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Name of PC: Evan Dramme. (Van Damme pun)
Class: Cleric of Cayden Cailean.
Adventure: Seven Days to the Grave.
Catalyst: dungeon trap.
Story:
Being a cleric that has access to the Traveling domain, Evan's player chose to have access to the excellent Exploration subdomain level 1 scouting ability named "Door Sight". Using it, the party was able to reconnaissance a lot of elements (such as the secret corridors of Rolth's dungeon and the hospital).
His story comes to an end when he touches a door that has two skeletons wielding a scythe. The skeletons swing their scythe, hitting for a good amount of damage. Seeing that the scythe are now in their "swung" position, our good cleric assumes (partially correctly) that they are now "spent". He decides to not spend his finite healing resources and places his hands on the door for a whole minute in order to activate his power...
As his vision (and perceptive consciousness) begins to transfer to the other side of the door, the other party members notice (too late) that the skeletons' scythes have reset.
A heartbeat later and I describe to the cleric the last thing he saw as his head was chopped clean off with a nasty critical hit from a scythe!
The player then began to have a(n) (ir)rational fear of scythes for any of his further characters.
==CONTINUITY==
If you want, here's a little short story of what happened with that dead cleric.
Because the players did a lot of "get in, spend spells, get out" in the dungeon, the corpse of Evan Dramme (who was not brought back for proper rites & burial) came back. In essence, his soul was brought to a plane of eternal torment as he was painfully converted to a priest of Urgathoa and then brought back in space-time to haunt the place of his death.
Coming back as an undead Graveknight/cleric bound to Urgathoa by the pillars at the end of the dungeon, with the same traits and feat choices as what the player had made (just with different domains and prepared spell choices--and a template applied), this "Evan Damned" used its desecrate to spawn fast brain-eating zombies out of the defeated cultists and clerics. An epic encounter at the disease vats room made short work of it--but its armour remained in the party's loot for a while, because "it was worth a lot of money".
The party went on sell the armour at a discount. A few days later it re-animated, causing much havoc in the city. They defeated it again. They decided to give the armour to the priesthood of Pharasma, who took care of it properly in a show of Godly Power.
Thus ended the trials and tribulations of Evan Dramme/Evan Damned.
My last entry in this thread was in 2009. We stopped playing at the end of A History of Ashes, but one of the players really wanted to experience Skeletons of Scarwall so we recently played through that chapter. We finished it last night.
Name of PC: Dame Karmina Ornelos
Class/Level: Human Aristocrat 3/Cleric of Nethys 12
Adventure: Skeletons of Scarwall
Catalyst: a gug
Story: A gug got within melee range of Dame Karmina, and literally tore her apart. Rends are awful.
Name of PC: Sir Svokui Miskels
Class/Level: Human Aristocrat 3/Diviner 6/Loremaster 5
Adventure: Skeletons of Scarwall
Catalyst: a gug
Story: Rends are awful.
Name of PC: Captain Dame Serai Arkona Leroung
Class/Level: Aristocrat 2/Rural Ranger 10/Fighter 3
Adventure: Skeletons of Scarwall
Catalyst: Kleestad
Story: Dame Serai was getting in Kleestad’s face, trying to dissuade him from paying attention to the others. She succeeded. He nauseated her with his awful breath weapon, then used melee attacks until she died.
Name of PC: Higgins
Race/Class/Level: Hippogriff Animal Companion 6 (The PC is a Sable Company Marine: Ranger 9/Sorcerer 1)
Adventure: A History of Ashes
Catalyst: A combination of heroism and being unclear on the plan
The party was taking on Cindermaw, and everything was going embarrassingly well: Trinia (NPC bard) successfully used Suggestion on Cindermaw (speaks Shoanti, INT 6, so it worked) to tell him that Arkwhal (oread armor master 10) looked extremely appetizing. Cindermaw obligingly ate Arkwhal (who actually had to drop his defenses to let the poor worm hit him), and Arkwhal proceeded to crit with the conveniently-provided Magical Beast Bane dagger because of the Scabbard of Keen Edges and popped right out again. Perhaps I was unfair as a GM in asking, "OK, Arkwhal is out! Who's going to save him?"
It was unfair because Arkwhal was carrying a potion of Freedom of Movement, so my question was largely irrelevant: The deed was done, the PCs were fine, and the Cindermaw encounter was going to go down as one of the lowlights of the AP.
Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for the party, many people at the table hadn't been paying any attention whatsoever to the overall plan. First to race in was Hooken (half-elf Ranger 9/Sorcerer 1) on Higgins, so Higgins took the attack of opportunity. A natural 20 meant Higgins took a crit from Cindermaw and was dropped in a single blow. A natural 1 on the grapple meant Higgins was still alive, but unconscious on the ground alongside the prone Kevril and Arkwhal. Next to rush in was Nora, ex-grey maiden. With so many juicy targets available, Cindermaw couldn't resist breathing fire on them, and the 41 points was more than enough to send Higgins to the great beyond.
Unfortunately, on the next round the group teleported everyone except Arkwhal to safety, and with Freedom of Movement up he could easily withstand the smack-down Cindermaw put on him and escape.
Akram was impressed with the party: Not only did they re-enact the rebirth of Skurak, but even after they had done the deed they insisted on ensuring that every warrior in their party had scars to show from Cindermaw. A brave band indeed!
The plan right now is to get the Lyrune-Quah shamaness to use Raise Animal Companion to bring back Higgins. I have no problem with this, so it is likely to happen next session.
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Akram was impressed with the party: Not only did they re-enact the rebirth of Skurak, but even after they had done the deed they insisted on ensuring that every warrior in their party had scars to show from Cindermaw. A brave band indeed!
LOL. This interpretation made my day! :D
Let me start off by saying that these are old deaths. My group is currently at "A History of Ashes," so I'm likely foggy on some of the details. All three (plus an NPC) of these deaths took place while I was converting the 3.5 version to PF on the fly.
Name of PC: Tylenol
Race/Class/Level: Human Rogue 5
Adventure: Seven Days to the Grave
Catalyst: Bringing grenades to a knife fight.
Name of PC: Rogar
Race/Class/Level: Dwarf Cleric of Iomedae 6
Adventure: Seven Days to the Grave
Catalyst: A successful will save, followed by a failed fortitude save.
And so they do. Whatever little sense they possess keeps them from messing with the leukodaemon, but that sense leave them quickly, as they barge into Lady Andasain's room. The party quickly took shots from range (she has air walk) on at her before her initiative count, which is when she hit them with her Mass Suggestion to go prone. All but the Cleric decided that the Temple of Urgathoa was an awesome place to lie down. The cleric took one more shot at her, and was hit by a ranged touch of death. Now, this particular player has problems with "magic dice" that always seem to roll high, so I casually announced that this was a big save and gestured toward the center of our table. All eyes on him. And he fumbles his save. Boom. Dead. The small consolation is that the blind fighter, directed by the bard proceeds to lay waste to Andasain, even with the house-ruled -4 to hit and the 50% miss chance.
Name of PC: Ibuprofen (of Tylenol fame)
Race/Class/Level: Tiefling Alchemist 10
Adventure: Escape from Old Korvosa
Catalyst: Trying to tank. Was not a tank.
Name of NPC: Vencarlo Orisini, aka "Snazzy Robinhood"
Race/Class/Level: medium-age [sic] human Rogue 2/Fighter 5/Duelist 2
Adventure: Escape from Old Korvosa
Catalyst: A few bad saves
What WAS interesting was what happened after Vimaya went invisible. Using her Disguise Self, she turned into Vencarlo, (Pretty sure this would break invis, but it didn't because I say so.) lay down next to him, and cast invisibility on his body. Pretending to be Vencarlo, "he came back to life." Now, despite the reincarnated cleric making an awesome heal check and determining that Vencarlo was 110% stone cold dead a minute before, nobody questioned it. Not one of them. These people are not nearly paranoid enough for people whose job involves treasure chests trying to eat them on occasion.
