I like the Blue Rider idea, that's clever. Did you come up with that on the spot, or plan it in advance?
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Thanks! I came up with it on the spot. The witch and skald, who are a couple, I made the Red and Black Riders respectively as I felt that it fit their personalities the best. The magus became the White Rider thanks to her temperament, and her lover was one of the ones who also wanted to be a rider. She's a bloodrager from Triaxius and I felt that, being winterborn, blue would be an appropriate color for her. It also complemented the magus as the White Rider which was a factor. The bloodrager was a former dragon rider and I plan on her mount being a dragonkin instead of a horse.
Name: Kiriae
Race: Suli
Classes/levels: Pyro-kineticist 1
Adventure: The Snows of Summer
Location: High Sentinel Lodge
Catalyst: Split the party
The Gory Details:
The party, having successfully navigated all the traps and ambushes leading up to the lodge, scoped it out with confidence. Little did they know that the bandit that had escaped them earlier had warned the raiders of their coming, and that surprise was not on their side. Kiriae took up position near the stable to blast from range, but bad rolls and a surprise ambush meant that she probably should have gone inside with the melee fighters.
Name: XIII
Race: Human (Taldan)
Classes/levels: Monk [Monk of the Empty Hand] 1
Adventure: The Snows of Summer
Location: High Sentinel Lodge
Catalyst: Trying to be a hero
The Gory Details:
XIII decided to try to wrestle half-orc cook Ten-Penny Tacey through the window of the kitchen, but failed miserably. Hearing Kiriae and Lulem (Aasimar Druid)call for help, XIII rushed over to help them, throwing his body in front of them to shield them from harm. Unfortunately, there was nobody there to protect him from harm.
Name: Maldrek
Race: Daemon-spawn Tiefling
Classes/levels: Unchained Rogue [Chameleon] 1
Adventure: The Snows of Summer
Location: High Sentinel Lodge
Catalyst: A cool stunt and poor rolls
The Gory Details:
Maldrek and Gofud (Half-orc Inquisitor) stormed the lodge, but they took several rounds to make meaningful headway against the enemies. Several rounds in, Maldrek saw XIII, Kiriae and Lulem facing certain death outside. The tiefling threw himself through a window to help - and he would have, had he not rolled a 1 on the attack roll to backstab a raider. Instead, he landed on his face and was torn to shreds by the merciless bandits.
wern't they supposed to be level 2 when they reach the lodge? That no doubt would have helped.
wern't they supposed to be level 2 when they reach the lodge? That no doubt would have helped.
Going by the exp for the listed encounters (I added it up), they would have reached level 2 after the battle with Rohkar - but they had also bypassed an encounter by accepting the existence of a Talking Stag without question.
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Name: Eirik "Ole' Mik" Olejnik
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Paladin (Divine Hunter) 10 / Oracle (Life) 3
Adventure: Rasputin Must Die!
Location: Ambush at the Dancing Hut
Catalyst: Animated tanks are tough.
The Gory Details:
The group had made several surgical strikes into the Akuvskaya Prison Camp and had located and retrieved Viktor Miloslav's body and soul. They were preparing to bring them back to the tombfairy Polina but wanted to return to the Dancing Hut to rest first (it had been a tough battle at the Cossack camp to get the soul from the Lantern Goat).
The group teleported back to the Hut but found an ambush waiting for them outside. After 3 days of launching attacks into the Prison Camp, Polkovnik (Colonel) Lavrenti's troops had located their base and were waiting for them. More mounted Cossacks and one of the animated tank patrols attacked as the group scrambled to get in the hut. Ole Mik never hesitated as he flew on the back of his white dragonkin companion Calissus to block the advance of the tanks in order to give the others time to rally. His plan worked and the animated tanks turned to the flying pair and opened fire on him. The barrage of cannon shells and Maxim machinegun fire proved particularly deadly and knocked the pair from the sky. Calissus crashed unconscious and her rider Ole Mik lay dead, pierced by automatic weapon fire.
