Dresden casts another spell at the gnoll, while Sgt. Whitbourne moves down the street towards the rest of you.
initiative 1d20+1=9...well that's about normal for this game
"You must be Omar..let me introduce you to my sword..sword Omar, Omar sword" he quips as he launches a merciless blow at the author of all his woes
Free action throw staff to Thale
move to Omar...
attack with two handed blow
DresdenSummons motes of black energy which race across the street and slam into the gnoll, which dies and falls forward off the turret and into the street.
Garret moves to close with Omar; you notice a small bag hanging loosely at his hip. It seems to be leaking purple energy like smoke.
Sgt. Whitbourne " Sah! Coming sah!" He runs for Sir Basil.
Omar Facing two opponents, Omar quickdraws two serrated knives from spring loaded wrist sheaths then disappears. You hear a loud crack and a small black sphere leaking alot of purple energy falls into the dust where the assassin once stood.
Sir Basil Yells and swings at empty air, the blad coming close to Garrets braod chest.
Thale: moves tot he door only to hear the death gurgle of the falling gnoll.
gnolls. The archer dies...
at the exposed pearl, Dresden screams " The taint is damaged! Save the taint to save yourselves! realease blood to staunch blood or the city,-such as it is he whispers- is lost!Open a vein, sate the beast lest it awake and take the remaining citizens and ravenous dead unto itself!"
Thale moves to protect the door, listening for Omar's footsteps. Instead he hears a gurgle above him, looking up just in time to nearly dodge the falling gnoll.
Lying on the pavement, Thale looks across the cobbles at the smoking pearl. Oohh
.
Ow! That hurt.
Basil stares at the thing at his feet..it's evil is palpable like a physical presence in the air.
He looks up at Dresden..then draws the blade across his palm and grasps the pearl whispering a prayer as he does so
"Oh good, I was hoping for more creepy magic." Garret mumbles.
Garret turns around in a tight circle with his blade ready. "This is your last chance Omar. That gnoll won't hold out long against Dresden, and then he'll come for you. Give me a reason not to kill you."
"The gnoll is dead fool!" Dresden yells as he crab walks down the side of the building like some macabre spider the arrow sticking straight up in his chest. " Blood! Blood! The Pearl needs blood to stabilize or it will explode!
Just then two things happen (ooc]at which point we will continue using the initiative rolled earlier[/ooc]). The sigils on the door to the tower sputter and fade and the door rocks on it's hinges as something powerful lands blow after mighty blow to the inside of it. Omar appears next to Thale, a knife on his throat. " Fight me, and this man dies. Fight me, and The Pearl goes off, and we all die. Dresden knows I speak the truth. Fight me, and you risk losing to what is coming out of that tower."
Thale
Thale
Thale lies still -- for the moment. "Assasin, what gain thus? Can you stop the beast at the door? Can you flee dragging an injured man? Can you fight with your blade at my throat? Now you must talk."
Thale tenses himself. Ready to move.
"Now you're trapped, Omar. Our fate is your fate." Garret tries to maintain an outward calm as the situation worsens. "You ok, Basil?"
Sgt. Whitbourne strides towards the group but holds up when he sees Omar ready to slit Thales throat and his commander holding his bloody hand over an evil looking item.
Sir Basil bravely puts his blood to the pearl and quickly notices the demonic faces leering at him from inside the globe. The blood is being pulled quickly from his wound at an alarming rate, and it feels to you that the pearl is trying to pull the wound closer.
Dresden moves off to the side of Garret and Sir Basil. Eyeing the pearl and Omar equally and in rapid succession. He also pulls the arrow out of his chest ( and throwing it on the ground.
The door to the tower cracks along the hinges and pushes outward, the blade of an axe can be seen through the cracking wood. Growls and yips are heard from inside.
Fortitude 1d20+6=8 is that a temporary or a permanent loss?
Basil gasps as he feels his body wracked with pain
Basil looks up as the axe blade splinters the door..
"This doesn't look good" he mutters thenlooks down atht pearl in his hand.."if you want blood then let it be spilt honestly"
He sets himself ready
Thale waits. "Well, assasin?"
Omar starts uses the knife at his throat to move Thale to the right towards Landowers Lane, keeping the monk in front of him like a shield. He whispers to the monk
Omar says to all.
"This man for the Pearl!Or, we can all just fight and die here. What say you!"
