We are at the end of Book 5 of Extinction Curse, in the encounter before the fight against the BBEG of that book. They were really prepared to fight the Boss, they did managed their resources really well. But a bunch of bad choices and the will of the die were all against them. It was a Moderate encounter against one creature APL+0 and two APL-2, after some two other Moderate fights and some skill challenges.
Spoilers ahead.
Specifics about that fight spoiler:
Thanks to the witch they found out that the enemy had a lot of AoOs and their weakness with some good Recall Knoledge checks, she used one of her spells that would use those weaknesses, but the Mini Boss did a critical save. The cleric started the fight casting a really good spell, but he forgot that one of the Mini Boss's minions could counter his positive spells, and that little prick got a really good roll and that spell did nothing. The monk them buffed herself and did half a Stride ahead. The rogue used more Recall Knowledge, finding out all the creature other abilities, and did some sneak attack with his bow. So far so good.
The minions, two Graveknights that they already foght before, used their breath-like weapon and did some damage to some of them. Nothing really bad, because they usen potions of energy resistance before and half of them had Evasion. The Mini Boss, a Marilith, used Blade Barrier cutting the monk from the rest of the group.
Without a line of sight, the witch had to use her familiar to target the enemies behind the wall, the Mini Boss got a nat20 and the minions got a sucess. The cleric decided to cross the Blade Barrier, got damaged in the process, and casted a spell that again the Mini Boss rolled really well. The Mini Boss is now slowed 1 for one round. The rogue decided to activate his wings and hide behind the wall. The monk activated her Skinstone in order to tank the fight.
Minions proceed to attack the cleric and the monk, Mini Boss was slowed and did only a crit in the cleric. Now the cleric was surrounded by three enemies that they already knew that had AoO, and two of them could nulify their positive spells.
The group proceeded to shove the minions around to toss them inside the Blade barrier, which did really good damage. The problem was that the cleric was low in HP, casting no spells because of fear to take several AoOs and the posibility to have his spells countered. Even worse, one of the minions that was inside of the Blade Barrier end up changing target. You see, I use to randomly choose who the enemy will target when the best choice isn't obivious, by rolling a dice. And the dice told us that that enemy would go after the witch that was left alone behind the Blade Barrier wall.
At this moment, everything went straight down. The witch was alone with one of the minions, part because the party shove it that way and part because the dice said so. Without much else to do, at least I don't know what else she could do, she used a Desintegrate and the enemy was still alive after that. The cleric was down and the rogue spent two rounds givin him those really big healing potions. The monk continued to shove around enemies. Everyone let the witch alone with a enemy again.
The minion with the witch knocked her out and crossed the Blade barrier again. At this point, the Blade Barrier did the most damage that the enemies took. They both got away from the wall so they could not be shoved again in a single atempt. The Mini Boss attacked everyone. The cleric would die due to Wounded/Dying, but used a ability to "stop" the damage until next turn.
No one went to save the witch, the Rogue almost managed kill one of the minions (who was at 20% of his HP due the Blade Barrier), and even thou the Monk was the one who has the means to exploit the Mini Boss weakness she continued only attacking other minion. The witch died, people used their hero points.
The cleric died because the damage he stoped has finaly arrived, no hero points left.
They decided to flee. The rogue, due some shenanigans, managed to "steal" the cleric body and had enough movement to fly above the Blade Barrier. The monk managed to cross the Blade barrier and got the witch's body(a leshy) inside the bag of holding.
The enemies managed to hit the rogue enough to knock him out, right above the Blade barrier, dying 2. The enemies all crossed the Barrier taking damage, they are barely alive.
The monk grabed the rogue, managed to dodge some AoOs and got away.
End of the spoilers.
They failed the mission, and we already had decided that they got only one chance. The McGuffing that they need to use to "save the world" is now lost. I told them that, if they want, they could continue the adventure without the possibility to get the Good Ending, but they could at least achieve the Not So Bad Ending. Only the cleric was really dead at the end, but they could ress him after they flee from the BBEG vicinity. Whitout the full party there is no way to beat the enemies. It's a technical TPK.
It was our 79th session in this campaign, that we started in March of 2020. That was 15 months ago!! The group was level 17.
