So since I didn't see a thread for this yet, I figured I start one, especially since I have a doozey of a death.
Name: Edward Sarini
Race: Human (Chelaxian)
Class: Fighter (Two-Hand Fighter)
Alignment: CG
Origin: Kintargo, just back from soldiering, just after martial law had been declared.
Adventure: In Hell's Bright Shadow
Location: Many-Steps Monestary
Cause of Death: Nox's Raw Power, and too many mooks.
-Cornelius Sarini, NG, Middle-aged Chelaxian Inquisitor (Sacred Huntsman). Keeps a house in the greens of which he is the patriarch of a subsection of the main Sarini Family. Edward is his son, and Eryn is his housemaid and bastard daughter. He's a traditional Chelish noble, and a bit stubborn but well meaning.
-Sasha, Cornelius's pet tiger.
-Eryn Snow, CG, Fetchling Alchemist (Trap Breaker). A rebellious little housemaid who is indirectly responsible for involving both Edward and Cornelius in the Silver Ravens. She's very free spirited but always seems to get in over her head.
-Alec "Groteus" Martin, CG, Chelaxian(or Aasimar) Aetherkineticist. Only joined the Silver Ravens to find his missing son, but slowly discovered that his gifts were needed there. A family man with a bit of a disdain for the powers that be.
-Marcello Tanessen, CG or NG, Chelaxian Life Shaman. The resident group healer. Marcello fancies himself quite the promiscuous type, and has become quite popular among the servants of his new found home.
-Edward Sarini, CG, Chelaxian Fighter (Two Handed Fighter). The party's other major damage dealer, (other than Groteus and Sasha). Generally an upstanding guy, if a bit dim.
The Actual Death: The party had bypassed nearly all of the encounters in Hocum's Fantasmagorum and made a found the statue to the Monastery almost immediately. This particular evening, Cornelius's player was unable to make it to the meeting so I had him wait and deal with what up top to keep watch over the statue.
Most of the combat on the inside was mere cannon fodder for the group and the carved their way through the Scrivenite, and made quick work of most of the Redactor. However in the final room, the party was able to deal with all but 3 of the redactors and they fled into Nox's office awaiting the PCs.
With 3 more mooks around, the party had a hard time dealing with both the surprisingly accurate monks, Nox's Hell Hound, and Nox herself. Eryn found that she was running out of bombs, since she had used a good portion of them on some of the earlier battles, and it didn't help that her only source of damage was completely ineffective against Nox. Groteus and Edward were continually pinned down by Nox, her hell Hound and the Redactors, and Marcello couldn't get off any healing without provoking attacks from the Monks.
Within a couple of rounds, Groteus, was in capacitated, Edward was in a duel for his life and Eryn and Marcello were out of combat options. Without any other recourse, Eryn and Marcello decided the only thing they could do to keep them alive was to leave. Edward unfortunately was not as lucky. Being locked in a duel to the death with Nox, he could not edge out over her and after several rounds of getting backed into a corner, she dimension doored behind him and delivered the killing blow dropping Edward to the ground.
Groteus, was captured by the enemy and tortured for information, and my likely and up dead in the coming week, His player and I are working out details about how we both want to handle it. As for Edward I offered him a couple options, He could either return with a level of Reanimated Medium, or build a new character. We'll see where that goes.
Anyone else have any interesting deaths yet?
Not yet, but man, that's a doozy of an epic sounding battle. I would have loved to see how that all played out in person.
It was really intense, we all had quite a bit of fun, but I think I scared the pants off of my players when they fought Nox. The whole next session this week was all of the fallout of the events from last week. Luckily for them they got their comeuppance.
Speaking of, we finally figured out what we wanted to do with the other character:
Name: Alec "Groetus" Martin
Race: Human (Chelaxian)[or Aasimar]
Class: Aether Kineticist
Alignment: CG
Origin: Kintargo
Adventure: Transition period between In Hell's Bright Shadow & Turn of the Torrent
Location: The Villegre at the sight of the first doghousing.
Cause of Death: Succumbing to the torturous lethal and non-lethal damage he had taken.
After Alec had gotten himself captured he was tortured extensively for information regarding the rebels, who their leaders were, and where they met. Getting no information out of Alec, he began to reminisce about a recent torture victim who's vocal cords he had extracted who looked just like Alec, a victim who turned out to be his son., Aiden. The torture master used this as leverage to try and get more information and after continued interrogation, received enough information to be satisfied and shipped the two into a cell together.
