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There isn't one of these yet? Geez, people, we're either getting better at this adventuring thing since Rise of the Runelords, or we're slacking. Anyway, you know the routine! (Besides, this'll kill some time while Steam and my 2DS update)
Name: Abner Stormhearth
Race: Dwarf
Origin: The Mountainhomes, probably. We never really learned much about Abner.
Adventure: Battle of Bloodmarch Hill
Location: Just outside the city gates at an orc-fortified position.
What Done It: Casual racism, one big damn bomb.
The Party: Might as well introduce them while I'm typing this. Yon party of Giantslayers consists of:
- Rogen, a human totemist (yes, a Magic of Incarnum class!) played by Cory...
- Inga, his twin sister, a shaman and chirurgeon played by me. We both look like Princess Mononoke.
- Waldo, a halfling mouser whose character picture was the (blank) back side of his character sheet, played by Matt. He is the fastest person in the party.
- Azure, a half-orc sorcerer who joined the party during the big-ass battle in Trunau, played by Damien. Damien didn't actually know about how Mike was playing his character, so it was quite a hilarious surprise when she met...
- Abner Stormhearth, a dwarf druid, who was even more racist towards orcs and half-orcs than per dwarven norm.
...And Your Racist Friend: Seriously, Abner was really, really hilariously racist towards every half-orc in Trunau. He said of Brinya mourning the death of her beloved Rodrick "Oh, look! It thinks it's feeling sorrow!", was suspicious of every half-orc in Trunau's blacksmith shop because he thinks all orcs are murderers (then he quickly decided that the half-orcs can't be blacksmiths because "all orcs are f&&@ing illiterate, and half of the stupid hopeknives in this city have writing on the blade.") and when we noticed all the white crosses dotting Trunau and found evidence of orcs burrowing under the city through the plague house, and I'm quoting the guy from memory here, "We should round up all those stinking half-orcs in the city and put them somewhere. Like a camp. To concentrate them in. 'Cause they're not sentient beings."
WAAAAAAAAAAAGH: And then the WAAAAAAAAAAAGH happened, and our party is thrust headfirst into the middle of a pitched battle! We ran around the city lighting the signal beacons to summon help, Abner takes particular glee in killing every half-orc we see, and we think he dies after charging off an open tower and down a cliff (due to an Obscuring Mist spell he himself cast and then said "Don't worry, they're too stupid to understand basic tactics!") He scaled the cliffs to save our bacon after the rest of the party was beaten into unconsciousness and tied up for imminent and repeated rape trophy-collection. So, uh... well, not everything is forgiven, but at least we have a full party.
Meeting Azure: When we get to a bar (represented by a flipmat our group uses for EVERY bar we fight in) we meet Azure, who I mentioned above. She's fighting an orc who can cast spells (I think?) and we get hit with Deeper Darkness. Because he's the only one who can see in the dark in our party, Abner serves as our guide in the combat. Unfortunately, his idea of "guidance" was less "actually cast Guidance" and more "direct the party to kill our upcoming party member as well as the actual threat."
Didn't Happen: Azure survives (the fight, Abner's directions) and we meet up with Kursk, who tells us to get outside the city and deal with the orcs catapulting the city. We do so, running into them at the Plague House. Some of the orcs die, but Abner "valiantly" charges at the orcs, triggering further encounters.
This includes the orcs with fuse grenades.
Abner decides to have some fun with this. He grabs one of the grenades thrown at him, and charges the orcs screaming . The ensuing explosion kills two orcs, leaves two survivor orcs, and our dwarf is badly injured. The surviving orcs pick Abner up and drag his carcass to us, presumably to go man the catapult and gloat.
Catapult Fightmare: Abner goes up and down like a yo-yo during the fight because I'm down to just a Cure Light Wounds wand for healing at this point. When he goes down again, he stabilizes. Thanks to how combat went, Rogen and two orcs are taken out of the fight when Waldo fires the catapult while they're in the bowl. (Rogen thankfully survived.) Another orc throws a grenade. Azure returns it by rolling it under the catapult. I'm busy dealing with another orc, so I can't quite go back to rescue Abner.
Abner is at negative hit points, just conscious enough to see our half-orc party member roll a grenade that comes to a stop four inches from his face.
I remove Abner's minifigure from the map and draw a red humanoid-shaped splotch on the square I emptied.
I love the "every bar we are in has the exact same layout". I use that too. Good times.
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Name: Xazz'rav
Race: Drow
Origin: Menzoberranzan, and I absolutely refuse to believe I actually spelled that right on the first try.
Adventure: Battle of Bloodmarch Hill
Location: The caves just outside Trunau
What Done It: Party member absence, rules that don't really come up so much in Pathfinder
Last Time, on Dragon Ball Z: Our party's extremely racist dwarven druid discovered the definitions of karma and irony as he was killed by the party member that most represents his utter hatred of orcs, so we had to go meet his replacement.
Enter Xazz'rav, a drow rogue who combined Piranha Strike with the finest of elven weaponry, the Colt M1911A1 elven curveblade. He proves how awesome he is (and how excellently he teams up with Waldo the halfling who occupies large opponents' fighting space) in the next fight.
And Exit Azure: Azure's player couldn't make it tonight, so Azure went... well, hell if I know. She just up and vanished. The four remaining party members go into the eeeeeeeeeeevil caves up outside Trunau anyway.
This proved to be a mistake; I blew all my Channel Energy uses trying to kill a swarm of ghost rats, the party thoroughly gets its ass kicked but we persevere.