They make it up to the topmost bridge, which was above the bottom-most ledge. Vimaya then attempts to make a CMB check to reposition the cleric from "on the bridge" to "not." She rolled a one. It was frustrating to have this awesome plan that was destroyed by a die roll, as I roll in the open. Then again, I've seen many players experience the same.
I've been running Crimson Throne for a year and a half now. And for that whole time, I've been itching to post into this thread.
It's not that the players have always been particularly careful. They've come pretty close to being mentioned here. Just off the top of my head, Yvicca, Lady Andaisin, Bahor, Cindermaw, Bishop Ravenka, and Kleestad have all come within a save or a stablization or something like that of letting me post here. I haven't pulled my DM punches. But they're a five player party, which really helps. There's no main healer, but three of the party (Wizard, Monk, Hospitaler Paladin, Bard, Inquisitor) have pretty decent healing. And more than anything else, their ability to roll clutch saves at exactly the right times kept them alive through the first five books, and well into the sixth.
Until the last fight.
Background:
Giles had already been intending to try to use his Wish to "Skip to the end" (they hadn't taken it well when they found out about the Queen's Simulacrum) when Drethor got dragged off. He saw an opportunity to get two effects in one, transporting "the entire party" to the Queen's location, and in doing so rescuing Drethor (and Serithtial!) from a daemon's digestive system.
I let it happen. So I gave Drethor some damage and gave the players a 5 minute break while I set up the Sunken Queen map.
Name of PC: Timmy "Thunder" Thondril, extravagant actor
Class/Level: Bard 15
Adventure: Crown of Fangs
Catalyst: An Everdawn Wraith
Story:
The Wraiths had been brutalizing the party for several rounds. Timmy, nearly dead already, tried to use Acrobatics to escape from a wraith. One failed Acrobatics roll and one successful Attack of Opportunity later, Timmy hit the ground. And was instantly restored to full hit points by The Survivor card, although "full" hit points wasn't all that great after the amount of CON drain he'd suffered.
Name of PC: Timmy again
Class/Level: Bard 15
Adventure: Crown of Fangs
Catalyst: Ileosa's Furies (I believe Suishani or Eveanie)
Story:
She got away, and ordered her Erinyes to deal with him. Suishani and Eveanie charged. They hit hard, he'd already taken a lot of CON drain. He hit the ground and bled out one round later.
Name of PC: Giles Laney
Class/Level: Paladin (Archer) 15 (Hospitaler)
Adventure: Crown of Fangs
Catalyst: Eveanie
Story:
Had he been able to act normally on his turn, he could have taken a 5 foot step away, Lay on Hands as a swift action, and shot her with his bow. Instead, he had to attack the nearest target. Declared a Bow attack, triggered an Attack of Opportunity, took something like 30 damage, hit the ground.
The party would eventually triumph ... helped somewhat by a pretty insane Crit by Drethor with Serithtial. But 3 total deaths to 2 players made this by far the toughest encounter in the book. As intended!
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Name of PC: Norathar
Class/Level: Human Female Fighter 12
Adventure: Skeletons of Scarwall
Catalyst: Sheer Bad<smurf>ery and great roleplay
So she's been doing a great job of roleplaying a broken, disillusioned woman trying to lose herself in battle and express her pain through carnage. There is a LOT of standing around talking about stuff in my game, and Nora really doesn't like it.
So, they got into Scarwall, faced the first "real" threat in the corpse orgy, and the wizard promptly dropped it into a Hungry Pit. That was it; "Fight's over," I thought.
I was wrong.
Nora ululated a battle cry and dove right into the pit after the corpse orgy.
It took it two full rounds to kill her, but since we have six players, all the monsters are at max HP, so taking them on one-on-one is... bad. The greatest tragedy? She had it down to 2 (two) hit points left when she died.
Her corpse was retrieved from the pit and raised by the party cleric. Much to my astonishment, the fighter made her will save and was not swallowed forever by Scarwall.
Name of PC: Norathar
Class/Level: Human Female Fighter 12
Adventure: Skeletons of Scarwall
Catalyst: Sheer Bad<smurf>ery and great roleplay
** spoiler omitted **
Wait a minute, spoiler what? I thought you already gave me all the backstory on how the Grey Maidens were broken?
Name of Character: Serras
Class/Level: Human Juggler Bard 10
Adventure: A History of Ashes
Catalyst: Touching stuff and splitting the party
The Gory Details:
Krojun ripped the jugular out of that particular Red Mantis by his teeth.
Wait a minute, spoiler what? I thought you already gave me all the backstory on how the Grey Maidens were broken?Name of PC: Norathar
Class/Level: Human Female Fighter 12
Adventure: Skeletons of Scarwall
Catalyst: Sheer Bad<smurf>ery and great roleplay
** spoiler omitted **
They changed it between the original AP and the hardcover. Need to read through Book 6 of the hardcover to decide how I'm going to manage it. So it remains a mystery... even to your GM...
I'd edit, but I can totally live with being Smurfette.
Name of PC: Zylerius
Class/Level: Halfling Dervish Dancer Bard 1/Oracle of Life 2
Name of PC: Pariah
Class/Level: Human Vigilante 3
Adventure: Edge of Anarchy
Place of Death: The Dead Warrens
Cause of Death: Necrophidius b&$@$##&
Unfortunately, the gunslinger could only put out enough damage to kill one, and Pariah was paralyzed and knocked unconscious. With the gunslinger and the pseudodragon Majenko as the only remaining party members, the players gave the gunslinger player their blessing to run,
and they were coup de graced and send to their deaths.
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Name of PC: Dagni the Ironheart
Class/Level: Dwarven Cleric of Grundinnar
Adventure: Seven Days to the Grave
Catalyst: Dimension Door, Shield Other and Vampiric Touch
After being repeatedly lured into the chemical vats area by Rolth (who had not endeared himself to the Bloodrager) the group reached a choke point where she was surrounded by clerics and (at max) 7 spiritual weapons.
Dagni, already badly injured from the BR's many wounds, chose at this point to convince the party wizard to dimension door him into the middle of the vats. Before the two of them could be surrounded the dwarven cleric chose to cast Damnation in hopes that the 12 clerics had prepared some form of evil spell. Sadly, the spell was completely wasted save the damage to Rolth.
With Dagni and the Wizard surrounded by so many enemies it became increasingly difficult to cast spells and stay alive. Several rounds later Rolth after being hit by a Spiritual Ally and Spiritual Weapon used his spectral hand to hit the bloodrager for 20+ damage.
The halved damage was enough to throw the already unconscious dwarven cleric to -16 and kill him.
Name of PC: Banern owner of all Banern's meat
Class/Level:Orc Armored hulk barbarian 7
Adventure: 7 days to the grave
Catalyst: knocking and a wish for fire
Story: The ones who knock had flubbed an infiltration into the hospice causing a scene. During this Dr. Devaulus went down to warn the cult making it on high alert. I kept them in initiative for the duration of the temple and they went straight through the entrance to the lovely glass room and cleared that.
Rather than pushing forward the rest of the group decided to backtrack to make sure they wouldn't get flanked, but not Banern. Banern knocked on the vat room door then barged through. It took time for the rest of the group to make it back and in the mean time Banern was surounded by plague doctors and was struck by enervation. Even Banern knew he was in trouble and wished for fire from the wishcrafter sorcerer Ahkud. Ahkud granted the wish with a max damage fireball killing row doctors and a number of cultists while also bringing banern 1hp away from death. Narrowly surving the oracle managed to get Banern back up to positive 14 hp, but Rolth Remedied this development with a max damage lightning bolt.