I really don't know what I want with this post. I feel sad. We don't know yet if we want to continue this adventure, even thou we had so much fun playing it. We loved the circus part. We were looking forward to next session because we were going to Plane Shift to the domain of Pharasma in order to perform for her!(that was a homebrew thing, a side quest they decided they want to do)
The witch's player is sad because his character is always going down in the fights, and the group can't manage to find a way to prevent this. It's not a character/mechanic problem, it's a players problem.
I'm DMing to them for almost 3 years now. One of them want to DM a little bit, maybe something small. We are defilitely going to take a break. We may or may not get back in this adventure. They could try to get the Not So Bad Ending, or we could do a "Different Timeline" with other characters.
So, I’m here because my players want to let the internet know how wicked are their minds. They can’t believe that a good part of the internet doesn’t even like the circus aspect of the circus AP. I’m aswell excited to share with you all the story of our table.
We are level 12 and we did our 52th session on last Friday, reaching a 7 month mark of game duration. We are at the beginning of Book 4, just outside of the town. Those maniacs do Circus Shows every time they can. “Ow, our people need about a week to prepare to the next show. Lets go up that tower to see what is inside it. Maybe we find something nice to bring to our Circus.” That is basically their minds. The only reason to adventure, is to find nice things to perform with. Yeah, there is that problem with the evil guys, but that is just the background noise of their Circus Shows.
*Note that we do bend some rules when we see fit, as well as we change some official lore.
We had other characters in our group. Two players had to stop, one player retired his character and came up with a new one. Today we are:
Yarbush Peeweey-Paldreen, a mute gnome Bard. He communicates with the power of the dance!! That little thing took every Multilingual Feat EVER. He has that gnome thing with languages, and that linguist archetype too. We wave it and now he’s basically is under the Tongues spell. I’m certain that I’ll regret it. Yeah, if you look closely to his name you can see that he’s married with someone from Book 2. More on that later.
Torako, a human cat-like monk girl. She has the animal trainer feat, and Shinkiro is her pet cat. She has the Cleric dedication too, and she is based in the Egyptian religion. Bastet is her goddess. Something something, she decided to get a baby with some old dude from a library in Book 2. Now she is 5 months pregnant and everybody loses their minds when she is knocked out in battle. She is the one that often is responsible for the bad things happening with the group. But we love her still.
Krav, a lizardfolk war cleric of Sarenrae. She/he is complicated. Wants to eat everything they set their eyes on. In their first session and first circus act, they had an egg/baby in the ring as the main act. Our tank healer that is our first and last defense line. When she/he drops, we know that the s$#% just had hit the fan. He has the Champion dedication and the medic dedication. She is the reason why we have so many ex-bad people in the Circus. Always forgiving and handing out redemption to people.
Lorelai, a human imperial sorcerer. Her power comes from her ancestral, so nothing better than making her always surrounded by ghosts and spirits. She was our first PC death in some farmer house, in Book 3. She is our ring master, always ready to manipulate people. She loves to electrocute bad guys and exploding their heads with magic missile, and just started to experiment with Battle Form spells.
They really like to perform the circus acts. Sure, I did some changes to those rules because… Gosh, they suck. But we started our campaign by the book. We now do themed shows. We did a musical play that told a story about the great earthfall… With a lot of poetic license. They did a mix between Noah’s Ark and Aroden Ascension. Since our circus is always bringing people back from the dead, with hero points or resurrection rituals, they want to do a private show to Pharasma. Our cleric is going to take Plane Shift next level and I don’t know what to do (yet).
Now I would like to talk about some spoilery things.
Book 1:
-First of all, their first show was a critical success. Yeah, they did it by the book.
-They captured the Daring Danika’s lion, and the Champion took it as his mount. We rule it as a horse with a lion skin.
-They let Harlock die. Yeap. They had to flee from that battle or else we would have had a TPK.
-In the tower, our monk and our champion was been seduced by the Succubus. They had a three way. Later that day they fought the Xulgath in the top of the tower. The battle was almost lost when the champion as struck by a Crisis of Faith, and then he sworn allegiance to the Succubus. That saved everyone life. That character left the group, fleeing with the Succubus, and the cleric Krav joined the party.
