Reign of Winter (Inactive)

Game Master Just a Mort

A great wail comes up from the two sprites, when Einar cleaves the troll into two.

"Նրանք սպանել են Teb! Hommelstaub, ինչ ենք մենք պատրաստվում ենք անել ?!"

The unseen voice in the snow answers coldly,"Կատարել դրանք վճարել: Ստացեք, ինչպես նրանցից շատերը, ինչպես դուք կարող եք."

Think I've caught up. Took 3 hp damage, lots of summoning.

If Crummock cast the CLW rather than use the wand, he should have one more hit point. He is level 2 now.

Seeing the troll dead, Mr. Whiskers unleashes his final round of fireworks on the annoying sprite above Ziva.

Damage: 1d4 ⇒ 4 I expect they will make the DC 14 Reflex save

He will then attempt to hit that same sprite with his Acid blob.

Ranged Attack, snow: 1d20 + 4 - 4 ⇒ (15) + 4 - 4 = 15
Acid Splash damage w/flask: 1d3 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2

Looks like it should be within 30'

Mr. Whiskers wonders what could cause this sort of snowy weather effect with clear borders, and what the likely limits of it are.

Knowledge: Arcana: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (11) + 8 = 19

Mr Whiskers figures the cause is due to some confluence of arcane energies in the vicinity.

Aka, the winter portal. Limits are as you see on your map.

reflex: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (9) + 5 = 14

The sprite manages to partially dodge the firework, but it's still badly hurt. It narrowly avoids the acid blob.

"Ստանալ իրենց բուժող, ճաղատ գլխավորած մարդուն!" The now familiar unseen voice rings in the snow.

The sprites switch position and one unleashes a spray of blinding colour onto Crummock and Einar, who both stand unfazed.

Crummock will: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (17) + 4 = 21
Einar will: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (13) + 2 = 15

Yeah, more colour spray.

The other sprite takes a shot at Crummock, which lands hsrmlessly at his feet.

bow,DA: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 3 = 9

The eagle unleashes a flurry of beak and talon onto Einar, before disappearing. One of the talons rakes Einar's ankle.

bite: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (12) + 3 = 15
talon: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (14) + 3 = 17
talon: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (20) + 3 = 23
talon confirm: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (17) + 3 = 20

talon dmg: 2d4 ⇒ (4, 1) = 5

Another fiendiah eagle appears next to Crummock, and proceeds to assail him with beak and talon, which he nimbly weaves his way around.

bite: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 3 = 6
talon: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (4) + 3 = 7
talon: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (14) + 3 = 17

The unseen speaker begins another round of Summon Monster 1.

Uh, I posted all that before Ziva posted because I'm leaving country. Dunno when I'll get internet access again. Ziva, please roll your stabilize + Vernai's actions(if you think she will make any without you directing her) - there's the defend trick but again, the target that attacked you is down.

Rest of party, feel free to take your actions

Stabalize: 1d20 + 1 - 2 ⇒ (13) + 1 - 2 = 12
No actions for Vernai because I'm pretty much not conscious and her targets gone.

@Ziva: Sorry, you haven't been updating your status bar to reflect your current hit points, so I had no idea that you were so badly injured... if I had known, I would have healed you, instead of me.

Completely ignoring the eagle, Crummock taps Ziva with the wand, hoping to rouse her so she can given the mantis orders.

CLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7.

Hmm does that mean I wait until next turn to give orders since my turn was effectively spent stabalizing?

'The troll is finished' After bisecting the troll Einar turns and sees the eagle attacking Crummock, pivoting he thrusts his glaive at the bird. "Sie sollten in der Luft Vogel gehalten haben."

Attack: MW coldiron Glaive, rage
attack: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (18) + 9 = 27 for damage: 1d10 + 9 ⇒ (3) + 9 = 12

Ziva, yes

Einar cuts the bird into two and it disappointingly dissapears in a puff of smoke.

The unseen speaker calls out from the snow, "Մենք գտանք չհաջողվեց, եղբայրներ. Եկեք նահանջել ողջ դիտարկում է զգուշացնել Radosek, այնպես որ նա կարող է զբաղվել այդ interlopers:"

The sprites fire parting shots at Crummock, before flying into the driving snow, which he ducks under

Bow, DA: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (13) + 3 = 16
Bow, DA: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (15) + 3 = 18

Another eagle appears on the ground on the same spot that Einar popped and uses its beak and talons on Crummock.

