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It's been a while, huh? Since my last message, numerous party deaths have occurred, though at this point MOST of them were fairly easily fixed (breath of life is a wonderful little spell). Not sure I can recall all of the incidents in detail, but I shall try. Name: Dominic
The Gory Details: Ran the party through the ROTFQ module between PDFs 2 and 3. All went well initially, but when fighting at the borders of the Faerngard, Dominic got focused by the bleached gnome druid's animal companion giant bee (since he was the one who's fireballs had killed most of the druid's more normal bees). Though the party was victorious in the fight, Dominic fell. Thankfully, he did so late in the fight, and right next to the party healer, who slapped him with Breath of Life courtesy of some gloves of first aid. A bit expensive, but highly useful. Name: Garreth/Sylvia
The Gory Details: The fight against the Fellnight Queen was a long and tricky one. Her tactics of teleporting between the hollow pillars around the room delayed the party for a long time. She baleful polymorphed the party paladin, and generally made a massive nuisance of herself. Garreth and Sylvia both got struck by a fairly high-DC poison spell each towards the end of the fight, they were unable to best the poisons coursing through their veins, and both succumbed shortly afterwards (Both had pretty damn terrible rolls AND saves, so even with antitoxins administered... well, they didnt have all that much con to lose in the first place). Garreth died to the poison itself, Sylvia survive the poison with about 1 con left, then got hit by a shadow evocation. Thankfully, Rhoswyn had a bounteous treasury, which helped fund their respective reincarnation (into a full elf) and raise dead. Name: Vorwin/May
The Gory Details: Some background, first. I did some reworking of the 3rd PDF to delay the party getting to Vordakai (to let the get enough exp etc to be level 9 before fighting him) because I know otherwise they would beeline towards him in an attempt to rescue Lord Varn (they really liked him...). Because of this, the Ghost Stone actually became the focus of a centaur ritual to help work out what the hell is going on by asking the spirits. So, it needed to be cleared out first. I also run KM for 6 players, so the Xill at the Ghost Stone were not sickened. This ended up going... poorly, for the party. The Xill bypassed the party tanks via the ethereal plane, and appeared right in the midst of the party backline. Hideous damage was dealt as they laid around them with their swords. The Xill were eventually slain, but by that time Vorwin and May were dead, and several other casters were unconcious or heavily injured. Since May was the healer, this was a problem, and they had to fall back to civilisation for revives. This was the first SERIOUSLY tricky fight since the fellnight queen for the party, but I think they enjoyed it in the end. Vorwin ended up getting raised from the dead, but retiring to an advisory role back in the capital (Guy wanted to move on to a new character, but didnt feel right leaving Vorwin dead). May got brought back and kept adventuring. Name: Sylvia
The Gory Details: The party had been gifted the knowledge (via the aforementioned centaur ritual) that their target lay beyond the cyclops graveyard (not that they knew it by those terms, but eh). Upon nearing the end, they saw a shambling figure. Since it was clearly a zombie, they were not expecting a very hard fight, so were caught off-guard when it charged forwards and neatly beheaded Sylvia in a single blow (Battleaxe 3x crit....). She was swiftly brought back via Breath of Life from yet more gloves of first aid, but the party was running a mite low on those at this point... Name: Garreth
The Gory Details: Upon the trap being sprung, water started gushing into the room. Garreth went first, and noticed that the water was NOT smashing down into the corridor the party had come from. Hoping the buy time to think without being drenched, he moved back. Then the two cyclops zombies opened the secret doors they were hiding behind, right next to Garreth, and cut him down in a frenzy of blows. The rest of the party escaped via Dominic the Wizard, who shadowstepped the party through the bars blocking progress. They did return for Garreth's body some time later, and he was revived, but for a good day or two he was a slowly bloating waterlogged corpse. Name: May