Banern did get revived later with the scrolls they found in the temple center. luckily they hadn't yet animated him as a zombie using the wand of animate dead to help carry stuff out of the dungeon.
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Oh man, I'm running Ileosa & co on Tuesday and want to recall all the juicy deaths we've collected during 3,5 years of our CotCT campaign and make a big post here along with any lives possibly lost on Dearest Queenie. I think there've been 6-7 deaths in all, half of which involve an imperious sorc being pulped in various ways. Ah'll be back.
Name of PC: Tsuna Hirochi
Class/Level: level 5 sword saint(samurai)
Adventure: 7 days to the grave
Catalyst: forgetting that his main weapon could deal piercing damage
Story: After another member of the party attempted to explore the "pirate ship" on there own being saved only by divine intervention (everybody gets one), but left in a comatose state; the party went down to kill yvicca. They were doing a fine job until tsuna dealt a large amount of damage to both skinshear and yvicca. however this damage was not enough to kill them and so yvicca retaliated with a critical hit. Tsuna was not yet dead and yvicca was slain shortly therafter, but skinshear at zero hp went into a rage and ripped out the intestines of tsuna with his last ounce of strength.
Tsuna's player considered divine intervention, but tsuna worshiped no god leaving who intervened to chance. The one who answered was Besmara the pirate queen. In return for her aid she required 1 gold or alchoholic drink to be stolen or taken by force a week then given to the sea while recounting the tale of how it was obtained. Otherwise he would go blind in one eye and have to talk like a pirate. Tsuna would not accept these terms and has made his way to the boneyard
Total Party Wipe: Book 2.
Name/Class:
Aldebrane Rasin: Gnome Oracle
Lulu: Gnome Sorcerer
Diknir: Dwarf Fighter (absent)
Robert: Human Witch
Briar: Halfling Rogue
Cause of wipe: Crit enerveration on Lulu in the first round of combat.
Story: The party failed to defeat Jolistina, and through sheer luck went straight for the inner sanctum of the temple below. As they were making a lot of noise (multiple giant fireball blasts), I had Rolth and Jolistina join the fight. To try and avoid TPK, I just handwaved them into the room itself, rather then sneak up behind the party.
In the first round of combat, Lulu did 80+ damage to Andaisin, Andaisin not liking that, she ordered Rolth to deal with her, so an enervation was inbound. After critting, 5 negative levels were handed out, drastically dropping the parties DPR.
As Andasin has "death's embrace' from the death domain, with her spells as written she doesnt actually have any healing spells prepped, because cure spells hurt her. Instead what she had to do was channel energy negatively to hurt alive creatures, which healed her. 4 of those later, everyone was in pretty bad shape, with Lulu and Aldebrane dead.
When the party eventually killed Andasin, (sleep hex +slit throat), Rolth ran away, but as the party investigated, she came back to life. As she was between them and the door, and they had no healing left, it was all she wrote.
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Name of PC: Ramka
Class/Level: Oracle 7
Adventure: 7 Days to the Grave
Catalyst: Low AC, Low HP, Closing to Melee Range with a Death Cleric
Later in the battle with several party members suffering from greater command or a complete inability to affect her Andaisin came to the ground to engage in divine powered melee.
Sporting an AC of 13 and... perhaps as many hit points... Ramka closed with the death cleric and was chopped into bloody ribbons.
The outcast shoanti shaman was interred per his traditions.
Name of PC: Blake and Eturi
Class/Level: Fighter (Lore Warden) 10, Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade) 10
Adventure: Hero's Blood (Legendary Games Plug-In)
Catalyst: The Tongue
While investigating they came across a pit. In the lead of the group were the human lore warden Edmund Blake and the human rogue Vili Vitteri. Unable to see the inhuman horror looming at the bottom of the pit they were surprised when the strip of flesh lined with snapping teeth snapped out and wrapped around the lore warden crushing him with intense force.
By the nature of the creature when Blake acted at the beginning of the next round he was crushed once again with the teeth of the creature digging into his skin. The resulting damage reduced the lore warden to 0 hp, disintegrating him into a fountain of gore (This is how the creature works).
The creature then acts again and snaps out grabbing Eturi, the swashbuckler with a crit. Another power of the creature, it's otherworldly presence had dazed several members of the group. Despite that they were still able to do a fair amount of damage to The Tongue over the coming round.
Unfortunately the damage was not enough. When Eturi acted once again he was crushed and like Blake before him reduced to a splatter of chunks and gore.
Lideth, the party's wizard, then shook off her dazed condition and hit the abomination with a baleful polymorph. For the briefest of moments the horrifying bunny lusted to consume the flesh of all beings before it collided with the floor of the pit with a splat.
Blake was not returned to life, a preference he made clear before his unfortunate fate. The group returned to Kaer Maga with a bag containing Eturi's remains and made an unfortunate pact with the church of Zon Kuthon by virtue of Laori Vaus to have him ressurrected.
That brings a whole new meaning to the Cult of the Bloody Tongue!
(From the Call of Cthulhu game.)
Of course, that's just one aspect of Nyarlathotep.
Name of PC: Maeve
Race: Silvanshee Agathion
Class/Level: Wizard's familiar 13
Adventure: Skeletons of Scarwall
Catalyst: Trying to help out in a fight with a dragon
The Gory Details (not spoilered since no one else is):
The party first encountered Aerilaya (banshee) and Belshallam (umbral dragon) at an ambush at the front gates. Unfortunately, timely Death Wards before the party even knew about the ambush (just one of those, "Be prepared" things PCs sometimes do) combined with the narrow confines of the gatehouse meant both Aerilaya and Belshallam were forced to flee.
In the rematch, Belshallam knew that open space would be his greatest advantage, so at the onset of combat he grabbed one of the party fighters and flew off with her out over the lake. A series of bad rolls for him (I swear, I couldn't roll over a 7) and he was at a sore disadvantage in what should have been an easy 1-on-1 annihilation of the PC, so he dropped her. Feather Fall would prevent her from being hurt, but Belshallam was pretty confident that swimming in plate mail surrounded by tarnworms would at least remove her from his immediate problems.
Unfortunately, he was being followed by most of the rest of the party. Even though his movement was much higher than theirs, the wizard, ranger, and alchemist were all on his tail, as it were. Both the ranger and alchemist had Greater Invisibility up, and the wizard had Mirror Image, so it was all kinds of, "Take massive damage while only being able to sometimes hit someone once."
Fortunately, the wizard made a fatal mistake. Seeing the falling fighter, the wizard released Maeve to go help pull her to shore. With a single hittable target, AND one that would cause the wizard untold anguish, Belshallam made a beeline for the familiar, used Vital Strike, scored a critical, and skilled Maeve in a single bite.
Unfortunately, that was enough time for him to get hit by Glitterdust (how can it NOT be affected by SR?!?!? Seriously!?!!?), so when he fled once again to hide and nurse his wounds, the alchemist's huge Perception bonus let him follow Belshallam to his hideaway and finish him off.
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Not going to disagree with you re: glitterdust, which should be an Evocation spell.
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Name of PC: Shree Lifebinder
Race: Dwarf (reincarnated from human)
Class/Level: Shaman 13
Adventure: Skeletons of Scarwall
Catalyst: Fear and poor choices
This had been a brutal session. After working their way through the guest wing, a vicious fight with the Danse Macabre, leaving the castle through the dance hall, coming back in through the dance hall two days later because of the amount of rest they neeeded, fighting the Danse Macabre again because it rejuvenated after one day, and then climbing to the second floor, the party came into contact with the advanced bogeyman in the torture chamber. Shree and the party's wizard, Max, used their Battlemind Link to beat up the bogeyman, and he didn't like that. Not. One. Bit. He used his Hold Person on Max, and then Quickened Phantasmal Killer on Shree. Max failed his save. Shree, who has a good Will and Fort save, I figured would be fine but he was the less threatening target so I hit him with what I judged to be the easier effect. He rolls his Will save.