"Hades No! The Pearl is mine! We need it. Made to destroy but will be used to create! A key to creation! Not a bomb for demons and their lackeys like Khale!" Dresden screams black energy from his hands jumping back and forth, closing the wound in his chest as they do so.
At that moment the top half of the door to the tower splinters open. Standing the the half-ruined door is a larged and crazed gnoll. White and yellow fur, slavering maw, bulging muscles. His gaze of hate and murder falls on everyone but especially Omar.
"Cub!" it screams, "You killed my cub!"
Thale moves easily with the assasin, without resistance. "It seems the gnolls are as anxious to kill you as us. And Dresden will not be deterred by my fate. Perhaps you should just make a run for it now."
The gnoll throws shackles it held in one hand towards Omar. They nail him square in the face despite the distance and Thale as a shield. . The gnoll jumps over the half broken door and howls loudly at the humans before it.
Dresden: Turns his attention to the murderous gnoll, blasting at it with dark energy.
Basil moves behind the albino brute grateful to have a valid target at last. He slashes one handed at the beasts legs.
Basil moves behind the albino brute grateful to have a valid target at last. He slashes one handed at the beasts legs.
Round 2 summary
Garret: 19 : Readies an action against Omar.
Dresden 19: Blasts dark energy at the Gnoll across the street: 7 Damage
Albino Gnoll: 19 Jumps over the broken door and throws shackles from it’s free hand into Omar’s face, forcing him to release Thale. 6 damage
Sgt. Whitbourne: 15: Move to attack the Gnoll. Attack 14. Mace hits to gnoll in its muscled neck, but does little damage.
Omar: 14. Shoves Thale into Garret and uses a swift action to become invisible. Garret attacks but Thale will hamper your effort ().
Basil: 9 Flanks the gnoll and attacks the legs, causing light slashes. Damage 8
Thale:7 Tumbles into Garret.
Round 3:
Garret: 19:
Dresden: 19 Casts a spell in case the wily Omar attacks him; Bony ridges appear over his hands and face, reinforcing his own skeleton.
Albino Gnoll: The axe swipes to the side trying to eviscerate Sir Basil
Sgt. Whitbourne: Attacks enraged gnoll with his mace ; hitting the beast hard at the base of the neck.
Omar: Appears down the street in Landowners Lane, having picked up his scimitar and dagger on the way.
Basil:
Thale:
Garret charges down the alley after Omar, still reluctant to kill him, but not willing to let him get away.
Charging attack = 16
Basil gasps as the axe carves into his flesh but his will is strong and he launches a fierce attack on the beast calling on the power of his god as he does.
Masterwork cold iron bastard sword, power attack, smite evil1d20+6=20, 1d10+8=14
Garret hits Omar as he tries to leave, and the assassin finally commits to the fight. Setting himself with scimitar and punching dagger.
[ooc] how hurt is Thale from the friendly fire?
If that puts you into negative HP Dresden readies his action to pour a potion down your throat on round four.
"Give it up, Omar. I'm faster than you, I'm stronger than you, and I'm more committed to the cause than you."
Attack = 8
Round 4 (so far)
Garrett: after slashing the fleeing assassin on the back of the shoulder you turn him around and swipe again. He parries the blade on his dagger and sets himself, his eyes go cold as he prepares to kill you.
Dresden: "For Greystoke's Black Soul, don't let that beast hit the Pearl!" He sends another bolt of black energy at the gnoll since Thale seems alright.
Raging Gnoll:Focuses his onslaught on the paladin for the terrible wound he inflicted. With a mighty overhanded chop he lands his axe two-handed, down on the chestplate of the the paladin's armor.. As an after thought he snaps at the Sergeant who attacks him from his side. . Only to have it's teeth catch on the haft of the Sergeants' hand axe.
Sgt. Whitbourne counters with another blow form his newly acquired mace cracking teeth and blooding the eye, but the beast...just...keeps...coming.
Omarcrouches and disappears moves to Garrets' flank ()and becomes visible as he attacks the kidney with the knife and fermeral artery with his sword.
Sir Basil
Thale crumples under Garret's blow and drops to the pavement.
Basil dies beneath the gnolls axe..that last blow took him to -12.
if i read it right..Omars blow just took Garret down as well.
Another TPK...hmmm..perhaps Patrick needs to balance his games better
wow. I guess you are right. I need a bit more balance. The last TPK didn't happen until high levels. This one came much sooner than expected. Just as we were to level up too! Sucks.