His son battered and scarred, Alec used up nearly all of his kinetic healing trying to heal his son but soon found out that he and his son would be participating in the first public excruciations in Kintargo. On the day of the excruciation, Alec knew that he and his son had few other options and proposed they escape. Managing to free himself from the shackles that bound him and his father Aiden escaped, allowing his father one last shot at saving them, crumbling a statue of Asmodeus on the very doghouse that tried to contain them. The strength required to lift the stone caused Alec to pass out, succumbing slowly to the wounds he had suffered and Groetus died on the dog house platform.
Groetus's player will take over as Aiden Martin, the aerokineticist.
Additionally, Edward's player from last week came back as a half-elf unchained rogue named Iorveth.
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His son battered and scarred, Alec used up nearly all of his kinetic healing trying to heal his son but soon found out that he and his son would be participating in the first public excruciations in Kintargo. On the day of the excruciation, Alec knew that he and his son had few other options and proposed they escape. Managing to free himself from the shackles that bound him and his father Aiden escaped, allowing his father one last shot at saving them, crumbling a statue of Asmodeus on the very doghouse that tried to contain them. The strength required to lift the stone caused Alec to pass out, succumbing slowly to the wounds he had suffered and Groetus died on the dog house platform.
That's fantastic, such a great transition to a new character. Kudos!
His son battered and scarred, Alec used up nearly all of his kinetic healing trying to heal his son but soon found out that he and his son would be participating in the first public excruciations in Kintargo. On the day of the excruciation, Alec knew that he and his son had few other options and proposed they escape. Managing to free himself from the shackles that bound him and his father Aiden escaped, allowing his father one last shot at saving them, crumbling a statue of Asmodeus on the very doghouse that tried to contain them. The strength required to lift the stone caused Alec to pass out, succumbing slowly to the wounds he had suffered and Groetus died on the dog house platform.That's fantastic, such a great transition to a new character. Kudos!
I've gotta give credit to Alec/Aiden's player for this one. We had been discussing all week how he wanted to deal with Alec's incarceration and eventually settled on passing off the torch to his son. It's made for some neat roleplay, especially with the shake up that happened in the ensuing battle between the party, Nox, and the dottari.
Not quite any deaths yet but I had two Test PCs get their asses wooped by the Dottari Guards during the riot. Specifically, the cleric got 1-shot by a crit and the swashbuckler was ganged up on by two guards and a remaining thug, then beaten down. Both survived and were arrested, and luckily the cleric wasn't spotted as being a Cleric of Milani thanks to her holy symbol being hidden (on the palm of her glove). Wee
The remaining two escaped just as Mephry was sic'd on them.
Got my first death of my playtest.. all PCs are controlled by me so I can get a feel for the campaign before I run it with my normal group.
Name: Channady Aulorian
Race: Human (Chelaxian)
Class: Cleric (Hidden Priest) of Milani 3
Alignment: CG
Origin: Kintargo, born into the Aulorian family
Adventure: In Hell's Bright Shadow
Location: Hocum's Fantasmagorium
Cause of Death: Azvernathi Raul, Redactors
During the assault on Hocum's Fantasmagorium, the players ran face to face with a group of 4 Asmodean Redactors and their leader, Azvernathi Raul. In my playtest I had modified both a little bit; the redactors were Unchained Monks with similar (But slightly better) stats overall. Azvernathi removed Combat Casting in place of Weapon Finesse, had his +1 Heavy Mace be turned into a Masterwork Light Mace, and had gained +1 to all resistances due to my use of the Automatic Bonus Progression optional rule.
Anyhoo, during the fight, Azvernathi had already been invisible thanks to the players' loud combat against zombies; he and his redactors waited in hiding but failed to ambush the players. With the Swashbuckler rushing in, followed by the cleric, they were surrounded by three of the four redactors; the fourth attacked the rogue. Behind the 4th redactor was Azvernathi, remaining in hiding for a round as he hit himself with Copycat and then summoned a Spiritual Weapon against the swashbuckler.
The Redactors worked to flank the Swashbuckler, but also ended up getting some lucky hits on the Cleric, knocking her unconscious before all but one died themselves.
With the Sorcerer having completely failed to put anyone to sleep, he decided to administer a Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds to the downed cleric; but, after doing so, saw her get curb-stomped back down to -5 hit points by a lone surviving Redactor who refused to die - at least until the rogue broke off from fighting Avernathi (after taking a beating from him, yet resisting both Hold Person and Command) and sneak-attacked him into oblivion.