CHAIN OF PAIN: Then we fight gryphs and spiders. We easily defeat them and move on, and then things get bad when we run into Our Villain, the tattooed half-orc who might or might not be leading the orc army.
.....And his two dire wolves.
.....And his flood troll pal.
.....And his alchemist buddy.
During this fight, we discover:
- No matter how high you can get your Armor Class with judicious arcanum use, a good roll on a d20 will ruin your day, as Rogen learned.
- The Healing hex actually does have a specific range (touch) as I learned.
- Halflings really shouldn't use Strength as a dump stat, as Waldo learned.
- Rogues aren't exactly the most durable character class, as Xazz learned.
Deep Hurting: Xazz'rav keeps going up and down like a Yo-Yo Ball as my feeble healing spells keep healing him back into consciousness (then the wolves knock him back into a coma, repeat until bored.) Rogen's holding his own against the troll, the orc escapes with the big-ass hammer we were trying to stop him from getting, and then Xazz goes down, his spirit grabbing my shaman and telling her "Do everything you can... to keep me alive," telling a messed up story about how "if [he] lives, my f*~*ing nephews will NEVER get my money, mwahahahahaha."
Me: (decides he's delirious from blood loss)
Waldo: What.
Like Russian History...: Things get worse. Xazz goes down for the fourth time. I go down (but stabilize on a natural 20; our DM refused to use the Fifth Edition "roll a 20 on your stabilize check, come back to life at 1 HP" rule like I wanted.) One of the wolves goes down. The alchemist... I honestly don't remember what happened to him; I think he's dead. The troll is eventually killed as Waldo too joins us in a time-out. The one potion we have in the party doesn't fully rouse me, so Rogen knows things are serious.
He takes my healer's kit and starts operating on me.
My Light spell ends, so he winds up having to light a torch (that he forgot he had...) to keep working on me.
The Obscure Rules Part Kicks In Here: Treat Deadly Wounds takes one hour in-game to do, unless you have certain ways to mitigate that that I'm too lazy to look up right now (it's 1:15 am and I really should be asleep...) If you're unconscious for an hour because you're in the red when it comes to HP, you need to make a DC 10 Con check. Succeed, and you're awake but can't do strenuous actions. Fail, and you lose 1 HP and need to make another check in an hour.
I regain enough HP from Rogen's (untrained!!) Heal check to perform surgery on me, and Waldo wakes up because he actually rolled good on that Con check. Unfortunately for Xazz'rav... he did not fare so well on his Con check.
He had 8 Constitution.
The three surviving party members, two of whom have massive Strength and Constitution injuries, get the hell out of Dodge to go regroup.
Cory, Rogen's Player: By the way, you know who's to blame for all this, right?
Me: We're not gonna blame the healer, are we? =(
Cory: What? No. This is all Damien's fault!
Mike, Xazz's Ex-Player: Huh?
Cory: He's a sorcerer! If he showed up today, then we would have had attack magic! Snorb wouldn't have blown all his channels on those goddamn ghost rats!
Booke, Waldo's Player: All in favor of blaming Damien for Xazz dying?
All of Us: (raise hands) Aye!
Booke: All opposed?
Dead Silence: (nothing happens)
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Well. This is a thing that happened. Triple event this time!
Name: Rogen
Race: Human
Origin: Near Trunau, further details unclear
Adventure: The Hill Giant's Pledge
Location: On a barge run by half-orcs.
What Done It: The stowaway below decks
Name: Inga
Race: Human
Origin: Same as her brother up above
Adventure: The Hill Giant's Pledge
Location: On the same half-orc WAAAAAAAAAAGH barge.
What Done It: The same stowaway/supremely pissed-off lover.
Name: Waldo~!
Race: Halfling
Origin: .....I have no idea at all, man.
Adventure: The Hill Giant's Pledge
Location: Hitchin' a ride on the orc barge queen. ...Whatever the hell that means.
What Done It: The very same not-as-optimized-for-killing-halflings stowaway.
New Recruit: So once the drow Xazz'rav took his leave of our company into the kingdom of the DAMNED we met our new party member, Icegrinder. Icegrinder is a wyvarran summoner, in a shocking display of breaking the status quo of "the main four races plus maybe catfolk, that's all YOU people play" and "ugh, God, not the summoner."
I'M ON A MOTHERF%*%ING BOAT: After our introduction to Icegrinder and his eidolon, we have to go follow the plot. This brings us to a river barge loaded down with weapons and horses run by half-orcs who take us on as passengers/more crew. I wonder very briefly how Abner would have handled this situation had he not been blown up back at the end of the last book.
Our boat trip entails Waldo failing miserably at cooking, Icegrinder excelling at it, Rogen and Inga fishing, Inga falling off the boat and almost getting killed by "Jesu Christo, duo crocodilli!!" on the one day she DOESN'T ready the Flame Spirit as her backup shaman spirit, and near-total inability to make DC -5 Perception checks to hear the sound of "MAN OVERBOARD" "(splash SPLASH)" "(spear going through crocodile head)" over "I am cooking, I am cooking, o/` cooking cooking cooking ^_^x" in the barge's galley.
Oh, and there was the small issue of the girallon. Not the inevitable fight against it, but the issue that even after being told not to eat the girallon's meat that they were feeding it every hour, Waldo still ate the heavily-doped-with-simian-tranquilizer raw meat, passed out, and proceeded to fail a bunch of poison saves. (So did Icegrinder when he said "Half-thing too much of a baby to handle raw meat!")