Fortunately his sacrifice gave the others time to destroy Lavrenti's troops. Their Kellid priest soon Raised Ole Mik back to the living to continue the good fight.
A great group and fantastic adventure so far.
What was the dancing hut doing?
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What was the dancing hut doing?
Well the hut itself was being driven by a familiar with high UMD. It was pretty much guaranteed to snatch and crush one attacker each round (claw-grab-constict-almost dead) as the Cossacks were galloping around lancing and firing pistols at the PCs. It was pretty cool/cinematic with the hut kicking headless Cossacks and sending fiendish mounts smashing through the air. It was a fun fight.
Excellent!
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Name: Zolia Eriath
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Diviner 17
Name: Dagren Carter
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Divine Hunter 17
Adventure: The Witch Queen's Revenge
Location: The Giant's Crossing
Catalyst: Arrows!
The Gory Details:
The party cavalierly burst into the room that was hosting 4 fire giants, a flock of erinyes, and a handmaiden devil, then teleported back a room in a slight panic. The erinyes and devil teleported in after them. Dagren unleashed a smite volley that outright killed the handmaiden devil, and Zolia threw a Chain lightning, which earned them both the ire of the Erinyes. After a bit of a fight, the resulting volley of arrows slew both characters over the course of one round. Oracle Ben chose Dagren to bestow a Breath of Life. After the fighter and paladin drove the remaining erinyes away, Ben resurrected Zolia on the spot with a scroll she had on hand.
Name: Zikimo Talib
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Druid 11
Adventure: The Frozen Stars
Location: Battlefield at Spurhorn
Catalyst: Trying to take on an army on his own
The Gory Details:
After the meeting in Spurhorn Zikimo asked commander Pharamol whether it was OK for him to scout a little with wildshape. Pharamol said OK but to be careful. Zikimo however did not tell his group that he was going to do this, changed himself into a bird and began to fly over general Malesinder's troops. But these troops are no fools and when some of them noticed the bird, they began to shoot at it. However, 3 arrows all missed (and the shots were good enough to hit a normal bird). A bird so hard to hit was indeed very suspicious, so general Malesinder decided to send some ceustodaemons after it. Zikimo was still far enough away, so he could still have fled (only risking that the ceustodaemons would use dimension door). However, he decided to attack. It even worked for a while and the ceustodaemons got wounded. So general Malesinder decided to send reinforcements in the form of a sorcerer on a red dragonkin. Zikimo still could have fled, though it got more risky, but still decided to continue attacking. He was held by the sorcerer, got caught in the dragonkin's breath weapon and (because he was held) plummeted down into the enemy camp.
This was the first death in this campaign, but we have had a lot of near-deaths in similar situations, so I hope this player has learnt that he needs to be more careful when he tries anything like this again.
Name: Benita
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Dual-Cursed Metal Oracle 18
Name: Valgard Grissom
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Viking Fighter 18
Adventure: The Witch Queen's Revenge
Location: The Council Fight before the Boss
Catalyst: Gunfire
The Gory Details
I ran the final session of my Reign of Winter campaign last night. As a prelude to the fight with Elvanna, I included a fight against an Antiparty, consisting of a Fext Warpriest, a Russian Gunslinger, a Triaxian Shaman, and a Chelaxian Arcanist. As often seems to be the case, that fight turned out far more dangerous than the boss did.
The warpriest was a real beast, dealing 50+ damage with each hit. He was tempered with Debilitating Portent to some extent, but Valgard still had to sever his Thread of Fate to keep going. They eventually brought him down. Low on health, Valgard charged across the room to finally suppress the riflist, only to be stymied by a crawling dodge. (Monkey Moves, take that!) The gunslinger's response killed both Valgard and Ben in the same round, but Baba Yaga's Breath of Life boon had them covered.