The Gory Details: So I run KM for a party of 6, but I thought the 6 player conversion (where Vordakai has a melee monster Champion with him) might be a little too much. So I cut the difference and had him START alone, with the capacity to call up his champion if needed. After a long, hard battle with both sides taking significant damage/CC, Vordakai was forced to Dimension Door away to the Oculus chamber to heal himself. I had already decided that would also be where his champion was, guarding it - so the second half of the fight could still be a threat even with Vordakai low on spells. Here's where things went wrong for the party. They recognised that Vordakai had only cast DD, so they knew he couldnt have gone far. They had earlier found the secret door to the Oculus room, but had been unable to open it. They suspected it housed Vordakai's Phylactery (wrong) and that he had retreated when when he fled (right). They also knew he was weakened greatly. So it was that May (the healer), Dominic (The transport) and Areala (The Paladin) shadow-teleported down to chase him and finish him before he could heal himself up. Vordakai's Champion had issues with this plan, and tore bloody shreds out of May, killing her in a single round of horrendously damaging attacks. Thankfully for the party as a whole, Dominic could still do more shadow teleportation and got himself, Areala and May out of there. At which point May got slapped with their final Breath of Life from their final First Aid glove, JUST in time. The party eventually ended the Vordakai fight victorious, after a grueling 1.5 session long drag-out fight with both sides pretty much entirely running out of spells, having healed themselves up several times over, and with half the party incapacitated (though not dead). It was generally agreed to have been by far the most epic fight yet, and victory was truly hard-won. Exactly what I was aiming for. Honestly kind of proud of them. Name: Sylvia (Yes, again)
The Gory Details: The party was exploring hexes in the aftermath of Vordakai's destruction. Just seeking to expand their borders. When they ran into the giant fly trap, they had a little trouble in that it ate most of their frontliners, including Sylvia. Sylvia was actually still alive (though bleeding out) when the plant died, however her subsequent unconcious fall into a swift-flowing river as the thing collapsed was sadly the final blow. At this point, Sylvia finally got retired and was allowed her peace. Names: Zeke/Adram/Valdriel
The Gory Details: Continuing their explorations, the party (only 4 in number for this session) was convinced by their new ranger friend (Sylvia/Valdriel's player) to finish exploring the Njaarlmarch forest. While travelling on the very western edge of the forest (partially in the Hooktongue Slough) the party got a random encounter. Since it was pretty much in the slough, I used the 4th PDF. The dice gods laughed at the party, and the encounter ended up being 3 adult black dragons. Swiftly realising they were hopelessly outmatched, a call to scatter and try to hide was given. Zeke, bloodrager and worshipper of Apsu, stayed behind, swinging his mighty falchion, roaring defiance and trying to buy his friends some time. But alas though he dealt grievous wounds to one of the dragons, he fell swiftly. Valdriel fled atop her dire wolf companion, but though her companion was fast, a dragon on the wing is faster, and even HER stealth was insufficient to hide from a dragon's blindsense. Adram nearly got away - he made it out of sight of the dragons, but was caught by one that was attempting to find May, the 4th member of the party. He wounded it significantly, bringing it to deaths door.... at which point it flew up out of range and slowly melted him with its breath weapon over several minutes, as Adram realised he had no ranged weapon at all. The only survivor was May, the party healer oracle, who turned herself invisible with Kitsune magic and had the fortune not to come close enough to a dragon whilst fleeing that their blindsenses could kick in. I don't think anyone was expecting this encounter, but I dont think they will forget it any time soon. Plans are being established for dragon hunting, for revenge and to revive the fallen if at all possible. I have already decided these 3 shall be the ONLY black dragons in the swamp, and have named/otherwise fleshed they out. They shall be more than just a throwaway random encounter. They are Ilthuliak's Children, scourges of the Swamp and specifically tasked with hindering these pesky humans who are looking like they might actually succeed in civilising the area. Hopefully, it will be a suitably epic encounter.
You know, I'm starting to be concerned about the attrition rate of PCs right now. I didn't THINK I was a killer GM... Name: Countess Charlotte Medyved
Charlotte (or "Charlie" to friends) was the last active member of the original party that started this campaign, the rest having all either died or been religated to NPC status when players got bored of playing them/left the group. She was also rather impulsive. And so it was, that impatient to finish exlporing the Talonquake's cave after slaying the beast, she ran ahead of the party and explored by herself. As any seasoned adventurer can tell you, this is a Bad Idea. Anyway, she ended up exploring the thin passageway that leads between the Talonquake's room and the shambling mound's room, when the floor collapsed undeer her. She failed her reflex save, and tumbled 40ft into the slime at the base of the pit. Having already taken some con damage from the Violet Fungi earlier (due to having charged ahead of the tanks to explore the room), she didnt last long in the slime (2 rounds, to be precise). The nearest party member was over 50 ft away, and arrived too late to save her, or indeed any trace of the body - for green slime converts organic matter into more green slime. And so it was that she who would be Queen passed rather ignominiously from this world.