Known to No One, Scorned By All: Anyway. Ziggy the DM asks us "So, who has that locket?" and everyone points at me; "that locket" being a True Love Locket that we took off the villain of Book One's still warm corpse that had a perpetual Status effect on it. (The plan was to find the matching locket, deprive its owner of her life, and Rogen would wear it so the twin siblings would know each others' status.) After the cook drugs the meal of the day in the galley and most of the crew (plus the sorcerer and Icegrinder) pass out from it, Rogen, Waldo, and Inga are directed to the galley to go talk to the stowaway.
.....The stowaway had the other locket.
And Favored Enemy Humans (+4).
And she saw me wearing the locket when I got close enough to her.
Two arrows with Point Blank Shot and Power Attack brought me down to -10 HP, while Waldo and the snake in the bilges tried to choke each other out. Sadly, my 12 Con and my inability to roll higher than a 10 on a d20 meant Inga wound up being the ranger's first casualty as she bled to death in the bilges of a filthy barge.
Rogen wound up alternating between disarms and attacking her, missing on every occasion (ruefully noting that the one time his attack roll meets or beats her low CMD, he was actually trying to attack her against her much better AC.) The ranger is a much better attacker than a totemist, and Rogen's eventual death kicks in (though not without a fight, because he moved enough essentia into his shirt to stay alive one round longer than usual.)
As for Waldo, the snake got him.
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So I nearly wiped my party …
We were missing the wizard but if he had been there he would likely have died too as he is very squishy.
Name: Xort
Race: Trox
Origin: Dwarven born and trained, exploring the world
Adventure: Forge of the Giant God
Location: Mindspin Mountains – Minderhall’s Vally
What Done it: Cowardice
Name: Jergen
Race: Dwarf
Origin: Dwarven guide hired for the trip
Adventure: Forge of the Giant God
Location: Mindspin Mountains – Minderhall’s Vally
What Done it: Lack of healing and slicing his own wrists with his bowstring.
The party consisted of the following
Assimar Summoner 7 with a combat Eidolon and wings
Trox Warpriest of Callistra 7 Using a whip and riding (tied to) an undead Ankhrav
Dwarven Ranger 7 fav Enemy Giants and Orcs
Human Wizard 7 (currently relaxing in a nearby village)
Eidolon is a decent meat shield and good hitter; It has a Permanent 50% miss chance on everything attacking it but it deals half damage to anything non incorporeal. Makes it difficult to put down with its high AC. However the Drake has a +18 to hit which is enough to hit him but the 50% miss chance comes up about 75% of the time … (Well that’s how it feels anyway)
The Summoner has an good AC but not many HP’s (Killed his char earlier in the day with a centipede trample .. He got better and is rocking a -2 levels)
Trox is not too difficult to hit but hits hard and frequently. Runs away with burrowing if damaged much and heals before heading back to the fight.
Dwarf is OK against most things but against Giants and Orc’s he is a damage machine.
However they had just met up with a Spectre which had drained a few levels from most of the party so they were running for home and healing.
They were ambushed by a Rift Drake which ripped them apart. The breath weapon is very hard needing a DC20 Ref save or be slowed for a D4 rounds which most of the party failed in the opening volly. They knew the Rift Drakes were in the area having fought a few previously and driven them off when they found their prey turning into dust when killed (Eidolon) or not tasting very palatable (Undead Ankhrav)
Mistakes were made by the party, The Trox immediately burrowed underground leaving the rest of the party to face the Drake, the Ranger was too close and was attacked leaving him at 1/3rd hp he retreated 40ft incurring an attack of opp which reduced him to close to death and started him bleeding which he staunched leaving him at a couple of HP’s and continued shooting the Drake leaving the Eidolon and an invisible summoner to fight the Drake.
Summoner sent a few snowballs at the Drake causing some good damage but then spent the rest of the time healing up his Eidolon while the Eidolon beat on the Drake. Warpriest came back up on the back of his Ankhrav and channeled the next round (Slowed), the dwarf was outside of his range so was not healed.
Dwarf fumbled and inadvertently sliced open his own wrists with his bowstring and had 6 seconds to think aww I’m going to die before he collapsed in a rapidly expanding puddle of blood. Trox was knocked unconscious by another breath weapon and passed out. Ankhrav followed its last command and kept attacking the Drake. Eidolon is looking battered and the summoner is using all his free actions (Also slowed) to heal up the Eidolon.
The Drake backs off taking and dealing out damage and as a last resort breaths again and retreats. The last breath kills the Trox and makes the Ankhrav uncontrolled so it now attempts to kill the summoner who turned visible a round earlier. Summoner retreats leaving the Eidolon to cover him and the mindless undead tries beating up the eidolon who then runs away.
Eidolon draws away the undead beast before being called back to the Summoner’s side with makers call.
By this time the Dwarf is dead having bled out, the Trox is dead strapped to the back of the Undead Ankhrav which is carrying all the parties treasure …
Turning invisible the Summoner flys over the undead creature and cuts the ropes keeping the Trox in the saddle so they can loot his corpse.
The Assimar can’t carry the Trox out and the treasure so the treasure is saved leaving the Trox in the dirt (Trox was too heavy to carry out anyway). The dwarf has only just joined the party so funds would not be wasted on him but his items are taken.
So mistakes were made and people died. Warpriest should have stayed and channeled feeing up the Summoner to use more offensive spells and healing the Dwarf, himself and the Eidolon. Dwarf should not have moved so far away and thus missed out on the channels when they were done. Dwarf should have invested in some healing so he could have healed himself when he was down on hp’s. Even one potion could have boosted his HP’s that he could have survived the 5 points of bleed he had going. .. at least for another round.