Sounds like your campaign is almost over, Flamethrower. Your obituaries have been interesting. I wonder what your final body count will be.
Ha! I really did know nothing!
You gnome nothing, Jon Snow.
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Alright, you've been warned before, sir.
Name: Baphomet Half-Battle, Jr.
Race: Tiefling
Classes/Levels: Magus [Mindblade] 1
Adventure: The Snows of Summer
Location: The Border Wood
Catalyst: Atomie Ambush
The Gory Details: I set up the route to the High Sentinel Lodge as a single map in Roll20 and my players were incredibly wary of following the bandit tracks that I laid out on the map as well as other obvious spaces for encounters or traps. The players were doing their best to keep away from the clearing of deep snow where the arctic tatzlwyrm was lying in wait, but split up in the process.
Baphomet Half-Battle, Jr. was first to walk around the tatzlwyrm's lair and took interest in a large tree decorated with dead crows up on the path ahead. He was charmed by the dancing lights that bobbed around the tree, when one of them cast Color Spray on him. Vosi and Shor took turns stabbing the giant devil to death while Pym left to search for more victims.
The party's ratfolk witch had had some unlucky rolls and was nearly dead from frostbite, so he and his cat hid in the trees.
The swashbuckler was still trying to leap from tree to tree.
When Junior went below 0 HP, they decided "discretion is the better part of valor" and ran back to town.
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Name: Jairess Sonn
Race: Sylph
Classes/Levels: Cleric 9(iirc)
Adventure: Babe, Mom & Hag
Location: Near Artrosa
Catalyst: Kogogiak
The Gory Details:
After emerging victorious from the clash with Vselovod and his epic ally, the heroes, three of them needing to be lead by shoulder thanks to age category penalties, faced their greatest foe yet: the elusive spider bear Kogogiak. They hardly had time to prep before the mountain of claws and too many appendages cartwheeled(because how else is that thing supposed to move?) in front of them.
In the ensuing combat Jairess fell after mistaking the creature's reach. The bear's chilling breath had already taken a toll on her but she still provoked an AAO in order to heal her animal companion and was taken far into negatives, dying instantly. Cue 3 geriatric characters magically fleeing from the wintery ursine with only Dror, their frontline, left behind to buy the escapees some time. The bear fell pretty fast in Dror's capable(and decidedly non-aged) hands, for all their sakes.
Man, what a fight!
For some reason, at the first chest with the swinging tree trap, the wizard decided to help the ranger open the chest. Didn't kill them outright, but knocked them both out.
I think I Had the wizard below zero three times that first night.
Didn't use random encounters tho, so no yeti kills.
Name: Anastacia (one of the players named her character Anastacia and another player named his character Aleksej; and they are brother and sister; will be fun in RMD)
Race: human
Classes/Levels: fighter/rogue/shadowdancer (character level 12)
Adventure: The frozen stars
Location: Rimekeening crevasse
Catalyst: carnivorous crystal
The Gory Details: The carnivorous crystal hits her for 51 points of damage (dice roll that way sometimes) and then she fails a saving throw for massive damage (rolling a 1).
I didn't see this one coming. All in all the crevasse was a tough nut to crack for the group.
Name: Aeon "the Insightful"
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Unchained Barbarian 3
Adventure: Snows of Summer
Location: White Weasel
Catalyst: Poorly directed rage
The Gory Details:
During the battle with Sergeant Volan at the White weasel, Aeon was distracted by Grimbo. Grimbo was not participating in the fight, but was heckling Aeon. Aeon decided to charge Grimbo, taking several AoOs from Volan and his allies. Aeon fought Grimbo by himself and lost, while the rest of the party fought the actual enemies. Aeon used Hero Points to survive and now worries Grimbo could be around every corner.