Natural 1.
He rolls his Fort save.
Natural 1.
I give all of my players one free reroll of a d20 every session, and Shree still had his, so he used it.
Natural 1.
He then failed his Will save against Scarwall, and is now trapped. And that is the story of how Shree died.
Name of PC: Shree Lifebinder
He rolls his Will save.
Natural 1.
He rolls his Fort save.
Natural 1.
I give all of my players one free reroll of a d20 every session, and Shree still had his, so he used it.
Natural 1.
He then failed his Will save against Scarwall, and is now trapped. And that is the story of how Shree died.
Whatever gods Shree sympathized with, they certainly didn't sympathize with him. Fate can be cruel, sometimes. I feel for your player.
Natural 1.
He rolls his Fort save.
Natural 1.
I give all of my players one free reroll of a d20 every session, and Shree still had his, so he used it.
Natural 1.
He then failed his Will save against Scarwall, and is now trapped. And that is the story of how Shree died.
Jeez. Literally a 0.0125% chance for that to happen. And an even lower chance for also failing that last will save. Honestly, at that point, the universe really didn't want this character to be played anymore.
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Whatever gods Shree sympathized with, they certainly didn't sympathize with him. Fate can be cruel, sometimes. I feel for your player.Name of PC: Shree Lifebinder
He rolls his Will save.
Natural 1.
He rolls his Fort save.
Natural 1.
I give all of my players one free reroll of a d20 every session, and Shree still had his, so he used it.
Natural 1.
He then failed his Will save against Scarwall, and is now trapped. And that is the story of how Shree died.
I appreciate the sympathy but dying in unlikely ways has essentially become my troupe in an AP it seems. If you ask FedoraFerret how often he rolls grits against me in relation to other players you'll lkley see similar crazy percentages. My pathfinder game is cursed and I really should just play reincarnated druid for that free reincarnation every week lol
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Name of PC: "Shiverman" (real name unknown)
Race: Human (chelaxian)
Class/Level: Shaman 2
Adventure: Edge of Anarchy
Catalyst: Unanimous player verdict
So at the start of our first session of a new run through of Curse of the Crimson Throne one player turns up with a created-at-the-last-minute character, using the personal addiction background trait
Well. A version of the Personal Addiction trait. The trait suggests you were an addict...
Known only has "Shiverman", the fledgling shaman had an Int of 8, a spider spirit guide and a raving shiver addiction. By the end of the first session the four heroes and Shiverman had finished Part 1 and hit 2nd level. In spite of Shiverman spending most of the time ranting about spiders, babbling incoherently, looting in combat (he has a habit to feed) and milking the fangs of his spider to offer people the "juice of the dream spider to give you visions of the future!" (the player's reskin of his spells to be drugs). Noting one PC is 13 (using the young character rules from Ultimate Campaign).
When the PCs met Cressida, with a bunch of prisoners in tow, they unanimously asked her to please throw Shiverman In a cell as well to detox.
Shiverman was never seen again. To the sorrow of none.
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Name of PC: Varus and Home
Race: Vanara and Treant Animal Companion
Class/Level: Druid (Treesinger) 12
Adventure: History of Ashes / Deathhead Vault
Catalyst: Splitting the Party and the Mother of Thorns
Cinnabar had previously escaped the last huge exchange to warn Kordaitra and the rest of the complex of the approaching party. This put Andaisin (Daughter of Urgathoa) on alert as she patrolled the cell-block.
Tisharue and five gray maidens had already been on patrol. When Andaisin began her attack by howling they quickly joined the attack from the north setting up a pincer attack with the undead creature.
The barbarian, swashbuckler, and rogue set upon burying Andaisin in very short order leaving the wizard, warpriest and druid to handle the gray maidens.
Tisharue had ordered The Mother of Thorns to stay in the Execution Chamber to avoid the chaos that her fear gaze would cause.
Once Andaisin is downed the swashbuckler returns to help with the gray maidens but the Barbarian and rogue set off around the corner of the cell-block freeing recruits as they go.
Just as the first group of gray maidens (and Tisharue) are being soundly beaten the barbarian, rather than wait for the subtlety of the rogue's disable device uses his scythe to break down one of the cell doors... which alerts Kordaitra, Cinnabar, and the fallen cleric of Abadar to his and the rogue's presence.
Cinnabar and the gray maidens with her start making short work of the barbarian's low ac and the wizard panics, using a hero point to leave the other group and wall of force Cinnabar and the rest of the enemies out of the fight. Meanwhile, on the other side of the dungeon The Mother of Thorns has noticed that most of the Gray Maidens are dead and makes her appearance at the corner to try and use her wand to help her 'children'.
The warpriest goes to help the barbarian, rogue, and wizard. The druid sees the weird viney tentacles writhing around the corner and on his own runs up to stand next to the two prone gray maidens and the Mother of Thorns. His hope was to use the spell of slowing mud to put them all out of commission for at least a round. Unfortunately while the gray maidens were slowed the outsider made her save.
Gaze attack (failed save, panicked). Entangling train (failed save, entangled). Shatter defenses and sneak attack. 124 damage.
The druid was dropped to -50 in a single round of attacks.
The Treant, understandably enraged rushed forward and was similarly chopped into kindling by the horrifying outsider.
We left with the rogue having jammed the other door on the other side of the dungeon to force the entire remainder of the on alert enemy force making their way around behind the Mother of Thorns who was in the process of finally being put down by the Barbarian, who was immune to fear and sneak attacks.
Name of PC: Scarlet
Race: Kitsune
Class/Level: unchained rogue (kitsune trickster) 11
Adventure: Seven swords of Sin interlude
Catalyst: Not knowing when to stop pressing buttons
After dealing with an alchemically invisible squid that was lurking in the generator room. The party started playing with the control console for the generator. They managed to roll double the damage of the next discharge 7 times in a row. Seeing the generator being a massive blue ball of electricty the party decided that they should try to disable it manaually away from the console. The rogue went to snip one of the spinning belts and took 28D6 of lightning damage, but the generator was stopped. A quick breath of life later and she was back.
Name of PC: Blackjack, adopted son of blackjack
Race: human
Class/Level: vigilante 11
Adventure: Seven swords of Sin interlude
Catalyst: GM frustration of converting a Half fiend Advanced Awakened rapter with levels in rogue to pathfinder
Entering the room with 2 yawning portal the the raptors pounced upon the orc barbarian Black jack was hiding in plain site behind. Black jack attacked the raptors only drawing their ire. One smiting power attack pounce later and blackjack required the oracles second breath of life.
Name of NPC: Giggles, cohort of Banern of All Banern's Meat
Race: half-orc
Class/Level: fighter 7
Adventure: Seven swords of Sin interlude
Catalyst: GM frustration of converting a Half fiend Advanced Awakened rapter with levels in rogue to pathfinder
giggles was another victim of the power attack pounce combo. Banern shall sorely miss the giggling fool that was part of the thugs at every crime lords place they visited
Name of PC: Isabelle
Race: Aasimar
Class/Level: oracle of time 11
Adventure: Seven swords of Sin interlude
Catalyst: Max damage empowered fireball
not much to say about this one. The party was hit by a max damage empowered fire ball and isabelle failed her save along with her familiar majenka. One divine intervention later and they were transferred to an alternate timeline where that didn't happen, along with some changes to events in the arkona manor.
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Name of PC: Norathar
Class/Level: Human Female Fighter 15
Adventure: Crown of Fangs/A History of Ashes
Catalyst: The Mother of Thorns does WHAT?!?!?!?!