Was an interesting fight, Summoner is leaving the mountains flying hard for safety … Have several more random encounters before he actually gets there though … Hope none of them are flying creatures …
I suppose that I should add mine, I kill off so few of my PCs though.
Name: Gavin
Race: Human
Origin: one of Halgra's many children
Adventure: Battle of Bloodmarch Hill
Location: top of a tower
What Done it: Lack of constitution from character build and ghoul fever couples with his own ax.
It'd been a rough few days for patrol ranger in training Gavin. He apparently had a weakness versus anything that required a fort save after succumbing to spider poison and ghoul fever. And then the orcs attacked. But he found his groove after finding a nice and shiny greataxe. He felled orc after orc with his new toy until he faced off versus an orc skald setting the beat for the orc raid. Gavin's new axe twisted in his hand after he shagged a hit to close with the drummer. Instead of striking the orc, he hit himself dropping himself way below con in one hit. His brave companions left the axe behind, assuming its cursed.
(we use crit hit/fumble decks and this is the worst fumble we've found)
Name: Martin Longbow
Race: Human
Origin: Trunau
Adventure: The Hill Giant's Pledge
Location: Outside of Redlake Fort
What Done it: Technically, gunpowder. Realistically? the Giant Gar.
The PC's had aerial surveillance due to Martin being a Sable Company Marine, and gunpowder from another PC being a gunslinger. Well, a few Craft: Alchemy rolls later, and they have a waterproof explosive. What's in the river? Oh probably a few gars. "Nothing I can't handle!"
..."Oh, did I mention the GIANT gar? No?" Swallowed whole, almost bitten in half, in negative hit points, he swam over to the dam and blew it up. Best character death I've caused in a long while.
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Name: Chance
Race: Human
Origin: Varisian - raised among the Sczarni
Adventure: inbetween book 1 and 2 side quest
Location: Freedomtown
What Done it: Party split
Chance's Sczarni contacts sent him to Freedomtown to sort out some "family" business. In the process we got involved in a local power struggle that brought us into their booby trapped hideout. While the healer witch was penned down in a separate room, the melee fighters rushed after a tielfing alchemist BBEG and his henchmen. In the process of an incredibly hard fight that came down to the last man, Chance was hit with a bomb on a natural 20 and blew him up good and dead. The BBEG was barely taken down the following round but Chance, the womanizing Varisian card shark has been laid to rest for good.
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Name: Kaleem
Race: Human Unchained Rogue
Origin: Trunau
Adventure: Battle of Bloodmarch Hill
Location: Trunau (Inner Quarter)
What Done it: AOO, Falchion Crit
They entered each house carefully, choosing to draw out enemies or attack from windows to keep them at odds and often had the orcs into staggered territory before fighting in earnest.
Unfortunately Kaleem made her into the building first to fire at the orcish archer. She soon found herself at the forefront of the fight and at 3 hp.
Realizing she had dropped her rapier to pull her crossbow she dropped it and reached down to pick up the weapon. The staggered orc got an attack of opportunity and critted the rogue for 19 points of damage. Without my card system that allows characters to use three amassed cards to avoid death Kaleem would have been completely dead as a result.
Afterward the group moved on and are currently in a pitched battle with Kagak and his protectors to retake the occupied tower.
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Name: The Party
Race: N/A
Adventure: Battle of Bloodmarch Hill
Location: Trunau (Inner Quarter)
What Done it: Zeal and Inginutiy
Same scene Tybid setup, going house to house, when they cleared the first house they found the cart of loot in between the other two, they decided to try and prevent the orcs from taking their loot cart, so they start smashing the wheels off the cart quite loudly. The two remaining groups came out to investigate and a large melee ensued. The party really spread itself thin over the two groups of orcs, and divided they were conquered.
In the end, everyone was stable but unconcious, except the cavaliers goat who took a x3 crit from a power attack, and was -ve twice his con.
I decided that the orcs, eager to move on, didn't kill them, but that they would take their obvious wealth gold, mw items, gems, and booze (and 25% of potions because they look like booze.) A few minutes later one of the healers from the barricade came out and got them back to conscious, but otherwise it could easily have ended the campaign there.
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Name Geoffrey Chaucer
Race Gnome
Class/Level "Oracle of Nethys", aka self-delusional arcane Sorcerer 2nd
Adventure Battle of Bloodmarch Hill
Location three looted homes
Catalyst a confirmed critical hit with a great axe
The Gory Details Geoffrey Chaucer, Oracle of Nethys, runt of his litter, sparkly of hair, astride his pony Jack, was charged and seemingly bisected by a perfectly-aimed blow by way of some mook orc's war ax, dealing a mind-boggling-for-2nd-level 34 hit points, 2 past the gnome's combined hp + CON score.
Amazingly enough, his profound devotion to Nethys manifested by way of the simple wooden holy symbol he'd worn beneath his tunic having miraculously intercepted the mighty blow, now a brand in his flesh.
"I told you I'm an Oracle of Nethys! See!!"
Name ;'Frog'
Race Gnome
Class/Level Boggard Level 2 Barbarian
Adventure :A hill giants pledge
Location The Druids Sanctuary
Catalyst Drowning
I am not actually running Giant slayer just using some of its locations as places to loot for a Way of the Wicked Party. 'Frog' was a cohort who was doomed by awful dice rolling. He had nearly died the previous session.