Name: Rena Cross
Race: Changeling
Classes/Levels: Sorcerer 3
Adventure: Snows of Summer
Location: Pale Tower
Catalyst: Ice and snow
The Gory Details:
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Name: Matten
Race: Human(Taldan)
Classes/Levels: Druid 10
Adventure: Those Frigid Stelloids
Location: Spurhorn's walls
Catalyst: Frost Drake
The Gory Details:
We had scaled, or rather flown, down the walls of the fortress to share some sweet pummeling to a couple of siege towers. The frontline ran ahead to fight some cryohydras and our druid, oracle and cleric were left behind to provide fire support. The hydras themselves didn't amount to much, but while their destruction was at hand, our magical reserve was attacked by dragonkin and drakes. Blasting happened and we were fairly sure to win, but then a drake had enough with Matten's flame strikes and Fly-by critted his geriatric(see Artrosa) ass so low that even a bat familiar delivered cure critial wounds didn't help anymore.
Enter Semel, a triaxian wanderer(unchained monk).
One more TPK.
Name: Veda, Peregrin, Kamenuka and Truddwald
Race: Human(Varisian), halfling, oread and dwarf
Classes/Levels: Witch 5, cavalier 5, monk 5, warpriest 5
Adventure: The Shackled Hut
Location: Clockwork Tower
Catalyst: the trolls and the trollhounds
The Gory Details:
The group entered the tower, killed the statues and rushed all the way up without clearing the lower floors. Killed the dragon in a spectacular aerial combat, moved back down and enountered the Granny Nan, all the trolls and the trollhound as a single ambush at the ground floor. Did surprisingly well to chase into melee and kill Granny Nan, yet lacked health and actions to survive the trolls' brute force.
One more death:
Name: Fren
Race: Ifrit
Classes/Levels: Oracle 8 (Flame mystery, most predictably)
Adventure: Maiden, Mother, Crone
Location: The Eon Pit
Catalyst: svanthurim's charge
The gory details:
Failed a saving throw against Vsevolod's unholy blight and then charged by the svathurim. Good damaged rolls proved to be enough. Got later reincarnated as a gnome to continue the adventure.
Name: Aeon "the Insightful"
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Unchained Barbarian 7
and
Name: Roland de Constanus
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Inquisitor 7
Adventure: Maiden, Mother, Crone
Location: Korag Kaag's Camp
Catalyst: Demons in the Night
Our death recount so far:
Name: Talda'syn
Race: Elf
Classes/levels: Shaman 2
Adventure: The Snows of Summer
Location: The Lodge
Catalyst: Frost skeletons
The Gory Details: Talda'syn had been rendered unconscious by the skeletons while they were fighting Rohkar at the Lodge. The skeletons were taking him to Rokhar and he started taking damage from the skeletons' cold aura. The PCs rendered Rokhar unconscious and they coup-de-graced him hoping the skeletons would release our friend. They did, but as they were still near the aura killed him.
Name: Lady Argentea Malassene
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Fighter 8
Adventure: Mother, Maiden, Crone
Location: The Mother, Artrosa
Catalyst: Hag coven
The Gory Details: The PCs were fighting the three hags altogether. She managed to avoid the first kill by redirecting Caigreal's hit to her shield and sacrificing the shield. Then Sylithyl attacked and charred her to death.
Name: Kileanna and Lady Argentea Malassene
Race: Changeling with elven blood and human
Classes/levels: Time Witch and Fighter 13
Adventure: Rasputin Must Die
Location: The Dancing Hut
Catalyst: Boogeymen
The Gory Details: The PCs left the first room and proceeded to explore the hut. They entered the candy room and passed the saves to avoid eating sweets. The invisible boogeymen attacked and all the group rolled low on initiative. The boogeymen used Phantasmal Killer on them and both characters botched their saves! It was hard to believe, as they both have pretty high saves but none of them rolled more than a 5 on the dice!
So close from being in this thread again! Yesterday the druid and me were almost killed by our ranger because of a confusion spell!
I think we'll be going for Rasputin very soon. I hope his name is the next on this thread and not one of my group members!