But take a look at the "basic" Mother of Thorns: 6 attacks at +23 or better, with all the vines guaranteed to do sneak attack damage thanks to Look of Fear and Shatter Defenses. So against non-optimized 12th-level PCs, you'll frequently do 2d6+14+4d4+12+12d6 damage, for an average of 85 points. Now add 3 levels of rogue to up the CR to 15 and this ups the sneak attack damage to +20d6, or an average of 113 points.
So, totally my bad, but since I got to choose a feat I gave her Power Attack.
That "average" damage pops up to 153 points. Oops. So the Mother of Thorns got in 6 hits including a couple of crits and hit Nora for 192 points in a single round. Dead Nora.
She was Breath of Lifed so it wasn't a permadeath, but adding Power Attack to creatures designed to be Cuisinarts is either unmitigated cruelty or unmitigated hilarity, take your pick.
Name of PC: Thorbalt
Class/Level: Dwarf Inquisitor 6
Adventure: 7 Days to The Grave
Catalyst: crazy alchemist and overconfidence
We're playing through the AP with a group of new players, but with a party of 5 (wizard, ranger, paladin, inquisitor, rogue). The one player who has spent a lot of time building his character and reading optimization guide online has not been overly challenged by the game so far.
He often finished a session having barely taken a dent, and often didn't even cast spells. I had been slowly trying to add difficulty to the adventure as people were finding some of the first 2 books way too easy.
In the hospice, I gave the physicians a bunch of consumables that were being tossed around (alchemists fires, tangleburn bags, thunderstones). the Inquisitor looked at his sheet and said "I've got a bunch of stuff like that!"
So for the rest of the session he used a lot more items and tried to be more of a support character than he usually is.
I tooled up the good doctor quite a bit, as I don't like his default build. He was now an alchemist, taken from a thread on these forums. haste, rapid shot and fast bombs meant a lot of bombs in one round if he wanted.
Thorbalt decided to try to convince the doctor and physicians to focus on him to try to spare some of the softer targets in the team. so he walked into the office and dropped a smokestick to block LOS to the rest of the party.
The doctor shrugged and decided if this crazy dwarf wanted to be a target he could be a target. 4 bombs, 4 hits. no misses due to the concealment. 16d6 + 16, and I rolled way more 6s than i should have. he went from full health (56?) to dead in one round.
Name of PC: Thorbalt
Class/Level: Dwarf Inquisitor 6
Adventure: 7 Days to The Grave
Catalyst: crazy alchemist and overconfidence** spoiler omitted **
Bahahahaha!
Guess that was your player's reminder that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer! >:D
Name of PC: H.G. Seingalt
Class/Level: Goblin Rogue 7
Adventure: Seven Days to the Grave
Catalyst: Andaisin
Story: the party fought their way past Rolth and the cultists of Urgathoa without taking too heavy of damage, and decided to enter the inner temple to challenge Andaisin. They were doing pretty well after a critical and a sneak attack from flanking. Then Andaisin blinded the wizard. Before she could get off her slay living spell, the rogue killed her. They thought they’d won but she resurrected as a Daughter of Urgathoa. Andaisin critted the rogue and dropped him to negatives also inflicting blood veil on him. The shaman came in with a cure to bring him back to like 9 hp, while the ranger and fighter kept fighting. The rogue decided to rush back in to flank with the ranger instead of healing more and on her turn Andaisin hit him for almost Jax damage with her great claw killing him outright. The rest of the party finished Andaisin off two rounds later. Next week, they will walk out to come face to fac3 with Ramoska who wants to make them a deal.
Name of PC: Toothless
Class/Lvl: Eidolon 9
Adventure: Escape from Old Korvosa
Catalyst: Senshiir, Beatific One
The Gory Details:
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Name of PC: Nate Marlow
Race: Human
Class/Level: Fighter 4
Adventure: Seven Days to the Grave
Location: On the road to Harse
Catalyst: A half Orc ranger
The party, as expected, refused to hand over Trinia and threw the first punch so to speak. Nate got himself flanked and the death spiral started. Nate was in a lot a trouble and went down. When he was knocked unconscious the party cleric healed him enough to get him barely on the positive side of zero. Nate tried to stand and was hit again and knocked back down. The half orc ranger at this point was on the negative side of zero and was on his round of orc ferocity. Having no targets in reach other than a downed Nate, he decided to make his last action mean something and stuck his sword through Nate’s chest.
The party sold of off some magic items and scrapped up enough to get Nate raised from the dead when they got back to Korvosa.
Name of PC: Norathar
Class/Level: Human Female Fighter 15
Adventure: Crown of Fangs/A History of Ashes
Catalyst: The Mother of Thorns does WHAT?!?!?!?!
** spoiler omitted **
Hilarity good sir, hilarity.
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Name of PC: Echo, Corbin, Anaurok, Toothless, Tolo
Class/Lvl: Alchemist 12, Magus 12, Summoner & Eidolon 12, Oracle 12
Adventure: Skeletons of Scarwall
Catalyst: Belshallam woke up cranky
The Gory Details:
I'm back, with a 2 for 1 Friday the 13th special!
Name of PC: Balta
Class/Level: Half-Orc Inquisitor (Sacred Slayer) 9
Adventure: Escape From Old Korvosa
Catalyst: Splitting The Party + Curiosity
The Gory Details:
A few rounds later, Balta found herself stranded alone in the teleporter room. She played with the 2 switches a bit, but had no way of resetting the dungeon rotating lever. she decided to try out the green orb, which was currently set to deposit into a cell in the torture chamber.
Balta saw the 6 armed creature and decided to attack. Growth domain let her get big, busting out of the cage and she charged in. 5 attacks from the Asura with 2 crits knocked her quite close to death. she tried to run away and got grappled. then pinned. then tied to a torture rack where she bled to death.
Name of PC: Grace
Class/Level: Human Unchained Monk 9
Adventure: Escape From Old Korvosa
Catalyst: Symbols, DR, and bad luck
The Gory Details:
Grace was the only one on her feet and had to fight off a sphinx on her own while the other two recovered from being stunned. she managed to hold on for 3 rounds which bought enough time for her companions to get up, but the DR 10/Good plus fire resistance meant her attacks were not doing a whole lot. She went down just as the other two were getting into the fight. The rogue (arcane trickster) used ranged legerdemain to flip a lever and get out of there, but it was too late to save Grace.
Her death was much more heroic than Balta's, and was likely the only thing that prevented a TPK.
The remaining 3 PCs managed to defeat Vimanda (barely) and retreat from the dungeon to try again next week.
Welp, I'm back again just one session later! This time not a PC, but an animal companion
Name of Companion: Paco
Class/Level Animal Companion (hippogryph) 9
Adventure: Escape From Old Korvosa
Catalyst: Friendly Fire
The Gory Details:
After the last session's two deaths, the remaining 3 PCs slept and recovered, having not accomplished much of anything in the last foray. They had at least seen the secret pathway into the torture chamber, so the first step was to go back in there and fight the Asura.
She gave them a pretty tough fight, as the party is not really used to dealing with all those resistances, and 6 attacks per turn is pretty rough. the ranger dropped unconscious, and her hippogryph tried to protect her. He was the only target in range on the next round, and was also dropped into the negatives.
At this point, the arcane trickster had already used up all of his scorching rays (wasting 2 that didn't break SR, and the high touch AC was giving some trouble). so the alchemist decided to stop messing around with blinding and tanglefoot bombs that weren't doing the trick and went for damage.
Unfortunately, one of the bombs missed and bounced over to where the ranger and her mount were bleeding out. Paco the hippogryph failed his save and died, but the PCs lived to fight another day.