The party has finally finished off Rivers Run Red, but not without cost.. Name: Nikolai Volkov
So the party finally faced old Hargulka. They were doing pretty well. The paladin was tanking and dealing blows, Nikolai the gunamagus was blasting away, our two wizards were throwing various spells at him. Then one of the wizards throws a fireball. And Hargulka fails his save. And his necklace of fireballs fails ITS save. Well. The Paladin survived due to having enough hitpoints to not really care. Same with our tank/healer Oracle. Most of the rest of the party was far enough away they were not affected. But poor Nikolai was just a bit too close, and having already taken some damage in the fight (From Hargulka actually using one of his fireballs) he went past 0 hp and to about twice negative con. Ouch. So yeah, that's the first successful PK from a fellow PC in this campaign (But not my first with this group). After defeating the troll king (The huge explosion at throat height helped), the party headed back to town to get Nikolai reincarnated, only to find the town wrecked by the Talonquake. Still, they managed to get him reincarnated pretty quickly. Name: Nikolai Volkov
After reincarnating our heroic gunmagus (As a gnome), the party gathered up and set out to track down the beast responsible for wrecking their town. They got past the mushroms and spiders at the entrance with only moderate difficulty, and found a sleeping Talonquake. So they buffed up and started to fight it. It was going pretty well until Nikolai got caught out of position and inside the beast's reach. It wasn't actually focusing him, being more interested in the loud and dangerous paladin in its face, but he was in within its reach and could not easily get out. So he decides to just take his shots and tank the damage. He lifts his gun to fire and gets a claw to the face for his trouble, but he is still standing, and he fires a shot, doing moderate damage. He then reloads his gun. Its at this point that I started feeling guilty for having tampered with the Talonquake's statblock, and having given it Combat reflexes (In place of.... cleave? iirc?). Suffice to say, whilst he could tank one hit from it, two was right out. He was slain once again, for the second time within as many sessions. He has asked not to be reincarnated this time. I think the pain is getting too much to bear. So. They have some downtime ahead of them, then they are Going to be heading off to Varnhold. Should be fun.
Lee Hanna wrote:
Hmm. Thinking about it, there ARE a few NPCs not too far from here they are on good terms with. I could have one of them intervene. Of course, they may well end up losing the NPC in such a battle, but so are the risks of adventuring. Should allow me to do another dangerous fight without being a near certain death for the party.
Well, would you just LOOK at what time it is! Name: Sister Areala
The party finally mustered up the courage (and the levels) to try and take on the troll lair after their last attempt ended in them fleeing after running out of healing only 2 rooms in (this was back around level 5, so running was the best option). This time, they had a Paladin to tank for them, with plenty of lay-on-hands. They had a life oracle who could pour out frankly ridiculous levels of healing. They were strong, they were ready. They managed to fight their way through the first few rooms without too many issues. They took some damage, used some spells, but made it through just fine. Then they entered Nagrundi's room. I am using the 6-player conversion for my party, which is both large and experienced with pathfinder. In this conversion, Nagrundi got given the Giant template, making him approximately the same size as the room. The party actually initially mistakes him for the northern wall, though most notice him as soon as he starts moving. Nagrundi and the party trade many blows, but alas the party's luck turns sour. The gun magus, the highest dps in the party has his gun break on him on the second shot, then full on explode on his desperate 3rd attack. Still, they are whittling down the troll. Areala is doing a fine job, tanking every attack then getting healed back to max each turn. Sadly, one turn Nagrundi actually hit with EVERYTHING. 2 bites, 2 claws and a rend? It totalled around 90 damage. And it doesnt matter how much healing you may have if you are at -32 below zero. the next round the wizard finished off Nagruni with his 4th consecutive fireball. We ended the session there, with the party desperately trying to work out if they can get Areala's body to someone who can res her in time. Now, here I have a question for you, fellow Kingmakers. You see, one thing found in this troll lair that isnt in the normal one is Rigg Gargadilly. He was driven away from the ruined fort, but not killed, at around the same time Hargulka started looking for additional allies against these adventurers, and pretty much has joined them as a scout (mainly for the purpose of getting revenge on the gun-magus, who shot out his right eye). Now, Rigg was pretty close by when all this happened, and WILL be able to investigate/follow the party. The thing is, drained as they are right now of their tank, most of their spells and a large part of their healing, a Rigg coming against them when they next rest would.... probably kill them all. Or at least stand a good chance of it. But its what would realistically happen... So. Should I be kind, or killer?