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Name: Arthur Strongshield
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Abjurer wizard 14
Adventure: Rasputin, Mist, Die! Rasputin Must Die
Location: Akuvskaya Monastery
Catalyst: Rasputin, Trench Mist and Antimagic Field.
The Gory Details: Having finished the Nosferatu trio, the PCs thought only Rasputin was left. So the wizard used his Antimagic Field before getting in sight to avoid Rasputin using magic on them. There were corpses scattered all over the place. As they approached he threw a grenade on them.. which held a captured trench mist that reanimated the corpses and attacked. The wizard kept the antimagic field up to keep fellow PCs protected against Rasputin, even knowing he would probably not be able to survive without his magic defenses. He was KOed in the first round and he could no longer dismiss the antimagic field nor it could be dispelled, so there was no way the other PCs could heal him. The ranger full attacked and destroyed the mist in a single round but the zombies starting throwing grenades and finished the poor wizard. The antimagic field was still there, surrounding him. Fortunately they had another Antimagic Field in a scroll, because it would have been creepy having the Fighter (who is the Wizard's cousin in game) carrying his corpse to remain shielded against magic.
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Forgetting these three, Dalindra
Name: Rasputin
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Russia's Greatest Love Machine 18
Adventure: Rasputin Must Die
Location: Akuvskaya Monastery
Catalyst: Antimagic Madness
The Gory Details: We were at an impass, we were in an Antimagic Field but Rasputin was levitating and we could not reach him. As we had been completely humiliating some ranged enemies with Fickle Winds, GM thought it could be tematically apropriate that Rasputin mocked us by casting his own Fickle Winds so our Ranger couldn't harm him. We couldn't do anything against him without dismissing the Field. So we went on and ignored him. He was mad! He shot me many times, but the Fighter deflected all the shots with her sword with her AoOs, so Rasputin threatened us with doing something awful to our dead friend but he was still in his very own Antimagic Field so there was no way Rasputin could do anything to him. So we crossed the World Engine room and went upstairs while Rasputin yelled at us all the way. We found Baba Yaga's matrioshka and unplugged it. Then we realized something was happening in Rasputin's room so we ran back just to find he had been knocked to the ground. The Fighter charged and Power Attacked him. I ran to him with my Antimagic Field and my old reliable silver dagger which I have since the very beginning of the adventure and it's not even a masterwork one. The Ranger did a full attack... she has humans as her favored enemy... nuff said. He tried to run away but the Fighter used her ability to stop enemies and didn't allow him to leave. And so Rasputin died...
Name: Rasputin
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Russia's Greatest Love Machine 18
Adventure: Rasputin Must Die
Location: Akuvskaya Monastery
Catalyst: Antimagic Madness.
The Gory Details: We looted him. Having heard the stories we were not sure that he wouldn't be coming back from the dead. So I walked 10 feet away and waited... And he came back, with only his underwear on. I approached him and the martials finished him... again.
Name: Rasputin
Race: Human
Classes/levels: Russia's Greatest Love Machine 18
Adventure: Rasputin Must Die
Location: Akuvskaya Monastery
Catalyst: Antimagic Madness.
The Gory Details: Ok, this time he wouldn't be coming back, would he? Same as before, 10 feet away and wait... And he comes back again! Repeat! He's dead. Is he really dead? For sure? He didn't come back again, but we tied him up... just in case he decided to come back when we were not looking.
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Name: Rögnvald Lebedivich
Race: Half-Orc
Class/Level: Slayer 2/Rogue 1
Adventure: The Snows of Summer
Location: The Pale Tower, second floor
The Gory Details: While going toe-to-toe with a large Captain Hestrig Orlov, he got jumped form behind by Gardhek the doppleganger. Technically, he was only dropped to -15 of -19, but the player decided he was dead and started working on a ratfolk rogue to replace him.
How did Hestrig and the Argentea-wannabe end being on the same fight?