The party has finally rescued the important NPCs from the dungeon and are quite happy to be done with the place!
PC Name: Corbin
Class/Lvl: Magus 14
Adventure: Crown of Fangs
Catalyst: Unfriendly Neighborhood Bloatmage
The Gory Details:
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Name of PC: Norathar (are we beginning to see a pattern here?)
Class/Level: Human Female Fighter 16
Adventure: Crown of Fangs
Catalyst: Deciding to fight the entire castle at once
With 6 players (including one who took a ludicrous amount of time for every one of his turns up until a few sessions ago where I instituted a 10-minute limit (yes. 10 minutes to take a single in-combat turn)) and the massive scheduling issues from having such a large group, this has been a LOOOOOOOOOONG campaign.
So it wasn't all that surprising when the party finished their interactions with Venster's ghost and then just decided, "Let's head to the throne room and get this over with."
In short, they decided to fight the Yallops, Togomor, Mavrokeras, the Nessian hellhounds, Sermignatto, Vavana Dhatri, and the False Ileosa all at once. Plus a bunch of grey maidens and erinyes, because why not?
It should have been a very easy, very brief party wipe.
Instead, a series of excellent tactical decisions combined with horrific rolls on my part turned it into a (barely)-winnable fight.
The battle started with the group surprising the false Ileosa, Vavana, the Nessian hellhounds, and a few grey maidens in the throne room. Up until their, "We're going to fight everything at once," moment they'd been remarkably stealthy, and the castle wasn't even on alert. Then came the amazing decisions/lucky breaks that all fell the PCs' way:
And why IS it that AP bad guys who rely almost entirely on mind-affecting spells don't carry around Dispel Magic to get rid of said pesky Circles?
So yeah, Vavana spent the fight slowly getting devoured by a Hungry Pit, with no way to get out.
So in spite of a Heal, a Freedom of Movement, and a Gated planetar angel from the cleric, Sermignatto's combination of high AC, high To Hit, and reasonable damage output was enough to let him win that particular fight.
Nora fell again, but not before doing enough damage that Semignatto called in all nine erinyes. So the cleric hit Nora's corpse with a Flame Strike to hit the erinyes and Sermignatto. Now that's adding injury to injury!
(For the record, Sermignatto met Serithtial and the erinyes met a horde of Blade Barriers and Wind Walls, so although I reduced almost every PC in the group to under 20 HP at some point (save the wizard and other fighter), Nora and Togomor were the only ones to go to negative HP. But it was an epic battle that took two full sessions to play out.)
Name of PC: Antilles Rockus
Class/Level: Dwarven Separatist cleric of Torag 11
Adventure: seven swords of sin interlude
Catalyst: There's only one of those half fiend awakened advanced raptor rogues left...Charge
Name of PC: Maerza
Class/Level: Magma dragon blood sorceror 11
Adventure: seven swords of sin interlude
Catalyst: running ahead and getting into a screaming match with a destrachan
Name of PC: Antilles Rockus
Class/Level: Dwarven Separatist cleric of Torag 11
Adventure: seven swords of sin interlude
Catalyst: Casting create water on himself to deal with the heat of the lava pool instead of casting dismissal on the efreeti
Name of NPC: Still water clears the heart
Class/Level: primal shaman of the waves cohort 9
Adventure: History of ashes
Catalyst: no, but I can cast detect poison...
Holy moly, my party is happy to be done with book 3! We finally finished dealing with the Arkonas, and it didn't end well.
Name of PC: Boom
Class/level: Alchemist (Grenadier) 10
Adventure: Escape From Old Korvosa
Catalyst: Greedy Party
Honorable Mention: The rest of the party
The Gory Details:
So after dealing with the dungeon/labyrinth and saving the NPCs (see my above posts for how well that all went), the party got a brief rest by playing a modified Academy of Secrets. I thought we were done with book 3.
But no, 2 party members convinced the others that they should totally go back and raid the Arkona manor and take all the loot. It took some doing, but they had beaten all the scary things in the dungeon. And this time, the party had a Paladin! (replacement PC for Balta who died in the labyrinth)
They managed to talk their way in to the mansion and talked with Glorio, who told them he would have their backs once they were ready to fight the queen. despite this, as soon as his back was turned they started trying to take things. a fight broke out upstairs with 2 guards. it wasn't too hard of a fight, but burnt off some spells. then Glorio came out to play.
I had swapped all of his rogue levels for Mastermind Investigator which seemed fitting but i had never had a reason to try before. I figured it would help him not have to rely on mooks for precision damage. also having some extracts turned out to be a great help for him.
His DR, huge AC, SR and now fire resistance from an extract made for a very tough fight. The paladin of course charged right in, but even with smite evil up whiffed a few attacks and didn't get a crit with his falchion. Glorio returned with his mass of attacks and studied target bonus, along with multiple crits and dropped the paladin unconscious in 2 rounds. Some scorching rays and lightning bolts were chipping away at the others faster than they were dealing with him.
The Magus, Alchmist and Glorio were all flying around the room above a shattered window into the garden below. the magus went down and fell into the garden. next the alchemist used a CMW wand to get the paladin back in it. the paladin was once again outclassed by the sheer number of attacks and massive to hit bonuses (28/28/23/18/13 is not joke at this level!). the alchemis ran out of bombs and just tried to be a flanking buddy for the arcane trickster before going down as well.
it was down to the ranger who was doing MAYBE 1 or 2 damage a round, and the trickster who was having trouble getting much more done. in their final round, they combined for maybe 15 damage. Glorio offered to allow them to surrender, then got the trickster to 1hp. they reluctantly agreed.
I didn't want to just hand out a TPK on a fight that was supposed to be over their level, but you can't just walk into a crime lord's house and attack him and walk away. So he made the 2 conscious members make a choice. one party member was going to live out the rest of their days in the labyrinth! Boom was chosen and is for all intents dead.
They had already sold off the ring of evasion, so Glorio made them take a non-useful ring with another bloodstone in it that they have to wear now so he can keep an eye on them.
And of course, they didn't get any of his treasure!
First "TPK" of the campaign! and I don't feel bad at all about it
Holy moly, my party is happy to be done with book 3! We finally finished dealing with the Arkonas, and it didn't end well.
Name of PC: Boom
Class/level: Alchemist (Grenadier) 10
Adventure: Escape From Old Korvosa
Catalyst: Greedy Party
Honorable Mention: The rest of the partyThe Gory Details: ** spoiler omitted **...
There is no shame in [redacted's] game. Well-deserved. :D
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Name of PC: Gralnock Bonechewer ("Gral")
Class/Level: Goblin Male Alchemist 17
Adventure: Crown of Fangs
Catalyst: The needs of the many...
The party's trip through the Sunken Queen hadn't quite been a cakewalk, but it had been close. The cleric's Calm Emotions, some terrible will saves, and Gral's languid bombs had rendered the boggard barbarians all fatigued or exhausted, so they were nothing but mop-up duty for the two frontline fighters (Nora, mentioned many times here, and Arkwhal, built from the start as ridiculous tank, and now wielding Serithtial to do decent damage.)
Similarly, Ithier sprang his trap on the party, luring part of the party into his room and having the furies teleport in to split the party, but once again, "Ms. Right Spell at the Right Time" cleric hit a large number of them with Waves of Ecstasy, half of them failed their saves, and once the wizard Emergency Force Sphered herself to avoid their onslaught, they had a lot of trouble hitting said cleric. I was a single full-round attack away from killing Nora, but the single-round stagger of Ithier saved her life. I was a round away from killing the wizard, but ditto Emergency Force Sphere. And the cleric was wielding a +5 Defending glaive with all its points in defense, so she was at AC 36 when they had at her, so she didn't take too much of a pounding.