With his original target having fled, Azvernathi closed in on the group, one mace in hand, and unleashed his Burning Hands spell on the Sorcerer, downed cleric, and a dying Redactor. All three of them failed their saves and alas, both the redactor and cleric passed into the Great Beyond.
Azvernathi was killed soon after by a vengeful rogue and swashbuckler tag-team flank-crit combo.
The Cleric will soon be replaced by a more militant Warpriest of Milani.
Got three more deaths to round out the end of book 1! Well, one death, but two players were knocked unconscious and stabilized.. at the mercy of Nox.. so they're basically dead and I'm writing them off as such.
Name: Channady Aulorian(Again), Marcellano, Valeria
Race: Human (Chelaxian) x3
Class: Cleric (Hidden Priest) of Milani 3, Swashbuckler 3, Unchained Rogue 3
Alignment: CG, CG, CN
Adventure: In Hell's Bright Shadow
Location: Many Steps Monastery
Cause of Death: Nox, Mephry, Random Lemure (Lets name him Bob)
The fight started off poorly for the group with Mephry charging in and lighting up the cleric and swashbuckler with his breath weapon - the swashbuckler took half while the cleric got the full brunt of it. Nox used her first round to cast Rage on Mephry, and then followed him in to begin attacking with her polearm.
The whole fight lasted a mere six rounds - Nox, in three rounds, took out the Swashbuckler first (instantly killing him with a near-max damage hit after Mephry burnt and bit him), then 1-shot both the Cleric and Rogue each (not killing them, but nearly doing so) - they both stabilized on their own. The Swashbuckler, for his part, did attempt to parry the attack - but he failed miserably and was cut down as a result.
Bob the Lemure mostly just gurgled and flapped his fat arms at people, not doing a thing except getting hit in the face with holy water and acting as a meat shield for Nox. (For a reference to how strong Nox is, she attacks at +9 using Power attack, dealing 1d10+14 damage.)
Rutilus, the Sorcerer, was completely out of spells for this fight, having used up most of his spells earlier against Yilliv (who was a PAIN IN THE ASS for this group), then again trying to sleep more redacters (performing admirably against one group, sleeping 4 of them).
Having stood back, Rutilus was able to escape - he will be rebuilding the Raven's with three new members to tackle the place again, though by then Nox will have brought in more redactors.
..I'll try round 2 of the Many Steps Monastery tomorrow. Nox is a tough bugger! She didn't even get hit once.
So.. it turns out that um.. bumrushing the Holding House at level 4 is a very bad idea. How bad of an idea? A very very bad one. Luckily these are all playtest PCs, and no actual players' characters were hurt in the making of this bloodbath.
Name: Margo, Kella, Pellius
Race: Human (Chelaxian) x3
Class: Unchained Monk 4, Warpriest of Milani 4, Arcane Duelist Bard 4
Alignment: LG, CG, CG
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: Holding House
Cause of Death: Ghenemahl.. and co.
As it so happens, a few weeks later after having made contact with Octavio, the group learned that they needed to infiltrate the Holding House and rescue the four armigers held there. Against Rexus's, Lara's, and Octavio's recommendations, the group decided on a daring 'bash in the door' rescue (in broad daylight). This was after a failed attempt at rescuing an armiger from doghousing (though the entire group got away alive then). Nevertheless, the group took a few days to gather consumables and right before they kicked down the Holding House's front door, hit themselves with as many buffs as they could muster.
They were prepared.
Mostly. Except against the Kyton.
With three guards in their jimmies, spending the first minute tossing mail over their private bits, the group started off to a great start, taking out the first two guards within seconds and following up by dropping Sabo down a pit after she beat up the monk. Rutilus, for his part, got a little pit-and-grease-happy, slowing combat to a crawl while the group picked away at the guards. However, when Ghenemahl joined the fight, things took a turn to the worst. She opened combat with an Order's Wrath that did little damage (none to the monk), follwed up with slicing the warpriest into near-oblivion. When a pit was dropped beneath her, she jumped to safety on the far side of the pit - giving her time to heal up almost to entirety (the Warpriest had a Holy Strike Blessing on her greatsword and was ripping through the Kyton's defenses)
A few rounds later, after Sabo's pit disappated, she was taken out by both the warpriest and monk (who was also rocking a holy strike blessing from the warpriest). By then, all of the pits began to disappate and battle resumed in full, with Ghenemahl teaming up with a guard to knock out the monk, who stabilized shortly after. Another guard, fighting the bard in the hallway, got a lucky crit and killed the bard on the spot. Not one round later Ghenemahl, pursuing the now-fleeing warpriest (who was at 5 hit points), crit with her lancet and also killed the warpriest on the spot.