As they approached he threw a grenade on them.. which held a captured trench mist that reanimated the corpses and attacked.
My PCs took some of these grenades with them as well, so perhaps they are going to use them. Sweet anticipation...
As they approached he threw a grenade on them.. which held a captured trench mist that reanimated the corpses and attacked.My PCs took some of these grenades with them as well, so perhaps they are going to use them. Sweet anticipation...
We didn't find them... unfortunately or fortunately, I don't know.
We don't want to see those damned trench mists ever again!We are trying to convince a high level wizard we know to stop using Cloudkill as her main strategy to deal with big groups of low level enemies because we are afraid that she is going to start creating trench mists.
Yes, I can imagine!
In my PC group the most important tactic has been fire so far. With devastating effects.
Fire is good here. We don't use it a lot. Too mainstream, I guess xD.
The Cloudkill Wizard is not even in the group. She's our Wizard's NPC wife and my character's hater. She'd burn her in a stake xD
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Well, you need fire to burn her XD.
Acid burn? Frostburn? Sunburn? Yes, fire probably works better. But it's her who hates me, not the other way.
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Name: Tibbira Karina
Race: Human
Class/level: Bard 17
Name: Sarlana
Race: Maftet
Class/level: Fighter 4
Adventure: The Witch Queen's Revenge
Location: M7: Inner Sanctum
Catalyst: Failed Fortitude Saves.
The Gory Details:
Tibbira was supporting her group from afar in the battle against Queen Elvanna, bolstering their attacks and removing most of the evil queen's magical protections with Greater Dispel Magic. Alas, when Elvanna cast Mass Suffocation on the group, Tibbira and her cohort collapsed to the ground, suffocating and at death's door. In the following round, Elvanna cast Chain Lightning and they were slain for good.
Fortunately, the rest of the group was able to vanquish the evil queen and free Golarion from the curse of an endless winter!
I know it's not the hottest AP (pun intended) out there at the moment, but it certainly is for our group. I pretty much got back into RP just for a chance to GM through this AP.
It's been 2 years and 3 months since we started, and we're currently on the penultimate part of the infamous 5th module, 69 sessions in. We're using hero points, which proved to be good idea since there was quite a few PC deaths, couple of NPC deaths, and several close calls. Without further ado...
Name: Rosom Sigurdsson
Race: human (Ulfen)
Classes/levels: Dervish bard 2
Adventure: Snows of Summer
Location: High Lodge (second floor, H15)
Catalyst: being careless dimwit
Gory details: The party leveled up during notorious battle with Rokhar's bandits. The whole ordeal was a close call and it looked for several rounds like its going to end in TPK. However, they managed to defeat the bandits, destroy created zombies and beat the ever-loving crap out of Rokhar. Completely tapped out, without healing spells and mostly injured they naturally decided to rest before exploring the upper floor... all except Rosom who encountered frost skeletons, got critted into negative hit-points, and finally killed by skeleton's death explosion when the rest of the party showed up to "save" his ass. Two hero points spent and he was back, safely unconscious.
Name: Grid Grimm
Race: dwarf
Class/levels: Guide ranger 4
Adventure: Snows of Summer
Location: Pale Tower (ground floor, Q3)
Catalyst: too many hostiles
Gory details: this one was actually close-call. Grid was on -15 hp and used his single hero point to automatically stabilize since he was about to die on the next turn. And what was the rest of the party doing, you might ask? Why, (just barely) avoiding TPK against Pale Tower guards and water elemental.