This was meant as a climax for this section of the adventure. The zombies were never meant as more than an obstacle and background flavor. The gnoll( 2nd level barbarian) had 4 hit points left and I was sure the paladin woutld take it out on the next attack. Omar (ninja3/assassin3) was down to five 5.
I honestly feel pretty bad. I know that this is a game, but I am really disappointed in myself. I thought my abilities were better than this. If you guys played poorly, that would be a different thing, but you didn't (except for the end where Garrett did get a little cocky, even after the assassin warned them to leave him be).
I was pretty sure the party would take out the gnoll, and I thought that you may get the hint and leave Omar alone or let him escape (but you were too smart for that). Omar was the key for the next stage of the adventure.
So, I am really sorry.
Patrick, you might not be interested in my opinion, but here goes anyway. The Gnoll and Omar are a tough encounter for this group anyway, especially with the tactics they had set up well (They are intelligent creatures, nothing wrong with that) but we had used up so many resources (All spells, many turns, and taken so much ability and hit point damage, by things like falling armoirs, falling arms, and falling pc's that by the time the main encounter occurred there was nothing left. Sure all the side items weren't deadly by themselves, but combined they spelled a recipe for disaster and TPK. I know that things like the fear save(I know I can't let that one go) don't seem to have a major effect on things but they do.
One mistake I made when first writing my own adventures was thinking up a great scenario (Which you do by the way), and knowing how if I was the PC's I would get around those things and not thinking about other ways to accomplish the objective. The PC's rarely do things the way you imagine, and if there is no multiple solution or wiggle room, then they feel like they're failing when they are really just doing what they do. Belthic was really disappointed when the thing that he had been trained from youth to do, fight undead, was derailed by a fear save. He took the extra turning feat! this is what he is trained for, and he's fourth level he has certainly seen undead before, but he is still penalized by fear. I understand that there are feats and skills available to offset these things, but not enough to do that and still build the character you envision. While not a d20 fan, I do believe it is balanced, and messing with the mechanics usually only leads to trouble. I did notice that no fear saves were required when meeting Dresden or the gnolls so maybe that was being lessened somwhat anyway.
I understand that PC's must be adaptable and not always use the same techniques for overcoming challenges, but to be honest we were hit over the head with this encounter, and never had a chance to change anything up or adjust our tactics. We were too busy trying to stay alive. Even in the Inn, instead of having a few moments to regroup and plan we were on to the next encounter.
Again, this is not a criticism just an observation. Let the hero's be a little more heroic, and not so overwhelmed by what they encounter and I promise things will move more smoothly.
I was having fun in this campaign, in fact I plan to steal it at some point. I know why I died. It wasn't because of an overpowered encounter. I was really lucky at the beginning, so I wasn't down Con, just missing a few hp's. I think I died because I was doing so well. I should have gotten hurt a lot sooner, but Garret just kept on running ahead.
To be honest though, I felt like I had to. Things had hit the fan and the tension was so high, that it felt like I had to keep risking everything. I know that this was the primary reason for the fun I was having, but it led Garret to his death. I can't recall another game where my character let the others fall behind and I just kept going. In Garret's mind he had to because if he didn't keep going it wouldn't matter what happened to him or the others.
One thing, in case you ever run this scenario for another group. Omar never gave me a reason to leave him alone. I thought that Omar had information for us that we had to get. Garret risked his life because he thought Omar had information worth risking his life for.
Either way, I had fun. This wasn't my first character death so don't feel bad.
I did make a mistake. I should have healed Thale up sooner. I think I still would have died because the Con damage really sapped my hp, but curing a couple of points earlier might have let me make it through this round. Maybe I could have fled after that.
Like 'Wedge, I felt compelled to keep going. It seemed in game, that there wasn't time to stop and heal. The scenario was really tight. Like when things go south in the "d___ of the dead" movies. It just keeps getting worse, the dead keep coming, band the characters have to just keep plugging. There's nothing else. So in that way the scenario was good.
The theme was indeed to keep going, but poeple can still attempt to heal. Omar did indeed have information, but that was not a lynchpin to the present events. I was working for a horror aspect for the first part of the adventure, so that is why things didn't feel heroic IMO. Still, heroic things could be attempted; saving people from fire, zombies, ordering them away from danger etc.