Bite: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (14) + 3 = 17
Talon: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (15) + 3 = 18
Talon: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (10) + 3 = 13

None of the attacks touch Crummock.

relevant stealth check 1: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (12) + 15 = 27
relevant stealth check 2: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (13) + 15 = 28
relevant stealth check 3: 1d20 + 20 ⇒ (6) + 20 = 26

After you splat the eagle, this combat is essentially over. Lets not get into perception modifiers for distances...

You may follow the trail to the portal without any further encounters.

MW Cold Iron Starknife: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22, for 1d4 + 5 ⇒ (2) + 5 = 7 damage.

Crummock guts the eagle, and then starts healing the party.

Einar: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4.
Einar: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6.
Ziva: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 1 = 9.
Ziva: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 1 = 3.

He then moves to loot the troll.

Mr. Whiskers helps with the looting.

He then asks "Do we go back into the heavy snows?" Looking towards the snowstorm, he says "It seemed we bumped into something. Probably best to investigate before they bring in any reinforcements!"

Seemingly more to himself than anyone else, he adds "Wish I knew what those creatures had been saying!"

Teb's body has an empty potion bottle(Mr Whiskers determines it once contained a potion of Feather step), a spear of manhunting, belt pouch, a key and a small mirror and 48 gp.

'They got away, we need a better way to deal with the little fliers.' Releasing the rage, Einar continues watching the skies, ” Danke.” He nods and thanks Crummock for healing the scraps and scratches. Nodding his head in aggrement, ”Ya it vould be good, if zomeone could understand Die kleinen Feen.”

As the group finishes healing and recovering anything worth taking from the troll, Einar begins to head back down the trail to where he ran into the igloo at, keeping a keen eye as he goes.

is the small mirror we found the same as the one that was an eyeball for the doll? Why doesn't someone else take the spear, Einar will continue to use a reach weapon for a while.

Its a similar mirror.

The party proceeds back into the driving snow.

P1
Four low igloos stand here in the snow. A well-packed trail of large footprints passes between them, heading both north and west.

P2
A winter blanket, a pile of furs, and a small wooden chest take up most of the floor space in this cramped igloo. A small hole has been cut into the low ceiling to allow smoke to escape, but no fire has been lit.

P3
The interior of this igloo is bare. Several ice blocks extend from the igloo’s interior walls, forming small shelves and recesses. Einar notices a well concealed pit trap at the centre of the igloo, and doesn't step in.

P4
Two bearskin rugs cover most of the damp floor in this cave, surrounded by crates, barrels, and other supplies. There is a cart next to a pile of 12 bodies of a mixture of men and women in Sentinel badges. The Sentinels, judging from the rigor mortis, appear to have died a while back, but have been preserved by the cold, like how one preserves food in a refrigerator. There are shortsword wounds, tiny arrow wounds, ice shards and claw marks on their bodies. In another corner there is a pile of human bones.

The ceiling rises fifteen feet overhead,where icicles of frozen condensation hang from sharp stalactites.

Einar finds hidden a lockbox, which he opens using the key off Ted's body. The chest holds four potions of feather step in an iron coffer, four blue quartz “ice diamonds” from Irrisen worth 100 gp each, a silver diadem worth 300 gp, a near flawless diamond worth 500 gp, a jeweled necklace worth 400 gp, a painting of Whitethrone worth 100 gp to an art collector, three sapphire rings worth 75 gp each, a decorative filigree longsword scabbard worth 125 gp, and a small scrimshaw sculpture of dancing sprites surrounding a piping satyr worth 50 gp, as well as 2,457 gp, 3,313 sp, and 1,760 cp.

P5
A bank of quill-like icicles spear outward in a ring, seemingly grown from a heavy sheet of ice covering the ground. A second ring of giant icicle-shaped monoliths stands inside the outer ring, surrounding a swirling cylindrical vortex easily ten feet in diameter. Icy winds and driving snow blast from the vortex, creating the wintry weather in the clearing. Mr Whiskers the source of the unseasonable winter weather that has fallen upon the Border Wood, as well as the cause of the driving snow.

If theres anything you want to do now, do it. Going closer to P5 will put you at a point of no return...

'Quite the little village.' Starting in the first igloo, P2 Einar collects the blankets and furs, finding the small chest he carefully searches it for locks and traps.

he will take 20 (29) on perception searching the small wooden chest for locks or traps

It's not locked, nor trapped, and the chest is empty

Ziva takes 20 for Perception, slowly checking every single Igloo for traps or hidden opponents.