Name: Rosom Sigurdsson
Race: human (Ulfen)
Classes/levels: Dervish bard 5/Urban barbarian 1
Adventure: Shackled Hut
Location: Logrivich's clock tower (Logrivich's lair, L18)
Catalyst: sub-optimally placed spiked pit
Gory details: at this point in AP, party optimization started to matter a lot. So naturally certain encounters needed some adjustments - like Logrivich, who became young adult white dragon. Party of four approached invisible and flying (they completely bypassed the rest of clocktower), and without competent shooter opted to attack Acting captain of Winter Guard head-on. Rosom was on the receiving end of dragon's full attack; still alive, he tried to pull away, failed Perform check and got dropped in negative hit-points by Logrivich's AoO. He also dropped right on the edge of conjurer's spiked pit and promptly rolled down 30 ft of spikey bludgeoney death. After the rest of the party dealt with Logrivich, lit up the fireworks, saved Bella and returned to Shrine of Everbloom, they extracted dervish's broken body from bag of holding and got Solveig to revive him via raise dead scroll.
That's it for now, stay tuned for more fatalities...
The frost skeletons killed one of my party members too. He went unconscious and died because of their aura. I remember them as pretty tough.
At those levels (1st through 2nd) they should be absolutely lethal. 2 dice damage, no-save aura & death explosion - it's unfathomable how they didn't kill more PCs. I mean, they were not even mentioned on this obit thread up until now. Dervish character has Northern Ancestry campaign trait (we also play with character traits), and still it was to no avail against frost skeletons.
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They was. Me or Dalindra (I cannot remember who of both wrote the obituary) posted about it some time ago.
It was our only death until Artrosa and it was quite a shame because that character was out forever. The other deaths were reversed.
As a good part, we got Argentea into our group, who was a really great character.
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Name: Talda'syn
Race: Elf
Classes/levels: Shaman 2
Adventure: The Snows of Summer
Location: The Lodge
Catalyst: Frost skeletons
The Gory Details: Talda'syn had been rendered unconscious by the skeletons while they were fighting Rohkar at the Lodge. The skeletons were taking him to Rokhar and he started taking damage from the skeletons' cold aura. The PCs rendered Rokhar unconscious and they coup-de-graced him hoping the skeletons would release our friend. They did, but as they were still near the aura killed him.
D'oh... yep, it's on this same page. Completely missed that one. As I mentioned, those frost skeletons sure be nasty.
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I started my group at level 2, because adventuring at level 1 is a bit too easily ruined by an unlucky crit.
Also, (and this AP is kind of bad for this) I don't like encounters where the party has no idea why it exists. There isn't a way for the party to learn of Rokhar's scroll failure, so the party, it's basically just a random encounter.
So I changed it to something else entirely.
Don't make me talk about the Tatzlwyrm!
A really difficult to spot creature who surprise attacks the less armored PC, has pouncing and grab.
I still think that my GM saved my character there but he hasn't confirmed it.
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Continued list of (near) fatalities of the group I named "Sons of Heldren". Three core characters were natives of Heldren - battle oracle, conjurer and dervish - so it seemed fitting.
Shortly after beginning 3rd module, dervish player (let's call him Jim) decided to temporary retire his old character. Jim instead created Iobarian witch hunter with Alkenstarian musket - this character replaced Ratibor as the cursed guardian of Dancing Hut. He also had story arc which revolved around obtaining arcane cookbook and lifting Baba Yaga's curse - which ALSO allowed Jim "a way out" if this character's build turned out to be unreliable due to misfire rules (which it very much did).
To no ones surprise, Jim's new character also kept dying in spectacular fashion...
Name: Jedediah Hicket
Race: human (Iobarian)
Classes/levels: Musket master gunslinger 5/Witch hunter inquisitor 3
Adventure: Maiden, Mother, Crone
Location: Artrosa's door (atop Maiden, B)
Catalyst: somewhat ironically - WITCH tree
Gory details: the evil tree was about to pose a riddle to the party. But Jedediah was having none of that verbal offal - he fired salvo of bullets in witch tree, at which point huge plant grabbed and ripped him to shreds. The rest of the party retrieved Jedediah's mangled corpse from dead tree's tendrils and, despite better judgement, decided to return him back to life with resurrection scroll.