Near death. Crossing the Lily pads he was grabbed by the dragonfly which zoomed away with him, before being shot with a Tanglefoot arrow and failing its saves, entangled it plummeted to its doom taking'Frog' with it. Reduced to negative hp he would die when he stopped raging , with great effort the Oracle of Asmodeus reached and healed him, later he considered this a waste of effort.
Death. The Tendricoulos in the garden. Failed to sneak up on the party and was spotted, Frog won initiative and charged! The AO bite hit and swallowed him, here his dice rolling turned evil. First he failed his save to avoid paralysis, second (this may be a house rule) as he was in the creature stomach I ruled he faced drowning, no problem he can hold his breath really well he is a frog, however he was not holding is breath when he was paralysed so I ruled he could not start while paralysed. No problem the thing won't last long and the con roll is easy. He rolled a 1 and started drowning. At this point the dice curse spread for the next 2 rounds neither the tendriculous or the pc's rolled over a 10 and by the time they had killed the thing poor 'Frog' had drowned . They shrugged, laughed looted his body and moved on
Name: Akhros Hurme, Calmert Bae, Mestari Tikku & Hanneke Drolmer
Race: Human, Orc (reincarnated as orc), Ratfolk & Human
Origin: Heading straight to the chieftain without any recon to the Redlake fort
Adventure: The Hill Giants Pledge
Location: Third floor of Redlake fort - strategy room
What Done It: This usually works (heading straight to the boss)
My campaigns adventurers met their demise in the hands of the hill giant chieftess and her merry gang. The party decided to head straight to the third floor (they figured that the boss would be there and they were correct). They did it by turning everyone invisible while two of them flew and carried them to the balcony. They charged into ther room where they met the sobbing hill giant with her merry gang of guards and a brutal fight ensued which resulted in the whole group perishing.
Ouch! Will your campaign recover?
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True ultimate power is achieved not by confronting the problem right away, but by investigating every nook and cranny for treasure and xp.
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Bypassing everything to go to the end either means a very easy fight, or a every dangerous TPK chance. None of those are fun.
I dunno, your second choice looks pretty good to me.
Ouch! Will your campaign recover?
Yes, we will continue with the campaign though it takes some maneuvering. Players will be making new characters who are traveling and hear rumors of Trunau being under attack by orc forces.
I was a bit surprised that the players didn't even explore the keep in anyway before they headed to the third floor. They could have easily spent one day just investigating the keep and its inhabitants because they had a Hunter who could wildshape and use that to investigate.
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Name: Branwen Alise.
Race: Human.
Class/level: Slayer 8.
Adventure: Forge of the giant god.
Location: Nameless canyon in a nameless valley in the Mindspin mountains.
Cause of demise: Nameless Cyclops hunter with a critical from her greataxe.
90 points of damage in one shot to my already wounded Slayer was a touch more than she could handle.
It was "The kind of sound you get when you stick a straw up a frogs bum and blow really hard!" Kind of SPLATTT!!!
DBH
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Name: Nirin
Race: Dwarf
Class: Monk 5
Adventure: The Hill Giant's Pledge
Location: Vault of Thorns
Cause of death: betrayal
The party, after an unorthodox exploration of the Vault of Thorns (starting from the bottom due to gravity and working their way up through the north stairs) found themselves in the throne room with Ewigga the "Elven" Druid. Glad for a friendly if vague and airy face the party made camp. The parties only "human" (half-orc rogue) was casually seduced by the "elf". (Hags gotta grow their coven some how...)
The druid agreed to travel with the party to deal with the Fey in the remainder of the vault, and so they worked their way through the south wing, and to the Brambleblight.
The fight was a pretty darn close one, and the party was a bit in shambles at the end. She helped, maybe not as efficiently as wading in and destroying the thing in melee, but hanging back and using her low level spells and domain ability.
At the end of the battle, once the party was divided some down in the cellar some above, and the ones above spread out, some near the ladder and some by the doors at the far end, she attacked.
Nirin was the one who was still "up" and near the ladder, and so she wailed on him, doing a lot of strength damage, and you know real damage. Weakened and poxed by pox pustules, with shitty dice by his side, Nirin ineffectually wailed on Ewigga who was now taking her true form. As the party converged, she slowed the cleric with entangle, and harried the rest with other spells. Nirin thinking to stop a spell caster, and unaware of exactly how deadly a hags claws are, grappled her. Instead of escaping the grapple, she just laid into him, and in two mighty, final, blows killed him.
The party tried continued to wail on her, but once she hit her moral break point, she fled, the rogue now feeling very unamourous chased her. When she was climbing out he shot the rope, causing her to fall, but not die. At which point she recollected her ability to wild shape, and flew away through the still open portal.
I as GM had SO MUCH FUN TODAY!
Lothar the aasimar Cleric of Gorum (greatsword wielder) died in the final wave of orcs in the Battle of Bloodmarch Hill. He stupidly charged into the middle of the orc horde and got himself flanked to death.
After that, the weeping player took over the party orc Fighter, and got himself fired from a catapult. (heee hee!) Didn't die though.
Killed off the Elf Fighter (archery) this past weekend. It was the beginning of book 3 in the series, and the lone cyclops hit the Fighter with an eye beam doing minimal damage, then closed in for two successful hits with his Huge greataxe. Killed the PC stone dead, without critical hits needed.
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Name: Patches
Race: Dwarf
Class: Shaman 3
Adventure: The Battle of Bloodmarch Hill
Location: The Tomb of the Hill Giant Hero
Cause of death: Just One More Room...
