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This year at Dork Weekend (combo'd with my bachelor party):
The party consisted of:
Elven Rogue CN - Weapon Finesse fighter with rapier.
Human Paladin LG - Tien, permanently enlarged, with greatsword.
Dwarf Barbarian CG - Elemental Totem, beardless *gasp* dwarf with dwarven greataxe and shield.
Human Bard CG - Savage Skald
Halfling Cleric CG - Geared towards party support.
Half-orc Sorceress LN - 'The Hotness' - very high charisma and also took the 'pass for human' feat.
The party traveled to Glimerhold under the pretenses of trade as we were members of the Andoran Steel Falcons. We did well at the bridge fight, the paladin managed to one hit/destroy a doomguide. The bard stood atop the first cart bravely preventing any of the doomguides from targeting the children on the cart (thank goodness for mirror images), he bravely tells the people to also hide under the carts and eventually glitterdusted any doomguides on the bridge. The rogue does a little bit of damaged, at one point, becomes feared, jumps in the water and then eventually comes back out, he manages to kill at least one blind doomguide on the bridge. The paladin manages to channel alignment against the doomguides and the mounts if they were on the bridge. The sorceress contributed by jumping into the water to save a civilian, dimension door them to the walls, then either lightning bolted or magic missled many of the doomguides that are in the air. One doomguide managed to make it through the city gate (it was open just wide enough due to the press of the people, the airwalking barbarian who in the whole time was trying to keep the door open, followed it and destroyed it. The cleric managed to breath of life on one civilian who died and took pot shots with his merciful xbow on the doomguides.
The party is invited to stay at the city, the paladin, rogue, and cleric (Team A) goes into the city to sell items and causes a commotion by healing people with all of their remaining channels and lay on hands. Thereby spreading the word of Desna and Iomedae, they get told off by the city guards. The other half, barbarian, bard, and sorceress (Team B), goes to a bar to learn of the rumors from other visitors to the city. The party then go back to their rooms to get ready for the banquet and they meet their contact.
The banquet scenario went okay, half the party, Team A, refuses to swear fealty, the other half, Team B, does bend their knee. The diplomacy checks aplenty as the nobility talk to the party, the halfling cleric flubbing it talking about spreading the ideals of Desna of freedom, liberation... freeing all the people of slavery and tyranny, but the noble's roll flubbed also, so they kinda heard the first part and starts to ignore the halfling... awwww, how cute, he's trying to speak. The perform check, the bard almost wins, but his middle and end performance wasn't enough, particularly when the king brings out the dragon's skull... Other thing of note, the sorceress tries doing the read surface thoughts, the vizier doesnt' take too kindly of it, and does it right back.
Then the fun part starts, we all were lucky not to be drinking at the moment, but half the party lost their gold. Half the party at least is getting offered gems to participate in the quest. The group mounts forth (we forget to ask much questions other than going to the monastery). After several days of treacherous traveling, and one sound based flying creature (we killed it as it was in midair flying over us, we had to dive out of the way from the falling body) encounter later. We airwalked/dimension doored our way to the top of the mountain. Looking for a place to stay, we open the doors to the monastery to find a place to camp. The large siege engine pit had three 'special' giant creatures that we weren't fooled and combat begins. The great thing is the cleric had a special power that prevented us from being grappled... it was a good thing too when we found out later what the giants did to those who grappled. We killed two, the last one was 'suggested' to go out the side door.
The giant lumbered out the door and attracted the attention of four manticores, and thus began combat. We didn't see the combat except for the rogue who went over there invisible and had a good laugh. End result, the giant grabs one of the manticores, swallowed it, eventually spewing its corpse back out at the others in a wave negative energy, one of the manticores sacrifices itself and bullrushes it off the cliff, and they fall to their deaths. The remaining two manticores looking for a place to rest goes into the room where we're waiting. Two readied actions of glitterdust, feebleminding one, the charging barbarian and paladin takes out both manticores... Poor manticores, they went through so much.
We didnt' get far when the monastery started transforming and we managed to get inside into... the furnace room. First part, we see the fire elemental swarms... the bard casts enthrall and it... works! Then came the Huge fire elementals from the cauldrons. Eeep! But wait, it works on one (for now). The fight is on, eventually the other snaps out of it, but the second elemental bites it and then the third fire elemental comes out to fight! Oh no.. but the enthrall holds him for the round since he enters the enthrall. Wow, enthrall and their bad will saves really helped! Then, Helrune speaks for parley and we agreed. After hearing her position, we decide to possibly agree and to get off the monastery to rest, and get to the city before her to maybe take on the hydra. We camp, level up and detect that we're being scryed. We teleport back to the city, talk to our contact, relay to the king what's going on and given extra supplies... like adamantine weapons.
We let the monastery construct fight the hydra, and once it got into range, we made a mad dash expenditure of 6 rounds getting buffed, and then dimension door (bard and sorceress casting) into the furnace room (teleporting into a giant guard, the rogue and cleric ending up on the other side of the door... eep! The giant grabs the barbarian... who had freedom of movement on. Running fight to get the door open and fight off the elementals, we run through the door, arcane lock it. And then moved forth to engage Helrune. That was a running fight with specters, blade barrier, enervation, dispel magics, flying around. We take her down and as we stand in triumph, the king makes his move. He chooses the party's healer since taking the halfling down would probably make it easier to kill the rest of the party. Too bad he didn't know the cleric had true seeing as one of the spells in preparation and saw the 'invisible' king come at him, the king misses and attempts to get away, a casting of invisibility purge and... well, it didn't end well for the king.
Aftermath, the king wasn't dead, dead, just unconscious so we strip him of his items, healed him. With him in custody, we aided the rebellion going on in the city during the construct siege, and made him first volunteer himself to undergo the spell of atonement, have him abdicate his throne, and then send him to exile with the quest of killing the mistbreather vizier who had since fled the city. We went about to try and establish a government friendly to Andora (possibly a representational government?).
Well, that's this years' scenario for dork weekend. Hopefully, this tradition continues, I wonder what module will be used for next year.
Things learned: Mass Feather steps is a great spell. The enthrall spell can actually make a huge difference. The cleric power of Freedom's call, that and Freedom of Movement, made a huge difference against the grappling monsters and just overall is good to have.
Thing that was iffy: Intangible creatures, can you run through them? One of the characters was cut off from the rest of the party and decided to run through. Not exactly a bull-rush, but...