Majuba wrote:
Ah. Upon reading it over, it seems my understanding of rend was flawed. I had not thought to interpret it that way, but it makes sense. Thank you for pointing this out to me. I was looking at as "when the rend procs, it hits with this effect (2 claws, Dealing x damage each). I'll make sure to use it like this in the future. It wouldn't have saved him though. He ended up something like -35hp after his aegis of protection procced.
Alas, another one bites the dust Name: El Vahlen
So I am sort of taking some ideas from the "Hargulka's kingdom" thread, and so there was a troll "ambassador" present on the lizard isle when the party arrived. I felt like making him a bit interesting and wierd, so he was a (low level) troll wizard. Abjurer, more specifically (I fear no acid!). Anyway, the party got into a fairly decent fight with the Lizard chief, Zaejin the troll mage, and the chief's pet caiman. The rest of the tribe were mostly infighting over who to help in this fight. So the party manages, with moderate difficulty, to take down the lizard chief. They kill the caiman, and at last only the troll remains. At this point, the troll is looking for a way out, and actually talking to the party (Troll wizard, smarter than normal trolls). El had done a lot of damage to the troll over the course of the battle, and decided now was a great time to taunt the troll. The troll says something along the lines of "Do that again, and I gut you". El does it again. A full attack from a powerattacking troll (Meaning a bite, two claws, then two rending claws) later, El Vahlen is looking at 69 damage in a single round, and he wasnt at full health before this. (one of the reasons he was taunting so confidently is that he took an entire attack combo from this troll the round before, but back THEN the troll wasn't powerattacking, and one of his abilities was active giving him DR5. Also the troll rolled badly then) The Party Magus gunman then crit Zaejin with a spellstrike'd death bullet for about 100 or so damage, disintegrating much of his torso Anyway. This is why you dont taunt physically powerful foes who are in melee range of your when you have 11 ac and 20 something hps. it rarely ends well. ...On an unrelated note, Zaejin the troll mage still isnt dead. He openly said "I am an abjurer, and I fear no fire!". At which point the party used nothing but acid attacks against him. Guess what he -actually- took resistance to that day?
Once more, I list a fallen companion.
Shadisomethingsomething was our latest acquisition, a shadowy (literally - the guy was a fetchling) Arcane Trickster rogue with a perchant for being absolutely, stupidly good at stealth. He had only recently joined the party (Played by the same guy who ran Illimaer, a previous death, but who had only just had time to come back to the group after an extended absence). The party was attempting to take on the Ruined Keep after hearing about it from several sources. Shadi decides to go ahead and scout things out. So, first off he failed to notice, then failed to dodge, the falling portcullis, which smashes down onto him, and deals fairly nasty damage. But that's fine, he gets healed back up, and the party lifts the portcullis and all enter with him. Then, he gets stealthy and sneaks off to explore more. Now, Rigg is sitting around watching the PCs at this point. He fails to notice where Shadi went at first, but DOES notice him when he opens the door to Rigg's tower. Rigg, being right next to him, stabs the guy as his surprise round. Rigg then wins initiative, stabs Shadi again, and bounces off to hide elsewhere in the keep. At this point, Shadi is fairly majorly hurt, and bleeding, but he's still got plenty of life in him. In order to make sure he will be fine, he casts invisiblity on himself so he is even harder to detect. It is around this point that the poison from Rigg's blade kicks in, and he falls unconscious. Here's the thing. The party knows this guy is near impossible to see. They have no way or reason to know that he is unconscious, and just assume he is being sneaky. Due to being invisible and generally hard to see, Shadi has something like a +65 to steath right now. As such, none of the party notice him, at all. All the while, Shadi slowly, slowly, agonisingly slowly bleeds to death in the middle of the courtyard, un-noticed by any. I think it took about 15 rounds all told, and they STILL didn't kill Rigg by the time it was over. (Note: I thought spells like invisibility wore off upon death, but my players themselves assured me this was not the case. OOC, the players knew what was going on, but they are pretty good at keeping metaknowledge out of play, and the biggest proponent against metaknowledge being used was Shadi's player themselves)
Got another one for you all. Name: Lady Celestine