Rutilus, having been in the back, ran until he couldn't run any longer. The entire fight lasted just under two minutes.
Margo the Monk, although he survived the battle, did not survive the tender lovings of Ghenemahl later that night. Sabo survived thanks to timely medical aid from a guard. Four guards died (+4 notoreity) while a 5th nearly died. A total of 14 notoriety was gained (1d6+4 from the attack/slain guards, 2d6 from Ghenemahl interrogating Margo), and Rutilus will need to recruit yet another team.
tl;dr: Don't assault the Holding House, or you're gonna have a bad time.
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In Memoriam
Name: Alston Luckyn Bilvyn Nirbfiln Flipwidget
Race: Gnome
Class: Alchemist (grenadier)
Alignment: NG
Origin: Joined the rebellion after house Thrune trampled on his right to drink and sell mint tea.
Adventure: In Hell's Bright Shadow
Location: Many Steps Monestary
Cause of Death: Bravery
Indeed Alston rose and bravely fought against the diabolical forces of Thrune. Before his acidic bombs Nox's pet hell-hound quickly fell, while Virgil and the Lore Oracle Theodosius fought with Nox. Tangled in Virgil's cloak and surrounded by enemies, things looked grim for the captain of the guards. "Leave a path for me!" Alston cried, emboldened by his medium size and mutagenic strength, "I will finish this villain!"
Virgil sidestepped allowing Alston a path to charge. With a furious cry Alston flung himself at Nox, acid dripping from his blade. Alas, the villain swung her glaive at him before he could reach her. Alston fell, a gushing wound in his neck that no healing magic could repair. To add insult to injury Nox fled right before the party could finish her off. Now the silver ravens have a score to settle with her
Name: Rurik Strakeln
Race: Dwarf
Class: Investigator
Alignment: LG
Origin: Rurik was a local tea shop owner, who was protesting the new laws. He started a "TEA!TEA!TEA!" chant at the rally and will probably go down as one of the fathers of the new rebellion.
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: Lucky Bones Dungeon
Cause of Death: Lack of coordination
The group entered the Lucky Bones dungeon relatively unnoticed, so they sneaked up to the group of cultists, they counted to three, no more and no less, and threw the bead of force at them, which incapacitated all of them. So next to no resistance, they moved and recognised the trap, but didn't manage to find the mechanism which deactivates the trap.
The rogue jumped over the edge to the other side, just to find Elgadazum the hateful Devil. After some back and forth the Devil found out that he would be outmatched, so he offered the PCs a chance at saving the twins, one in the cell, the other being prepared for sacrifice. He tricked the group into thinking that the one in the cell would be in a terrible state and needs immediate care, but he only needed time to prepare with Luculla.
He agreed to deactivate the trap, so that they could take the fight to the shrine, after they had taken care of the boy. When they entered the shrine, everyone was ready to fight, but they didn't expect Luculla and her unholy powers. The warpriest rushed towards Luculla to interrupt her casting, while our inquisitor fought bravely the devil 1 on 1, to keep the group's backlines clear. Well, the devil proved to be to much of a challenge and the tentacles of the beard reached through the nose of the dwarf, massaging his brain to mouse.
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Name: Viviera Vashnarstill
Race: Human (Chelaxian)
Class: Investigator (Infiltrator)
Alignment: CG
Origin: Kintargo, daughter of noble family, got roped into the rebellion because of the disappearance of her cousin
Adventure: In Hell's Bright Shadow
Location: Hideout of the Red Jills
Cause of Death: Scorching Ray
The group found themselves storming the hideout of the Red Jills and Viviera was the singular human in attendance. A comedic brawl ensued with the bard using grease cause one of the tiefling rogues to slide off the roof with a screech and tumble to her death below.
Another staggered Red Jill attempted to bull rush the halfling rogue off the roof and tumbled to her death.
Scarplume of course was filled with a raging hatred for Viviera that could not be matched. Even when the Investigator took a potion of mirror image the strix focused all of her attacks on her.