Our heroes defeated Skreed so easily it was almost funny, with an application of Hold Person and rope. There was only one room left to explore in Uskgroth's Tomb.
They entered the adjoining tomb of Hill Giant skeletons, one of which rose up carrying a broken spear.
Patches, wielding the Hammer of Unmaking used the secret word to grow large, and knocked apart its rib-cage. Seeing Patches as the most dangerous threat, the Skeleton stabbed her once with a spear, bringing her to 1 hp.
Seeing as she was still standing he attacked again, dealing damage enough to bring Patches immediately to death.
Our heroes were shocked, Vex the Half-Orc Fighter/Wizard hefted the hammer and finished off the skeleton. Our heroes walked out of the cave carrying the body of their friend Patches...
Name: Ficks
Race: Dhampir
Class: Wizard (Primalist archetype. This matters.)
Adventure: The Hill Giant's Pledge
Location: The Larder
Cause of Death: Logical Conclusions.
Do I have primal magic left?
Is this worth using primal magic on?
If both yes: primal magic.
If either no: create pit.
Never mind that the party's damage is exclusively melee or line of effect and that primal magic events are just as likely to hurt as help. As a result, he irritated the party consistently and fervently, not helped by the fact that he hid his status as a dhampir from the party up until the cleric of Pharasma started slinging negative channels all over the place and they didn't hurt him, and then started using his bite attack in combat when he didn't want to waste spells (which disturbed about half of the party members.
Then they went to haunted Redlake Fort and he and the big sword fighter checked out the larder together. Big sword fighter passed his will save against the haunt, Ficks nat 1'd. So Ficks starts throwing around pits and glitterdusts, crippling the entire party save the dwarf fighter. He uses his conjuration dimension step ability to get down to the fighter to start eating him, dwarf fighter chugs his potion of fly, goes down there, and starts wailing on Ficks. Dwarf fighter is a ball of furious wrath in general (Dwarven Hatred Style), and is the most fed-up with Ficks' shenanigans, so he holds nothing back, knocks the wizard out one round before the haunt's effects end, then coup de graces him. It should be noted that every single party member failed their Sense Motive check to tell that Ficks was under the effects of the haunt, particularly as I gave them penalties since all of them were already suspicious of Ficks' loyalties and motivations.
(as a side note, we'd all been in agreement for a session or two that eventually the party would give up and kill Ficks, and even his player was the first to say, after it was done, that this was the perfect, most logical way for Ficks to die. He then rolled up a psychic who blows up my giants' heads by looking at them funny, so I think he got the better end of this deal.)
I love the "every bar we are in has the exact same layout". I use that too. Good times.
We used to have a diorama of an inn that we used for our games. Every time it was brought out the players always made fun of it since every inn had the same layout. Eventually it became known that it was by the king's decree (and evidently by every king) that "all inns must be the same!"
Now I have a few different Paizo flip mats that I use, but it's a similar situation.
The Sleeping Dragon Inn.
Name: Zandu
Race: Human
Class: Psychic
Adventure: Forge of the Giant God
Location: The Cathedral Palisade
Cause of Death: Death by Stoning
Well, at least he killed that squirrel.
Name: Mengaduk
Race: Halfling Goblin
Class: Paladin
Adventure: Forge of the Giant God
Location: The Cathedral Spire
Cause of Death: Heroic Sacrifice
This paladin was a halfling convinced he was a goblin, incredibly delusional and certain that Sarenrae was both a Goblin God of healing, and that her holy symbols were a banana and a rubber duck.
It's a long story.
Anyway, while fighting their way up the cathedral spire, they ended up in Urathash's room, fighting his little group. Mengaduk was a healer specialized paladin, Lay on Handsing for massively optimized heals because this player. When not healing, he used stealth to avoid taking damage, in an attempt to not die again. Unfortunately, in this fight, there was a dire bear, with scent.
The bear full attacked and grabbed him. Now here's where it gets interesting. Urathash turned his attention to Zugzug, the actual Goblin rogue, and, with Bane and Judgment up, beat him in the face and brought him within one hit of death. And he still had an iterative. Urathash hit Zugzug again, but Mengaduk cast Paladin Sacrifice, taking the damage for him. And using up his Immediate action. Both are important. He also used his table reroll for the session on his concentration check (I give everyone a reroll and the table a reroll). Then along comes the last stone giant still up. He 5' stepped, and smashed Mengaduk. Mengaduk had crummy AC because his focus was not being seen in the first place. Mengaduk did not have much HP left. Mengaduk had no immediate action to cast Hero's Defiance.
And that is how Mengaduk died. The player has died every session for the last three sessions.
Name: Vaas
Race:Undine
Class: Monk
Adventure: Forge of the Giant God
Location: The Sunken Temple
Cause of Death: This player is cursed.
So after clearing the Cathedral, they began the process of relighting the Forge. They went to the lake to get the Blessing of Rosag. While they waited for Midnight for the Pharasmin cleric to reprep spells and grab Touch of the Sea and Freedom of Movement, the monk went to scout ahead since he's an amphibious Undine. There is a Gar in the temple.e Gar spotted him. It ate him. No dagger.
Next victim is going to be a sorcerer.
Name: Mikey, human rogue
Cause of death: Orc critting with a great axe
Name: Janela Fearcrusher, dwarf druid
Cause of death: Orc critting with a great axe
Name: Krannin, dwarf sorcerer/warrior
Cause of death: Skeleton critting with a spear.
We are still in book 1......