Name: Jedediah Hicket
Race: human (Iobarian)
Classes/levels: Musket master gunslinger 5/Witch hunter inquisitor 4
Adventure: The Frozen Stars
Location: Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga (Triaxus configuration, A3)
Catalyst: ritual suicide by curse removal
Gory details: after finally locating & retrieving arcane cookbook from Artrosa, Jedediah was ready to lift the curse placed on himself by Baba Yaga by performing a ritual inside Baba's garden. After lifting the curse, which kept him forever young for the past 200+ years, Jedediah aged more than two centuries in the span of several seconds - at which point his lifeless husk turned to dust, irrevocably and utterly dead. (This death was part of this character's story arc, so not really unexpected - still honorable mention is deserved)
Two more honorable mentions are in order...
Name: Marislova/Maroslan (NPC)
Race: half-elf
Classes/levels: magus 6 / ranger 3
Adventure: Maiden, Mother, Crone
Location: temple of Mestama (Mother, D5)
Catalyst: emotional outburst - and necromantic spell
Gory details: Marislova joined party in a rescue mission to free Jadrenka from hag coven's grasp. After witnessing what Caigrel, the Coven Queen, did to her love, Jadrenka, Marislova dashed forward to release her from crucifix. This led to a direct and SOLO confrontation with transformed Caigrel/annis hag - which cut Marislova to shreds and then used her as fuel for death knell.
Name: Erdija (NPC)
Race: centaur (Rashalka)
Classes/levels: ranger 3
Adventure: Maiden, Mother, Crone
Location: ruins of Rashalka outpost (NW Hoofwood)
Catalyst: Irriseni strike force
Gory details: this death actually happened off screen. The party found slaughtered centaurs - Erdija included - in the wake of Winter Guard strike force led by Nazhena Vasiliovna, which were gated to Iobaria in order to retrive Dancing Hut. They were almost successful, partly due to the treachery by one of PCs (a player dropped out of game, and since his character had good backstory and proper motivation, I used him for this "twist").
Stay tuned for more grizzly and unecessary character deaths!
Your story sounds great for what I'm reading.
Jebediah Hicket looks like an awesome character and I really liked the part with Marislova too.
Artrosa was a very relevant part for my character, as Grishelmuk was her mother and tried to trick/convince her to join the coven. When he wasn't able she reunited the whole coven to kill her.
Here you can read part of what happened. There is also an obituary somewhere in this thread about it.
Today we had two deaths from the same character in Witchwar Legacy. I'm not sure if I should post them here as it's not exactly RoW...
Wow, that was intense read. Cool backstory, Kileanna.
As for Jedediah - player worked with me extensively to incorporate him into AP. We even gave his former character compelling reason to stay behind in the Dancing Hut (Rosom was in love with certain forlarren spy, whom he entrapped in order to find a way to "melt her cold heart and make her love him"). Jedediah was able to venture outside the Hut for prolonged periods of time thanks to remove curse being cast on him every couple of days. There was even a sidequest in Vurnirn where he was able to acquire remove curse wand.
Concerning Artrosa, I had problem with badly written up antagonist relations. So first I made Jadrenka beholden to Caigreal in a certain way - she couldn't make herself kill the hag mother, so she was trying her best to uphold her duties as daughter and as the Warden. This gave Caigreal an opportunity to force her completely into submission by emotional blackmail and physical torture. Jadrenka wasn't about to let her do that willingly, so the coven manipulated Vsevolod into helping them defeat Artrosa's warden. Caigreal's ultimate plan was to become Warden, turn Jadrenka into annis hag and then unite Artrosa's inhabitants in order to defeat Kostchtchie's invaders. Marislova tried to warn Jadrenka about her mother's intentions, so they had a row after which Warden locked her lover away.
Before PCs managed to disentangle this web of intrigue and help Jadrenka, they had interactions with her pretty much as presented in AP, but I made those encounters a sort of awake dreams which Jadrenka used to request their help and warn them of Vsevolod's intentions.