situation for me by him RPing a dumb Barbarian who likes to smash everything and ask questions of the survivors. (Of which there have been very few)

They had an opportunity to gain a lot of info of Thistletop and fanned on it completely. They got a general sense of the place and that the villains held their big "ceremony of EVIL" every week but missed out on layouts, watch rotations, and the like. Also with the way the Barbarian was RPing his character, he was literally smashing in every door he found rather than seeing if it was open first. (giving me extra rounds to prepare) Everyone thought it was fun even after I warned them several times that "You will not always be fighting unintelligent foes like Goblins" This would come back to haunt them.

They chose to invade during the ceremony. This allowed them into the keep without much difficulty. However they then alerted the keep to the intrusion without fully exploring the first floor, and that turned out to be very bad in the long run. The keep responded by sending all the Goblins up both staircases (they had found only one by that point) and even though they mopped up the Goblins for the most part they used alot of resources to do so.

I had a part to play at this point here as well. In the "post action report" I held after the session it was made clear that I had not clearly defined that while yes they were under a time crunch, they could have retreated and rested up for a day after killing the Goblin King. Nualia and company would have regrouped and had a different strategy for them, but it would have been perfectly acceptable to fall back and recover from their drain on (mostly magical) resources. Instead they pressed on.

The second level of the keep was deserted. Nualia's Lieutenants had gone down to protect her on the third floor. I wanted to keep Nualia as a long term nemesis for the Paladin, so I gave Lyrie her Cleric levels(dropping mage) and had Nualia stick around just long enough to taunt the party (no combat) and exit. This left Tesuto, Bruthazmus, Lyrie, and a few remaining Goblin commandos to face them. I let the party have at it for several rounds until just Lyrie and one lone Goblin commando archer were left.

That's when Malfeshnekor appeared. In hindsight, I should have waited until the party had defeated Lyrie. Or not used him at all. But the combat was going well for them and I thought that they could handle it. (A "who's bloody" check here would have been a smart move on my part) Lyrie had mirror image up (from the deception domain) and had been ignored by the party while they crushed everything else. This came back to haunt them when she started channeling negative energy. That's what killed the Barbarian. It also dropped the parties Dwarf who was returned to consciousness by the parties Sorcerer

Even with the Paladins 26 AC, 3 attacks at +14 from Mal is going to hit stuff eventually and that's what happened. The party was hopelessly split with 3 PC's dying/attacking Lyrie about 50 feet away from the 2 dying/attacking Mal. Mal basically chewed up the Paladin and the Swashbuckler in short order. Both Mal and Lyrie were dropped to bloody, but it was not enough. (If they had rested before this fight I have no doubt they would have cleared the room.)

Good things can happen from tragic mistakes however. The party's Dwarf (a fellow DM who is running a campaign of his own for us) managed to save the day with a great bit of personal sacrifice for his character that was RPed by him very well. I allowed it to stand and only now as I type this do I realize the extent to which he saved my bacon from cries of unjustness that might just be very well deserved.

No matter. What happened happened and now the party continues on to the next chapter with some "interesting" choices to be made by the dwarf in question.


Yeah, Mal shouldn't have been used in that fight. After all, Nualia's group hasn't even found the way past the "coin pillar" door yet, and even if they do so, they will then have to break the caster level 20 Binding spell on Mal somehow (good luck with their caster levels!). Mal is a strictly optional fight: only triggered if someone goes in there, and not necessary for the plot's advancement.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Bellona wrote:
level 20 Binding spell on Mal somehow (good luck with their caster levels!).

Thats actually kinda irrelevant in that they have plot on their side: according to war room plans, they are planning to do main raid(which needs Malfeshnekor to happen) in "few weeks" so by that time they should figure out plot ritual to free him from binding.

(that being said, Malfeshnekor definitely shouldn't be free at that point since otherwise Nualia would be able to unite all five goblin tribes(including Moswood Goblins whose 34 families are in total larger than four other goblin tribes) and go recruit more goblins from mountain to raid Sandpoint. Basically at that point PCs would face goblin army guarding Thistletop and they wouldn't really have any chance)

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Name: Setashiel

Class/Level: Female Elf Warpriest (Kroina) 14

Adventure: Sins of the Saviors

Catalyst: Azaven

Story: Kinda boring story, really. Conflict was provoked by the party, and Azaven won initiative. He targeted Setashiel with his finger of death, she failed her save, took 140 points of damage, and promptly died.

Silver Crusade

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Name of PC: Beramy Rollswagon
Class/Level: Cavalier 15
Adventure: Sins of the Savior
Catalyst: Karzoug Statue, and his dice were out to kill him
Story:

So he's not technically dead, just turned into a statue.

The group created their first dominant weapon, provoking Karzoug's wrath. The Karzoug statue taunted them and attacked. Beramy won initiative, rushed up to the front, got off a Lion's Call, but didn't get a shot in. When the statue went, it slammed him twice, and he missed both fort saves to avoid the dex drain (1 and 5 on the dice). Since he has the lowest dex in the group (10), the 12 points of dex drain I rolled on 2d10 was enough to drop him to 0 and petrify him.

It was a tough fight without him, since the archer's bow was just barely doing any damage past the DR, and the blasting focused sorceress had a hard time coming up with stuff to do that would get past its magic immunity. But between the paladin with the dominant weapon (which also happened to be adamantine and bludgeoning, so it overcome the DR), and a couple of well placed supernatural abilities from the sorcerer and oracle, they managed to destroy the statue with no real casualties.

The funniest part is that they had to leave Runeforge to go get a scroll of Stone to Flesh. Their main point of contact is to teleport back to Beramy's noble family home in Magnimar whenever they need to go shopping. So they teleported in with his statue, and I just had to ask what they were planning to tell his parents.

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