So the party had heard rumours that, somewhere in the hills, there was a barrow from which undead poured out each night. They had also gotten a map from the mad hermit showing the location of said barrow, and mention of a magical flail... Now, Lady Celestine was very, very fond of flails. So of course, they head over to take a look. The breath of despair trap hits Celestine and the party bard, and they of course get swarmed by skeletons. However, having a cleric in the party with channel energy..... yeah, those skeletons got wiped out fast. Emboldened by their easy victory, the party ventures further in to the tomb. And then they meet the Lonely Warrior. He starts calling them graverobbers, defilers, monsters etc, and though some in the party are calling for retreat (On the basis of having used several powerful spells already this day before remembering they had channel energy), Celestine notices the flail, and challenges the Warrior for it. As those who read the guy's backstory might have guessed, this is not something he appreciates. Anyway, the fight initially looks like it is going the party's way. Between Lady Celestine and the cleric's animal companion, they get the Warrior down to about half health in a single round. However, they then proceed to miss him. On every attack. For 4 rounds. During this time, the Warrior is steadily whacking away at Lady Celestine, barely missing a single hit. And those negative levels start to add up.... The bard tries to dash past the Warrior to cast invisibility on Celestine, hoping it might save her, but takes an AoO (She was willing to eat the attack if it meant saving her friend). Unfortunately? It was a crit, and enough to (just) take the bard out of action. Then it's the warrior's turn again. And he crits again. And down falls Lady Celestine. Too many negative levels are bad for your health, it seems... The truly sad part is that the animal companion finally manages to roll well the next turn, and the Warrior falls at last. if that had occured but one turn earlier.... And then to finish everything off, she cannot even rest in peace. Knowing that she would shortly rise against them, the party had no choice but to pretty much destroy her body as fast as possible before she rose as a Wight. There is no rest for Lady Celestine. Only oblivion...
Name: Vivian Orlovsky
The few survivors a few turns later decide to leg it. Vivian, who had the travel domain and longstrider cast, (and who was thus really fast) decides to chase down one of the bandits as they flee. The rest of the party, figuring that she was going to be fine and that she was faster than them anyway, left her to it. About 200 feet away from camp (In the dark, out of sight of everyone else), the bandit notices his pursuer, and realises he cannot outrun her. So he turns and makes a stand. One max damage attack roll later, and Vivian is at 0 HP. One successful will save from the bandit later (She tried to use a spell to stop him striking her again), and it's his turn again. He swings, and Vivian falls. After looting the body, the bandit escaped and continued plaguing the party for some time to come (he got some class levels out of it) before being slain alongside his master when the Stag Lord's fort fell. Name: Illimaer, Marshall of Sanctum
So I tell the party they find no tracks, but do see a nice herd of Elk. I figure this will just be a little flavourful encounter, something to liven up the world. The party goes "Oh, well we needed some food/exp/fun anyway" and go closer. The leader of the herd, a big bull Elk, moves forwards as they approach, bugling a challenge to the party and warning them to back off. The cleric (A Vivian who had been arduously brought back via prolonged RPing and some lucky rolls) casts Animal Trance, catching the bull and one of the other males. At this point, the herd is mainly just wary of the party. They dont even realise the cleric has done anything (after all, the bull is still standing there and all). Then the ranger (Ilimaer) pulls out his bow and starts shooting. Now, Elk are not especially aggressive or brave, but hey, they are big, powerful creatures, and the damage done was not much. I make a morale save for them, and they decide to charge instead of flee from these annoying huntsmen. After the elk charge deals moderate damage across the board, and noting that the elk seem more irritated by the minor damage from the arrow, the party wisely decides to run away. This works, and the elk do not pursue. Except for Ilimaer. He decides that instead of fleeing, he wishes to leap from his horse, and try to land on one of the elk. I believe he must have intended to then ride it away, in what would have been a pretty impressive maneuver. Sadly for him, the dice gods frowned that day, and a nat 3 on the acrobatics check later, and he is prone on the floor next to the elk. At this point my head is in my hands, but he brought this upon himself. The elk then mostly surround him, and slowly start to kick him to death. The party tries to save him (channel energy from a distance, a ride by attempt to pick him up, out of the elk herd) but it gets to his turn with him still stuck and partly surrounded. Seeing little other option, he stands up, provoking 4 attacks. 2 hit, and one is a crit from the bull Elk. Goodbye, Illimaer. You will be remembered. |