Name: Grimshaw
Race: Dwarf
Class: Fighter
Adventure: Tomb of the Frost Giant Queen
Location: The Cold Smithy
Cause of Death: Homicidal Rage
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I was reminiscing about Giantslayer this morning, and thoroughly enjoyed reading through a lot of these great obituaries. They inspired me to post an entire AP's worth of character deaths as my contribution to the thread. I'm leaving out the character-specific data, as we play the iconics so it should be fairly clear anyway. For an entire documented playthrough, see our PDF of The Giantslayer Endeavor.
Giantslayer Character Deaths: 16
► Death #1: (Oloch) Battle of Bloodmarch Hill: Part 2: Oloch spent a full round laying waste to many orcs around him, and even biting a monitor lizard to death. The last orc standing in the barricade fight went after Oloch with his falchion and the Amber Die itself. It delivered: 20-20. A good death.
► Death #2: (Quinn) Battle of Bloodmarch Hill: Part 2: Orc bombardiers managed to grapple Quinn and load him into the catapult. Launched 50ft. in the air, he landed hard inside Trunau, randomly crashing to the ground just beside the Hopespring. 22 damage. Unique way to go out.
► Death #3: (Oloch) The Hill Giant's Pledge: Part 1: Melira the vengeful human-slaying ranger took up an advantageous position in the forecastle of a multi-deck riverboat battle. Overlooking our party of 5 human-premium targets, she selected our warpriest. For the second time in this AP, our GM threw down a 20-20 and sent Oloch to Gorum.
► Death #4: (Kurst) The Hill Giant's Pledge: Part 2: With one character disabled and two others near death, the party found themselves deep in the Ghostlight Marsh of Belkzen. Daylight was fading, and soon the wisps would come. Rather than take their chances with the marsh at night, a tense party vote resulted in a decision to penetrate the Vault of Thorns and then rest. A few moments after entering, two twigjack defenders of the druidic sanctum laid waste to the party with a spray of thorns and brambles. When the leaves settled, Oloch and Kurst were dead.
► Death #5: (Oloch) The Hill Giant's Pledge: Part 2: Same death as #4.
► Death #6: (Quinn) The Hill Giant's Pledge: Part 2: Quinn's encounters with dangerous heights weren't over after the first module. In a precarious struggle against a giant dragonfly of the First World, the investigator was bitten, pulled from a ledge, and dropped 100 feet into a compost pile that wasn't quite thick enough.
► Death #7: (Ingrahild) Forge of the Giant God: Part 1: While exploring the tomb of a giantslayer, Crowe and Ingrahild (whose ancestor was buried there) became separated from the party and locked in the sepulcher. Trapped inside with them was the broken soul who had betrayed the ancient giantslayer 700 years before. An epic struggle ensued, which saw our heroes fight dearly for their lives before being forced to share the tomb with its former occupants.
► Death #8: (Crowe) Forge of the Giant God: Part 1: While exploring the tomb of a giantslayer, Crowe and Ingrahild (whose ancestor was buried there) became separated from the party and locked in the sepulcher. Trapped inside with them was the broken soul who had betrayed the ancient giantslayer 700 years before. An epic struggle ensued, which saw our heroes fight dearly for their lives before being forced to share the tomb with its former occupants.
► Death #9: (Ingrahild) Forge of the Giant God: Part 2: Kurst and Ingrahild were scouting ahead of the party when they spotted something very, very big. With one eye, it noticed them too. Gsurak the huge cyclops stalker moved to erase the rangers from Golarion. Kurst sprinted back to get help; as fate would have it, Ingrahild was wearing the armor of her ancestor and legendary giantslayer--which compelled her to attack.
► Death #10: (Kurst) Forge of the Giant God: Part 2: Player-fatigue is a factor in marathons, and can be lethal for a character. In a brave but incomprehensible move, Kurst Grath spurred his mount into battle against two stone giant sentinels--alone.
► Death #11: (Zadim) Forge of the Giant God: Part 3: In the final battle above the great forge, Zadim engaged Urathash, a stone giant inquisitor of the god Minderhal. The slayer brought Sarenrae's will to bear with a flurry of critical hits, but it wasn't enough to save him from Urathash's human-bane warhammer.
► Death #12: (Kurst) Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen: Part 1: While camped in deep snow, the party's night watch team heard something very large in the darkness beyond their sight. Coming into view was a 20-foot tall undead giant known as an Indarugant, which strode from the pages of the PF94 bestiary directly into our camp, determined to make a strong debut on Golarion. It dropped two PCs in one round with its frozen axe, and left another near death. Kurst Grath never rose from the hit, and the ranger would remain under gentle repose for the rest of the adventure.
► Death #13: (Kurst) Anvil of Fire: Part 1: Skirkatla the graveknight queen from Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen made a deadly return in the beginning of this marathon. She was accompanied by her most powerful lieutenant, a unique svathurim dullahan known as the Decapitant Lord. Kurst Grath tried to slow the charge of the undead, but fell at the end of a lance powered by eight hooves.
► Death #14: (Zadim) Anvil of Fire: Part 1: As the fight against Skirkatla dragged on, the graveknight cornered Zadim and swung down with a full attack that packed more than enough damage to avenge her first loss against the party.
► Death #15: (Quinn) Shadow of the Storm Tyrant: Part 4: Zadim stared deep into the naga's eyes. Yes, it was all so clear to him now: his slayer talents were best used for the giants, not against them. He turned to face Quinn the investigator, who had been his companion. Quinn the untrustworthy. Quinn the enemy. With six swift attacks from the slayer's kukris—including 3 critical hits—Zadim put the traitor down.