There was nothing left but to ascend the final shaft and confront the queen herself. They heard her and her simulacra buffing themselves, plus a dragon(!!).
Instead of all massing in the shaft conveniently so that the dragon could breathe on them, Gral flew up alone, spotted the dragon just waiting past the lip, and moved to the opposite side of the shaft so that both Ileosa and the dragon could get only one attack in on him. (Magic Circle vs. Evil is SO inconvenient when they build ALL your bad guys to use mind-affecting spells.)
He got a final round. Instead of running, he took additional attacks from the queen and the dragon to throw a single bomb. A Force Cage bomb, trapping the dragon within.
Ileosa's enraged full-round attack sent him to over -100 hit points. But the damage was done. The rest of the party raced up the now-cleared shaft, an Antimagic Field brought them all plummeting back down again with the queen in tow, and two level 17 fighters versus a bard in an Antimagic Field just isn't fair.
R.I.P. Ileosa.
You did good, Gral.
Name of PC: Nyther Darken
Class/Level: level 12 (sorcerer (draconic)/Unchained Rogue/Arcane Trickster
Adventure: History of Ashes
Catalyst: don't heal a downed ally!
It's been a little while! the summer slowed us down a bit at the end of book 3. the party had very little trouble with the Cinderlands. Only the Havero gave them a real scare. they blew through the desert in maybe 3 sessions.
Upon being called back to Korvosa, they decided to go investigate and aid the resistance. they had a rough time with the beastie out front who came very close to killing both the Magus and an animal companion with its Con poison. (seriously, 1d6 con damage with 3 saves to cure is rough!)
Once inside, they let the barkeep get away so the mantis knew they were coming. Koriantu stood in front of the alter pretending to not see them coming. to the sides were Cinnabar and a regular assassin (invisible of course).
Nyther snuck ahead, wanting to get a big shot off with a scorching ray against an unsuspecting cleric. he saw the invisible enemies using his own mantis mask, but was too far into the trap at that point, and well in front of the less sneaky allies.
Cinnabar finished summoning the 2 giant mantises, then attacked, while the party was distracted by an assassin, a second mantis, and spells from the cleric. over 2 rounds, Cinnabar dropped Nyther down to -10 hp, with several attacks left. I had her hesitate to end his life, and get yelled at by Koriantu. the party's warpriest decided that the right thing to do was revive Nyther with a cure spell, and Nyther stabbed at Cinnabar's feet.
So of course, the next round Cinnabar went after Nyther again. this time she got a crit and dropped him to -25 and killed him.
Nyther has had many close calls up to this point, often because he runs way ahead of the party and gets in a sticky spot. up until now he has always survived which made him even more foolhardy.
The party was STILL holding on to the scroll of Raise Dead from the temple in book 2, and used it on Nyther. so I finally dropped him and he stayed dead for a whole minute...
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Back to back posts for me! things are getting hairy...
Name of PC: Xallan
Class/Level: Warpriest of Iomedae 13
Adventure: Skeletons of Scarwall
Catalyst: crits kill PCs
The party is very quickly learning how brutal Scarwall is. They've been winning encounters easily enough, but still have had several encounters that needed over 200 hp of healing between rooms.
They have started their journey into madness by attacking the main gate. the gate assault didn't go smoothly, so they flew on to the top of the gatehouse and killed Castrothane (one anchor down before they even knew what anchors were...)
they cleared the rooftops of some guards, one of the barbed devils, and several gargoyles. then they got curious about that little tower on top with no stairs leading to it... so they flew up and piled the party plus NPCs on the two balconies. they busted down the doors at the same time and found the banshee inside.
holy cow banshees are insane! she wailed at them, and I made the call as GM to tone it down slightly... my players are all new to this game, and that felt like too rude of an intro to undead power levels. so I made it Only a level 10 wail of the banshee. Sial, the Magus, and Xallan failed their saves. 100 hp dropped sial and the magus, but Xallan still had 30 hp.
a few rounds later, the ranger had taken a big hit from the touch attack, and Xallan took some damage then healed himself back up a bit with his swift action healing. the banshee touched him again and rolled a natural 20... and confirmed. the first round of 14d6 dropped him unconscious, the second round from critting killed him. And he failed his will save so is now stuck in the walls of Scarwall
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Name of PC: Agnar
Class/Level: Human Cleric 1 of Iomedae
Adventure: Edge of Anarchy
Rules Set: D&D 3.5
Catalyst: Gobblegut
Story: I was running a party of five (5) PC's through Edge of Anarchy, so I had made a few changes to the encounters (increasing the number of foes by 25%, increasing some monster CR's by 1, etc.), including a second dog (Blacky, friend of Bloo), and a second Half-Orc henchmen (Giggles' brother, Chortle). For the encounter in Gaedren's Playground, I wanted to fix the rules discrepancy whereby a Medium alligator cannot use its Improved Grab ability against a Medium foe. I ended up taking a Giant Crocodile (Huge) and reducing its size to Large (–8 Str, –4 Con, smaller damage dice, etc.), and removing 1 HD. I ended up with a nominally CR 3 creature that only has a +1 higher bonus to attack, dealt 1d10+6 bite damage (as opposed to the normal Gobblegut's 1d8+6), the same AC of 15, but significantly more hit points (39, as opposed to 22).
The nearly entirely-human party does almost all their investigations and assaults of the Old Fishery at night. So after killing everyone else, and most all of the orphans fleeing into the night, the party makes its way down to Gaedren's Playground. Agnar the Cleric is the first to enter the nearly-dark lower portion of the fishery. He can see Gaedren standing at the north end of the room, silhouetted by the light of a single candle. Gaedren can't see the face of his formerly addicted Shiver-buyer, so he waits. Agnar begins to approach, and once he's about halfway there and verbally threatens the old man, Gaedren fires into the water... missing Gobblegut due to concealment.
But Gaedren is quick, winning initiative, and immediately shooting at the alligator again, this time striking the reptile. The rest of the party slowly files into the room, as the gator thrashes about. The Beguiler enters the room and stuns the alligator with a Color Spray. Agnar approaches Gaedren, trying to convince the old man to give up, and getting him to lower his crossbow. The Rogue and Bard take the long-way around Gobblegut's pit, lighting the room with a sunrod, and Agnar saw through Gaedren's rouse, noting the old man drawing a dagger. The cleric had readied his sword for just such a threat, hitting for 9 damage, and dodging the old man's feeble attack.
Gobblegut comes to his senses, and tries to climb up the underpier to snap at the Beguiler near the door, but failed to climb close enough. Arrows and quarrels were fired at Gaedren, all missing. The Beguiler and Psion step back, out of the room, and away from the gator.
Then Gobblegut directed its pained fury at a new target, swimming across the open area, and clamoring up the underpier with an 18 on the die. The beast snapped at Agnar, rolling well and sinking its teeth into mail-clad flesh. Nine damage, Agnar is reduced to 0 hit points, and fails his grapple check to avoid getting pulled into the water with the gator.
Agnar's last action was attempting to extricate himself from the alligator's jaws. He failed, and bled to –1 hit point. Gaedren picked up his hand crossbow and reloaded just before an arrow knocked him to negatives. The Rogue threw a tanglefoot bag at the gator, but it didn't glue the reptile in place. The gator chomped down, and swam away with his bloody meal. No one had even attacked it with a weapon, aside from Gaedren.
For the record, all of my enhanced Gobblegut's rolls would have ended in the exact same results, even had I used the original stats. The only die that was different was the 1d10 base damage die on the bite; he only rolled a 3. It's quite probable a 1d8+6 bite damage would have ended the same.
In related news, the party failed to make sure Gaedren actually bled out. The old criminal stabilized and woke up the next day, but in his weakened state he ended up falling into the water in the underpier, and the jigsaw shark ate him (the PC's stole the row boat).