'odd, empty oh well.' Lifting the trunk he jambs as many as the blankets and furs into it that will go, gathering everything up he exits the igloo.

Ignoring the empty igloo with the trap he moves to the cave. 'Blast, I guess we know where the sentinels wound up.' Carefully gathering the badges from the sentinels. 'Hopefully we can send these back so they can verify their dead, nothing worse than not being sure. I wonder what's in the crates.' After collecting the badges, Einar quickly looks in the crates in the cave.

Einar will take 20 (29) for perception searching the boxes in the cave.

Zilch, area is clear, except Pit trap in P3, which Einar already found

The boxes in the caves contain root vegetables, dried beef jerky, as well as small sacks of spices.

'That's a lot of food.' Einar gathers the trunk from the igloo in one hand and the strong box from the cave in the other and goes to the mouth of the cave where he sets them both down and opens them, waiting for the team to gather. Once everyone is near, so they can see the cache, he points back to boxes of food and asks, "So vat do you zink all of zee food is for?"

Mort approximately how many days of rations are we talking about in the boxes?

Crummock gathers up the loot, carefully itemising it, before packing it on the dogs.

"Right. Should we go back to town, and report in (not to mention, sell off what we have found), or head on through?"

Re: Loot, I think we should each take a Potion of Feather Step. The Bear Rugs can be used as furs, in a pinch, as well.

Regarding the Spear, I know Einar didn't want it, but the only other person who can use it is Ziva - so if she doesn't want to switch to using a spear, we might be better off selling it (and buying that Wand of Scorching Ray back in town).

Considering the run of good luck she has had with her Greatsword so far, I think she is probably going to stick with it over a Spear. Its probably better to see it and get a Scorching Ray Wand. Seeing as we are approaching the Point of No Return (allegedly), maybe we should get this now before pressing further.

So are we really thinking about going back? Can we do it on the down-low? I'm not sure how many 'sing-alongs' Einar will put up with...

17 days of food for the party. No singing? :( Ok, I'll catch up with you when I get back to SG tomorrow.

Now go state what you need to buy. No random encounters to town, and back, because I added in the Sentinel bodies. The mod states the Sentinels are dead, but no bodies ever show up. For this case, I decided to tweak the AP a little so as to give you guys closure....

Fair enough. After selling off the loot, and purchasing the Wand of Scorching Ray (42 charges) for Mr Whiskers, we *each* have an additional 790.35gp to make purchases.

As previously suggested, I am assuming that we each keep a Potion of Feather Step; does anyone also want a bear rug? We have two spare ones, after all :-)

Are you sure the group wants the wand of scorching ray? Mr. Whiskers doesn't hit very often and the aim on it isn't any better than Acid Spray.

"I wonder if the food belonged to the Sentinels?" Patting the wall of the igloo, he adds "A snow cave is easier to build, but I've heard of this sort of survival structure."

Actually, it will be slightly better - when you use an Alchemist's Fire as a Focus component, you get a +1 to hit, for a total of +5.

I am not suggesting that you use it all of the time; however, there is relatively little else to spend our money on at present, and it seems like a reasonable investment for this AP.

I don't think that Focus Components work with wands. You need to be casting the spell and using the component as an additional Focus or Material for it to take effect.

Scorching Ray may be a good spell for someone who can hit the target. Mr. Whiskers is not that person. He has no feats to support ranged combat, has poor BAB, and dice don't like me. For the price, we could get a magical weapon if one became available.

If you really want it in the group, we could focus all of our wealth even more on Einar and he could use it. It would work better for him than a bow.

I really don't think it is a good idea to spent the money right now on that wand.

I think we need more fire options though - especially in this AP. Its a bit weird relying on melee characters to use alchemist fire to handle some of these threats - and then turn up our nose on a wand of Scorching Ray. Isn't Scorching Ray a touch attack anyway - its probably got a better shot not only at hitting, but doing more damage than Ziva throwing Alch fire.

@MR Whiskers: The point is, there is nothing else *for* us to buy - we can't even buy Einar a strength-appropriate bow, because there simply isn't one available in town. Heck, the town is small enough, that we can't even stock up on 1st level potions, or wands.

If you really don't want the wand, that's fine; I just thought that you would prefer something that does more than 1d3+1 damage as a ranged attack (especially since, in this AP, there is probably going to be minimal stuff resistant to fire, and probably a fair chunk that is vulnerable to it).

In fact, if Mr Whiskers doesn't want the wand, would Einar like it? You would have the same to hit, and it would deal more damage than your bow against flying targets...