► Death #16: (Crowe) Shadow of the Storm Tyrant: Part 4: After a timely wall of force by the naga sorcerer, Crowe found himself facing this wicked foe alone. The Shoanti chased her around the chamber, only to watch the serpent disappear into one of many wicker baskets and reappear in another. While the bloodrager turned his focus to destroying the baskets, the naga proceeded to rain down 6 maximized fireballs in a row.
Name: Mikey, human rogue
Cause of death: Orc critting with a great axeName: Janela Fearcrusher, dwarf druid
Cause of death: Orc critting with a great axeName: Krannin, dwarf sorcerer/warrior
Cause of death: Skeleton critting with a spear.We are still in book 1......
Continuing this campaign's track
Name: Locke, 1/2 Orc Ranger
Cause of Death: Volley of arrows from Melira in the hold of the Chelish Devil
Catalyst: Being injured already. Ghost sound from Melira lead the party to believe she was escaping her compartment via a secret hatch. They opened the door and went in straight away when in fact they had her cornered & could have healed up.
Name: Grymm, Dwarven Warpriest
Cause of Death: Torn apart by plant creatures in the vault of thorns
Catalyst #1: The party's two other melee warriors being blinded
Catalyst #2: Being enlarged and at the front of the party made him a really obvious target
Catalyst #3: Inheriting Locke's 'little black book' on the women of Trunau
Much to my chagrin as a DM we lost one of our players in the third Giantslayer book!
Name: Dravis Montbreeze
Race: Human
Class: Rogue-Fighter
Origin: Trunau
Adventure: Forge of the Giant God
Location: Aduromi's Chapel
What Done It: The DM's overpowering this encounter!
My co-DM and I decided to beef up this particular encounter by adding three shambling mounds as additional vegetable chapel guards. (Our party is pretty overpowered, and big (5 players), so we sometimes beef up what's written in the books)
So poor Dravis (our party's rogue-fighter) who was doing reconnaissance up behind the altar, got swallowed up and digested by the Giant Flytrap while the rest of the party battled shambling mounds. Oh no!
This was our first kill in this AP and we were all pretty devastated (except, ironically, Dravis' player, who was quite stoic, saying "I don't let myself get emotionally attached to my characters").
Upon further consideration, we allowed the character to get resurrected afterwards, with less fuss and expense than usual. This is because my co-DM and I realized that we'd probably beefed up this encounter too much, and we felt badly. We also realized that Dravis' death was pretty pointless... and we'd rather make deaths of PCs epic and/or meaningful to the storyline.
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Name: Samuel Vimes and Kurpal
Race: Human Fighter and Halfling Rogue
Origin: Trunau for both
Adventure: The Hill Giant's Pledge
Location: The Vault of Thorns
What Done it:
Story: no big deal, Sam and Kurpal teamed up as usual to help Kurpal flank and get his sneak attack bonus, but at a critical moment, Ewigga cast a Pyrotechnics spell, blinding both of our heroes. The brambleblight had no problem smashing both of them into compost.
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Name of PC: Turtok Orcbane
Race: Human
Class/Level: Ranger 4
Adventure: The Hill Giant’s Pledge
Location: A Knight in Need
Catalyst: Goblin Skull Bomb
Unbeknownst to the party the orcs inside the building had detected the fighting and were moving to attack. A fight ensued around the stairs and drawbridge. Turtok was making short order of the orcs despite being seriously injured. Fortunatos created a ghost sound behind the building to try to distract the orcs which failed due to the orcs having to fight their way through the party. One of the orcs was just about dead when it moved back from the combat and pulled out a Goblin Skull Bomb. The next moment he threw it at Turkok, who was obviously the most efficient fighter on the field. Turtok took enough damage to knock quite unconscious, starting him on fire, and almost killing him. Before any of the party could do anything to aid the burning Turtok, he took damage from the burning and died.
The party, or at least a very bereaved barbarian, Renka, Turtok’s sister, convinced Bloodtusk to take them to Vigil to find a cleric to raise Turtok from the dead.
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Name of PC: Fortunatos
Race: Gnome
Class/Level: Desna Cleric 7
Adventure: Forge of the Giant God
Location: Mindspin Mountains
Catalyst: Random Encounter With a Bisha Ga Tsuku
* I hate killing characters with random encounters, so I made it, so this did not happen, and they got the Cleric back at no cost. I had Fortunatos make a die 20 roll for no real reason and then I rolled percentile for no real reason. I just wanted it to look like a divine intervention is happening. Fortunately, earlier in the evening I had made it appear that Desna has taken a keen interest in Fortunatos with a dream showing him the Sky Citidal attacking Vigil. *
The party decides it must retreat to Trunau and possible as far as Vigil to find someone to raise their cleric. The first night they are camped. The party gets a visit from a Dryad (druid of Desna) who was sent by Desna to save poor Fortunatos the gnome cleric of Desna. The party did not object to the reincarnation and it was cast. Fortunatos chooses to accept the reincarnation (I knew the player would, he loves odd stuff happening to his characters and owns it).
Fortunatos comes back as a Kobold!
This is going to make for some interesting role-play down the road.
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Name of PC: Summer ShinyPenny
Race: Halfling
Class/Level: Rogue 7
Adventure: Forge of the Giant God
Location: A8. Chamber of Prayers
Catalyst: Lokmorr Edergun and a big spear
The next day the party cast speak with dead. Summer did not want to be raised.