Name of PC: Davoth
Class/Level: Illumian Beguiler 1
Adventure: Edge of Anarchy
Rules Set: D&D 3.5
Catalyst: Foolishness
Story: Same session as Agnar's death, and the same night in-game. After searching Gaedren's room and finding all the loot, the Ranger was really intent on investigating the boat docked next to the Old Fishery. So the party piled into the rowboat and rowed around to the starboard side of the Kraken's Folly. They throw up a rope and grappling hook, and the Beguiler climbs up. It is important to note that this illumian was a spy trying to pass himself off as human, and so he had the feat that allowed him to continue gaining his sigils' benefit, despite having them doused. So, on a moonless night this effectively-human character climbs up to the ship's railing, forward of where the catwalk is, next to the ship. He has no light sources, so I don't read him the boxed text that describes the decking as looking old and rotten.
He leaps over the railing right onto the rotted deck without checking it first. He busts through the deck, and falls to the spider-infested hold below, taking 6 points of falling damage (which, thanks to his Middle Aged status, was all the hit points he had). So he's laying there at 0 hit points, and starts to hear the scuttling of creatures in the dark... A few bites, and he was down and bleeding...
Name of PC: Maze
Class/Level: Human Ranger 1
Adventure: Edge of Anarchy
Rules Set: D&D 3.5
Catalyst: Unabashed heroism
Story: So Davoth had just fallen into the spider-infested hold, and Maze was climbing up the rope behind Davoth. So Maze finishes climbing up to the ship's railing, and heroically jumps down into the hold to save his new comrade (pretty sure he made the Jump check to reduce the falling damage to 0, too). Poor Maze. I've never seen a new player roll so many Nat 1's on attack rolls in my entire life. Through 8 rounds of combat he hit one Drain Spider ONE time, knocking it down to 0 hit points (on its next action it bit at Maze, then dropped to –1). However, in that 8 rounds Maze succeeded at stabilizing the dying Davoth via a Heal check, and the Ranger succeeded on most of his Fort saves versus poison.
Keep in mind that Maze is human, and is in a dark ship's hold, on a moonless night... The Rogue's attempt to throw the Sunrod up over the ship's railing failed utterly; it instead landed in the water, and as its luminescence sank into the river, he noticed the multitudinous ring-like glints of metal cruising by (Agnar in Gobblegut's mouth).
As Maze was starting to falter a bit, the Rogue finally climbed up onto the ship, and dropped another Sunrod down into the hold. He then tested the decking and found a safe place to alight on the deck. Maze finally dropped to –1 hit points, and the Rogue tried to get into the aft cabin to get down to them, but once he had opened the door and stepped in, he saw the Sunrod's light gleaming up through the stairwell, and encountered another Drain Spider. Maze stabilized and was no longer bleeding out. But after failing to hit the drain spider twice, and taking an instance or two of damage and poison, the Rogue abandoned his comrades to their fates, and scurried away on the catwalk.
The Drain Spiders had quite a feast in Davoth and Maze.
Name of PC: Agnar
Class/Level: Human Cleric 1 of Iomedae
Adventure: Edge of Anarchy
Rules Set: D&D 3.5
Catalyst: Gobblegut
Oof, now that's one tough start to a campaign! The part with the spiders was just plain bad luck ( i admit it's kinda funny, in a way). I played Edge of Anarchy with five players as well. I had three well-built paladins with lots of hit points in my party, but still Gobblegut almost ripped one of them to pieces! He's a dangerous one alright.
I hope your party had a smoother road going forward in the campaign!
Looks like it will no doubt be a guard/mercenary type game since 3/4 of the original party is dead.
Oof, now that's one tough start to a campaign! The part with the spiders was just plain bad luck ( i admit it's kinda funny, in a way). I played Edge of Anarchy with five players as well. I had three well-built paladins with lots of hit points in my party, but still Gobblegut almost ripped one of them to pieces! He's a dangerous one alright.
I hope your party had a smoother road going forward in the campaign!
You have no idea HOW funny the Beguiler's death really is. That same player, with his Level 1 Rogue in our last campaign (4 years prior) died in almost the EXACT same way. Stepped up to search a door for traps; the square he stepped on to do that was a trap-door. He fell, took 6 points of falling damage, which brought his Elf to 0 hit points... and there was a creature in the bottom of the pit... and his party mates couldn't save him before he bled out.
As it was happening in Edge of Anarchy, my jaw was almost hitting the table, that the exact same thing was happening again.
Looks like it will no doubt be a guard/mercenary type game since 3/4 of the original party is dead.
Things have gone alright, and it hasn't turned into a Korvosan Guard campaign (yet). I actually had 6 players for the campaign, but one of them couldn't make it to the first 3 sessions (all the described deaths, above, happened in the 3rd session). So when I introduced the 6th character (who had received & ignored the Harrow card from Zellara), I just ended up introducing a few other characters, too.
I've also had a bit of player attrition in the last few months (we are 12 weekly sessions in, and they are in the Dead Warrens). Maze's player is a PhD student in his final semester (writing thesis, will be defending, needs to look for a job), so he actually quit after Maze's death. It was his first time playing D&D, and he did have fun. If he stays in the area, I expect he'll be back someday. Davoth's player made an uninspired replacedment character... who hates the city of Korvosa, and the "first and only time he had fun in the campaign" was during the riots, where he talked some plotting dock workers (who were likely arsonists from the previous evening) into doing a better job of organizing and burning down more buildings. This was AFTER the party had already been hired to help the Korvosan Guard get things under control... For whatever reason, the player was unable to heed my advice to make a character that cares about the City of Korvosa. And so he wasn't having fun. He quit after 9 sessions.
But, I've since recruited 2 new players, and am back up to 6 PC's (though we'll play with as little as 4 present; so far we've only had as many as 5 present at any game). Everyone is loving how rich and living the city feels, with rumors they can learn (I was able to obtain and use the rumor tables from the hardcover version), and as they were wanting a 'political intrigue' and social campaign, they are having fun building some things of their own, and making connections with the city (the Psion & the Druid have taken over Zellara's home, fixed it up, and turned it into an orphanage (Saint Gaedren's) for some of the orphans they befriended and saved from the Old Fishery).
The party currently consists of:
Rogue 1/Bard 2 - Original party member
Psion (Telepath) 3 - Original party member
"Urban Druid" 3 - "Original" party member (couldn't attend first 3 sessions)
Fighter 2/Cleric 1 of Iomedae - Agnar's replacement character, and friend of Agnar, who came searching Zellara's address after Agnar never came back from his mysterious meeting.
Sorcerer 3 - Just a guy who happened to be staying at the Three Rings Tavern while the party was put up there by Cressida.
Monk 3 - Someone who they ran into in an alleyway, after seeing and stopping an imp from stealing a rotting dock dumpling from a starving orphan girl, and taunting her with it.
The Fighter 2/Cleric 1 is the only one that is a member of the Korvosan Guard (he got a reaming when the party visited Cressida the first time, for deserting his post during the riots; he was running around with the party, and had written shirking his shifts since the riots started into his backstory...) and has been placed on detached duty with the party, to keep an eye on Cressida's little mercenary strike-force.
They are currently in the Dead Warrens, and due to the late evening we had to end the last session in the middle of a Derro fight that wasn't going all that well for the party... They're actually in a much better place, hit point wise, than I had thought at the end of the session, but they are almost completely out of spells, and one member has been down (and feigning death, at 1 hit point) since the surprise round (Derro caught them unawares coming out of the Otyugh corpse pit... Four readied attacks, two hit (one a crit) with poisoned bolts against the first one out (the Sorcerer). I may very well have another obituary or two to write next week, if things go poorly.