Juan Holmes's page

PC: Revion Faelandaerl, Half-elf Ranger
Adventure: The Whispering Cairn
Location: Submerged Showers in the Lair of the Laborers
Catalyst: Fear of Drowning
Long Description:
At this point, the party was 7 strong, with one fighter and one barbarian. So I had adjusted things to keep approximately the same difficulty level while also making sure to keep the same ratio of enemy attacks-per-round to player attacks-per-round. If I remember right, this meant adding another small elemental and upgrading the ghoul to a ghast.

Then the barbarian decided to go down alone to scout while being tied to a rope. He almost died before tugging the rope, and having no control of how the party pulled him out, took more AOO damage on the way out, but survived and did manage to kill one of the elementals. The ghast didn't make itself gnown at this point. Then the party decided to go back in after partially healing him, but the fighter, a dwarf in heavy armor, decided he was afraid of swimming. And the mage and bard decided to stay out as well to help pull on the ropes the cleric and barbarian have tied to them.

So, half the party is fighting a battle that was balanced for the full party, has killed the elemental, and has done enough damage to the ghast that he is starting to use hit-and-run tactics. He's decided to circle around the central column and get the cleric, who has been lagging slightly behind and has failed one turn attempt, deciding that "turn" is his biggest danger. The group, in turn, makes the very wrong assumption that the ghast is running away and the barbarian gets even further from the group as he swims at barbarian speed further into the showers to look for it. And then the ranger decides that he doesn't have much air left and panics. Despite me telling him how many "breaths" he has left, he did his own math and decided I was wrong and starts heading back to the entrance without waiting for the rest of the group to respond to his signal.

The ghast can't pass up the opportunity and ambushes him from above. There's a SLIGHT possibility the ranger could have survived by going totally defensive, but not much. No one else had time to get back to the ranger before the ghast killed him, but the cleric did get close enough to see and to attempt another turn, failing again. Ulavant made sure that the cleric saw him rip the ranger's throat out for it.

Note that I decided that the original ghoul was supposed to be a lacedon, the aquatic cousin of a ghoul that only differs by having a swim speed, and I kept that swim speed when I upgraded to a ghast. It's possible that that was making the encounter harder than it should have been.

PC: Saamus Woodbeard, Human Druid
Adventure: The Whispering Cairn
Location: The Passage of the Face
Catalyst: Stupidity/Bravado
Long Description:
The party had set off the trap, but were having a hard time with climb checks to go down, especially while trying to lower the druid's wolf companion. Every other party member was either on the chain or clinging to the wall in the shaft to avoid the wind while waiting for someone to get off the chain. Despite the fact that it was obvious that the DC for the wind was higher than the climb DC, and even though the campaign is PBEM so that it was explicitly spelled out, the character still misinterpreted something and tried to stand in the tunnel opening waiting for his turn on the chain. He fell and died, and the character that tried to catch him fell as well, but lived.

PC (sorta): Pip, animal companion to Saamus Hain
Adventure: The Whispering Cairn
Location: Hall of Honor
Catalyst: Newb?
Long Description:
Despite as many hints as I could possibly give without coming right out and saying, "If you do that, he's going to die", the druid sent his familiar to scout ahead. The party had stopped at the opening of the tomb to light a torch, so the wolves knew they were coming and set an ambush. With the den smell overpowering the smell of an individual wolf until it was too late, the ferret walked right into the jaws of the lead wolf.

PC:
Saamus Hain, Human Druid.
Noroc Boyat, Human Monk.
Gulden Mazzlepan, Gnome Illusionist.
Adventure: The Whispering Cairn.
Location: Gallery of Seven Lanterns.
Catalyst: Pettiness caused a missing fighter.
Long Description:
The party was still damaged from fighting the wolves.

The primary fighter went down the elevator under the yellow lantern. Everyone else was discussing possible repercusions and chances of it being a trap, and wanted to turn the dias all the way around to see if anything else happened, so he called them all cowards and jumped in. His companions, not giving time for the elevator to come back up, turn the dais. Partially, they assumed that they had to turn it to get the elevator to come back up. But the speed of their reaction was an act of "serves him right", figuring that if he got trapped or killed down there, he shouldn't have jumped in calling them names anyway.

When the ground started rumbling under the green lantern, they stood back and let it complete. The druid and monk died by the beetles and slasher, before getting a chance to use fire against them. The gnome went insane, took out one of his flasks of oil, doused himself and the beetles on him, and prepared to die (despite the fact that I had told him a way that he could manage to escape if he turned and ran). He killed some of the beetles, but ended up surviving both rounds. So, on the second round, still at least a little on fire, he decided to charge the slasher with his gnome hook hammer, tripped, and impaled himself on the hook (crit fumble and only had one hitpoint left).

The backup party eventually saved the fighter, so he's still around, for now. He did manage to push over the block and survive the gas trap, but technically should have been killed by the strangler. As the fighter passed out, I had the strangler let go, thinking that if the fighter lived, he may find a way out, thereby letting the strangler out as well.