Book 2:
-We were building up Dusklight rivalry from the beginning. It was meant to go wrong. They did this book in every possible wrong order. But we had such wonderful scenes.
-The first thing they did was to break in the Dusklight circus. Our monk, invisible, walked around and found those cages with the Pegasus, Driad and Manticore. Against our group cries, she decided to pick a fight against Andrivallo. That went down very fast. Luckly she managed to flee.
-Dusklight then went to the guard and said that Torako was trespassing, and after some questioning, that went ok with just a verbal warning.
-After some time, the players decided to look at the local they were giving to clean. Well. Let’s say they did an awful job. In that moment I decided to introduce a flat d20 roll. 5 or less, the worst thing happens. 10 or less, a bad thing happens but its manageable. 15 or less, a good thing happens with a little drawback. 20 or less, the best thing ever happens. We roll and we find out that Eliza was attacked and eaten by the wolves. Krav managed to preserve her corpse, and that was the first NPC that the party had let it die.
-Some session after that and they encountered Kalkek, the Great Barghest. What if I tell you those d!#&%eads managed to befriend it and they made a deal to get revenge from Dusklight. That almost went wrong in so many ways, yet they managed it. The dice was in their favour.
-In order to get access to Moonlight Hall, in a completely wrong order, they did their research in the library. Torako learned that Sir Ohlarick was the last person of his lineage. Somehow that touched Torako’s heart an she decided to get pregnant with his baby. Yeap. With a virility ritual later, she was bearing his seed. Eew. At leats the old man teached them how to Resurrect. Elizia was brought back a few sessions after that. She had no arms or legs. But she was alive. In the future they gave her some magic prostetics.
-After their first show, with the Dusklight goons doing their sabotage, they did a chase scene!! They run against them and stopped them in the middle of the street, with so many people around watching them. Then, Torako arrived with Kalkek and his wolfs. That was a slaughter. They killed a man in the street, surrounded by witnesses. When the guard came by, they thought that the group was fighting the Barghest, but Torako told the truth. In that moment the entire group was arrested by murder…
-Long story short, they escape from prison (another awesome chase-like scene) and laid low as the rest of the circus fled the city to hide from Dusklight. They spend like a week in Kalkek cave. They really bonded with that terrible creature. Did I mentioned that they, without knowing, let Kalkek devour that ratfolk girl Fidget? They didn’t notice that it was a ratfolk, they thought it was simply a giant rat or a wererat. Yeap, they did that.
-Before they even did they first show in Escadar, they already delved in the Moostone Hall. I told youm they did it in the completely wrong order. And I didn’t change any combat encounter. But now they had Kalkek, and they told him that they will let him eat the soul of every bad guy they find there. That Bhargest turn those encounters into jokes. But it was fun.
-In the Celestial Menagerie I did some horrible things. O told my players every bad thing that Dusklight did with the people there. They could not let her live. By the end of the book, the deal they made with Kalkek was fulfilled. Kalkek eat Dusklight corpse and soul. He was sated.
-During the whole time, Krav, a Sarenrae cleric of redemption, tried to convert Kalkek into a little less evil guy. And, again, the dice was in their favor. I got a whole thing about the Barghest’s nefarious plans. Their goodness changed him. After moonstone hall, Kalked acquired the taste of demon blood. I changed his Barghest Evolutions and he became a Demon Hunter. Devil May Cry style. He even took Givzib with him. Now they travel the world eating demons. I give Krav the possibility to cast Summon Fiend, but only to bring Kalkek or Givzib to their side. Sarenrae approved a pair of repented fiends.
-Since they first met, our Bard Peeweey, being a Bard, flirted with Andera Paldreen. They stayed in Escadar for a while. As a good DM, in their last day in the city, I asked Peeweey to Roll to Seduce! And that little prick got a nat20. Paldreen fell in love with that little chaotic man. She found a passion she never had. She then decided to run away with the circus. She already was tired of her job, almost retiring… She married with the bard. The wedding was celebrated by Krav, in the middle of the Big Top, the day before they left to Kerrick…
Book 3:
-This book was convoluted to me. It seems that we went really slow in a lot of sessions.