@MR Whiskers: The point is, there is nothing else *for* us to buy -

in Haldren. What about the next place we go?

There is no knowing where the next place we go is - or even if its a town or urban centre - this could easily be a wilderness push for now on. I really don't want to leave something as valuable as a fire magic wand behind (which is clearly going to be useful), on the off chance we head to a massive urban centre (which seems unlikely). In fact, I don't even know why we are so resistant to it - unless Mr. Whiskers wants to be spending the majority of spell slots on fire magic (I know I personally would prefer flexibility), its probably important that we stock up on anti cold creature items. The wand is certainly going to be more useful than relying on Acid Splash, and its going to be more useful than repeatably buying Alchemist Fire (since it does more damage, and has a better shot at hitting, and doesn't force our melee characters to switch to range to win against anything vulnerable to cold

I am not hesitant. I know my dice luck. Depending on me to hit something is a bad plan.

In fact, if Mr Whiskers doesn't want the wand, would Einar like it? You would have the same to hit, and it would deal more damage than your bow against flying targets...

Einar use a wand? What madness is this?

What is so crazy about using your class abilities, Einar?

Looking out of the igloo at all the snow, Mr. Whiskers asks "So, do we tell them of the Sentinels fate, or try to solve the problem? Unfortunately, I suspect we will have to go through the portal in order to close it."

Looking back towards the group, he adds "I don't know how happy they would be to see us if we go back now, before the job is done. Each time, it as been less people seeing us on our way."

*shrug* If neither Einar nor Mr Whiskers want the wand, then I guess we won't buy it.

That means that we each receive 1735.35gp instead of 790.35gp.

Crummock shrugs.

"If we be going' through the portal, and then closing it, we'll be trapped on the other side, and no-one will be knowin' what happened. Better it be to let the village know the fate of the Sentinels, and what we plan to do to fix the problem."

just never thought about it ;)

'yes we will have to go through the portal, I wonder where it goes. Standing with the team, loading the valuables and the food into packs of dogs and people. Einar pulls a handful of the bent and bloody badges out of his satchel, showing them to Mister Whiskers. "If vee go back vee can give zem zee badges so zey know who is dead. Ve can go in qvickly get zee wand und leave zee badges, und leave qvickly." He then nods the general direction the storm has come from and whispers "Sobald wir das Portal geschlossen haben, kommen wir nicht mehr zurück.."

As a character Einar is torn between going back and leaving the badges, and moving forward putting the past behind him. As a player, I think we should get the wand, how many of us will be able to use it? Also Mister Whiskers can train Einar to start using the magic in him.

Edit: Crummock ninja'd my post I'm ok either way with or without the wand, I just didn't think about Einar using a wand before he can cast.

If we don't want the wand, then I might as well sell my longbow as well, since I don't see a whole lot of use coming out of it. I have Vernai for flying enemies.

I like keeping the stuff we find that we can use, so Einar will hang on to the +1 str bow. It seems like two of you are pro the wand, I think it's a good idea, I just didn't realize that Einar can use it. Lets go get the wand and then get back on the trail.

At Crummock's words, Mr. Whiskers looks out at the snow again.

"It is certainly possible we would be trapped on the other side." he agrees.

At Einar's mention of the wand, Mr. Whiskers looks at him in surprise. "I wasn't sure if you knew, Einar. If you want the wand, that is another reason to go back."

This is meant to be a misunderstanding on Mr. Whiskers' part -- thinking Einar knew he could use the wand and wanted it for himself.

If we don't want the wand, then I might as well sell my longbow as well, since I don't see a whole lot of use coming out of it. I have Vernai for flying enemies.

Value of bow if sold: 350/2 = 175 gp. Cost to buy wand: 3750. One gets us less than 50 gp each, the other costs us nearly 1K each. Keep the bow, even if you use it once it is worth it.

Nah, I don't see much use for it and its extra weight. I can sell it and buy some more Alchemists Fire instead which is probably far more useful - and more likely to come into play.

FYI, the bow Ziva has actually is worth 800gp - it has a +4 strength rating...

Nah, I don't see much use for it and its extra weight. I can sell it and buy some more Alchemists Fire instead which is probably far more useful - and more likely to come into play.

Hey Ziva, Einar will give you the 400 gp for it and give the + 1 str bow back to the farmers family. I know he won't use ranged a lot either, but if he's going to he may as well keep the more powerful bow...

Sure, sounds great.