Other things were in place to deal with Omar in the future. The high tension was on purpose and worked to set the mood. I tried to accomodate all actions within reason. If you felt like you wanted to regroup, that could have been done. Like I said, I wanted your characters to want to chase Omar, but Dresden had enough info to keep the party going.
About Dresden not needing fear save, he looked mostly human and stayed covered most of the time. Melee combat with humanoids was also a given at 3rd level so no fear save was required. In fact, no fear save would be required for individual or small numbers of zombies either. However, I figured these were distinctly different from the zombies Belthic (thanks for still watching the thread BTW)and the others faced, AND they were in numbers your characters didn't encounter before. Still, I need to tweak the fear mechanic; I am not ready to give it up. Maybe more feats or something.
I appreciate all your comments ( even Wellard's comment of not commenting :)
So here is the pitch...
Let's start over! There is still fun to be had.
Option 1: Same scenario different part of the city. Not all areas suffered as much as Dawn Market. That way, our characters may not have died in vain.
Option 2: Pathfinder: Darkmoon Vale. I have the gear to do a campaign here.
Option 3: Somebody else run a game and allow me to join ( it would be much appreciated).
Seriously. I just want to keep playing something. Let me know your thoughts ( you too Wellard !) )
I've thought about it and I'm willing to run a game. I want to run Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.
I've tried to run it once for a f2f game, but it resulted in a tpk. And since then I've had trouble assembling a group to play it because right after the tpk the original group split up and splintered into my other groups. So, there is no group I play with that doesn't have somebody that already played most of it.
Fair Warning: The adventure is tough, and it is undead heavy. There are encounters that don't involve undead, but there are more that do. Take this into account when you make a character. A rogue will be very useful in this adventure, but don't be upset if you don't find a way to deal with the undead.
My house rules: Any WotC book is allowed, as are most Dragon magazine articles.
The only class not available is warlock.
The warmage has a bard's spell progression.
Rogue's gain a free Search check for traps, just like elves do for secret doors.
Mass spells from outside of the PH have a level 4 higher than the base spell.
Heroes' Feast is one level higher.
Who's in?
I'll play. I want to give a Dread Necromancer from Heroes of Horror a try. That alright?
I'd like to play. Somewhere I've got a fighter / Cleric of some Greyhawk god of cold (Iomede) or something like that specializes in two weapon fightinig with spiked armor as his off hand weapon. He was kind of cool, and designed for a Ravenloft campaign that never got off the ground. Gaspar Frost was his name, and I'll be able to recreate him under your rules (I think he was a Gestalt Character, but the concepts are the same). Just need to know the basics...score creation, HP rules, starting funds, etc.
Steve
PS: Also I'm assuming this is 3.5 and not Pathfinder rules, and what is the starting level.
I'm in. I've got no character concept in mind. I'll fill any holes in the party.
Sorry Wellard. I don't want to exclude anybody, so if somebody else wants to run a game I'll gladly stand aside. Or if you feel that you can put aside any pre-existing knowledge, you're welcome to play.
If we are going forward with EtCR you need to build 6th level characters with the 32 point buy method. You have 13,000 gp to spend.
I forgot about the Dread Necromancer. Sorry, Patrick, but I have to say no to this. Too many of the class abilities have the evil descriptor and I don't want it to be an issue.
I'll post for 3 other players, but you guys have first choice of characters. Also for those interested, there is a prestige class here that you can plan for (you don't qualify until you meet a Knight of the Raven in the adventure). I have alternate class features that I will offer you once your character is set. And below are two feats that may help. So, build a character, and for now keep checking back to this thread for further instruction.
ENDURING LIFE
You can ignore the effects of negative levels for a short time.
Benefit: Whenever you would gain a negative level you can ignore the penalties and other ill effects associated with that negative level for a number of minutes equal to your Constitution bonus (if any). You also gain a +4 on Fortitude saves to remove anegative level.
LASTING LIFE
You can shed negative levels with an act of will.
Prerequisites: Endurance, Enduring Life.
Benefit: Once per round, as a standard action, you can attempt to remove a negative level from yourself by attempting a Will save (DC 10 +1/2 attacker's HD + attacker's Cha modifier). If the saving throw succeeds, the negative level goes away. You make a seperate saving throw for each negative level you have gained. If the save fails, you retain the negative level, but you may try again next round to remove it.
Alright. I have a Githzerai Monk4 done. I hope you accept him, seeing as how I blew off finishing my report cards to make him up :).