-First of all, my players believed that Opper Vandy was a vampire. I don’t know if they really thought that or they were joking on me.
-You know that group of ruffian kids that was supposed to attack the circus? Well, in my table they are two little brothers, Anylla and her boyfriend. Torako decided to adopt the little 2 kids with some dice luck. The older girl and the boy didn’t want to stay with them and they let them go. In the future they find out that Anylla died some days after that and that her soul was taken by someone. Somehow, I don’t remember why, but those little 2 boys I mentioned, turned into creepy kids. Do you know that creepy twins from The Shining? So, like that. Those kids are into dead stuff, and they started to worship Anubis/Pharasma.
-Lorelai died in the Old Currew Place. She rolled a double 1 on her Phantasmal Killer saves. We had no Hero Points. They used their all of their gold to buy diamonds. The ritual almost backfired an they lost everything. Then, using her sheer will (and some tears OOC. She was not online in the moment of her death. They used all their Hero Points in the Circus Show) Lorelai took control of her Ancestral Souls and found a recently passed away body. As a haunt, she managed to possessed this body. After some time she realized that she was inhabiting a dead shell. The corpse was rotting. She was in need of a fresh body.
-They are good(ish) guys. They can’t kill innocent people. Right? So they decided to find a bad guy, kill it, and took its body so Lorelai could stop stinking. She wanted a woman’s body. A powerful and bad-guy woman body. They then found out that there is a gang nearby. Some “Bitter truth bandits” or something. In the end they couldn’t do it and became friends with her. The groups, out of the pure good, saved Tanessa’s brother. They decided to hire the bandits as Circus Bouncers.
-In some moment they found that sprite, the Master of the Skies. Man, they hated him from the start. They decided to help the spider to kill that little thing, but he managed to escape. Unfortunately they met and fought the Yaganty, then tracked his house, and trashed the place. They then proceed to blame it on the sprite… Yeap. They are d~$@%eads.
-The fight against Skarja was so sad… The only thing that I remember is that Lorelai exploded her head with Magic Missiles, and that they broke the heartstone in order to free the soul of Anylla. The girl’s spirit smiled back to the group and asked them to let her soul rest. And so they did.
-The Spring Tower was a disaster. They fought their way in, a character was brought back 3 times in the same sessions with hero points, they give up and fled the alchemical golems fight. They decided to climb the outside of the tower. They took the resonance but they botched with the machine. Everything exploded.
-Liferoot Stone Tower was worse. They had almost 3 TPKs there… The worst part was Torako climbing the tower by herself and being attacked by that mole thing. That whole tower was deadly.
-And them we came to Old Forest Tower… Krav and Torako were captured by Ginjana as they were Dying 3. Lorelai got away using Dimensional Door. Peeweey used invisibility and fly to escape. Half the team was down. Ginjana stabilized them so she could do her experiments with their brains. What they could do? They went back to the circus and prepared an attack. They did a Siege. We basically used circus-like rules, but rather than gaining prestige/money, we distracted the xulgath army so a more tactical group could rescue then. We loved it.
-Their friends were safe now… But at what cost? A lot of injured circus performers. Mordaine was dead. The three Sirens of the Spheres died aswell. And Elizia, for the second time, was dead too.
-After they defeat Thessaka, Krav tried to redeem the weak Xulgaths of their crimes and sins. That lizarkfolk of course was succefull in a Hard check above its level. Now they have 22 xulgaths that want to live in society with the surface dwellers. They arranged so they could stay in Old Currew Place, since folk didn’t want to approach that hunted land, and now those xulgaths are good members of society.
-They, ofcouse, did a last show in Turpin Rowe. I decided to do this place like a totally capitalist and patriarchal city, with bearded and overly masculine man bossing around. They announce their show as a Macho-Beer-Derby Circus Act, but they delivered a emotional-socialist and woman-empowering show. They got a critical success overall. Now Turpin Rowe got a revolution in their hands…
Ow… That is it. I hope someone read that and had a good time. As always, sorry for the broken English, It’s not my first language. If you see something I can improve on, either in grammar or story-wise, let me know.