After rogue leader had been hit with a wand of acid arrow and with four hp remaining she cast her last scorching ray at the Investigator for a total of 19 points of damage, knocking her to -11 in an attack that would have incinerated her.
Due to card / hero point system she saved her self an untimely death but still worthy of recording.
In book 2, James Jarvis a Bard Magician of House Jarvis was drowned in combination of a Dispel Magic from the Skum leader (removing his ability to breath water) and the drowning ability of the Drowning Devil. He was subsequently revived by Hetamon Haace using one of our Scrolls of Raise Dead.
Name: Mikhail Fastmender
Race: Tiefling
Class: Cleric of Saerenrae 6
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: The Lucky Bones
Cause of Death: Ghasts
While investigating the haunted reaches of the Lucky Bones, the PCs were set upon by a pack of junkie ghasts. The ghasts paralyzed Munin, the party fighter, and Mikhail ran in to save him with a remove paralysis spell. Rather than cast defensively, Mikhail chose to take the attack of opportunity... which was a poor decision. With both characters paralyzed and no-one else in reach, the ghasts tried to coup de grace them both to feast on their delicious corpses. Munin passed his save. Mikhail did not.
Mikhail's body was taken to the church of Shelyn and returned to life using a scroll of raise dead.
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Name: Marcellano Crispin
Race: Human
Class: Ranger (Urban) 3
Location: The Many Steps Monastery
Cause of death: Nox
Name: Reynaldo Abana
Race: Human
Class: Alchemist (Chirurgeon) 3
Location: The Many Steps Monastery
Cause of death: Nox again
Name: Fenyr Sarini
Race Half-elf
Class: Wizard 1 / Rogue 2
Location: Location: The Many Steps Monastery
Cause of death: One last Asmodean Redactor 'til Retirement...
It all went down in the final room. The PCs began the second level of the dungeon fresh and managed to trick the scrivenite into letting them pass with a great disguise and bluff plan. They fought the 4 Asmodeans and Mephry without serious trouble.
They fought the 5 Asmodeans in the next room, killing two and executing the Lout with a Sleep spell and coup de gras while the remaining 3 ran to get Nox.
They enter the final room a couple rounds later with Nox across the bridge and the monks and a summoned lemure arrayed on the near side of the stream. Two monks fell quickly to the ranger and alchemist while the wizard/rogue engaged the third monk in the south of the room. The lemure 's damage reduction kept it in the fight a little longer, but not much longer. The warpriest cast Doom on Nox. The Bard attempted to cast Shadow Pin on her, but she made that save. She then walked to the bridge and took up a position. The warpriest went to meet her, but was repelled by the strength of her attack, a cleave which hurt both the warpriest and alchemist. The alchemist threw alchemists fire only to discover her immunity to fire. The bard using a wand, began trying to heal the warpriest and alchemist. Abandoning the lemure for Nox, the ranger was felled by an attack of opportunity on his approach (despite his Mobility feat). The alchemist was hit in the next round and dropped as well. Surprisingly, the monk and wizard/rogue had been unable to land blows on each other, until the monk landed two hits from a flurry of blows for max damage, felling him. At this point, the bard and warpriest retreated.
I am now planning a rescue mission and consequences as they attempt to free their fallen friends from the local jail.
In hindsight, I believe the problem was too many people relying on melee tactics and no big arcane or divine spells. They instead fought a heavily armored fighter with reach at a choke point, thereby fighting her on her terms. Shadow Pin was a great idea and if the alchemist had thrown a tanglefoot bag and the party began using hit and run tactics, it could've been very different.
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Last night I had the first TPK of my 25 year career as a GM. We are in Book 1, PCs are all 2nd level, and I have a party of six, four of whom are human, one half-elf, and one kitsune who almost always remains in human guise.
Last week they started the Red Jills mission by making a Diplomacy check to gather information and rolled low enough that they caught the attention of the gang. When they met a contingent on the streets, the sweet-talking Bloodrager Giovanni managed to convince the leader of that little group, whom we named Joan Jett because we somehow decided that crew was the Runaways, to go back and propose an alliance with Scarplume, and told her he would meet up with her the next day at Clenchjaw's. Joan Jett showed up at Clenchjaw's, told Giovanni that Scarplume had been enraged that she was suggesting an alliance with humans, had ejected her from the Red Jills, and had warned that if she ever came back she would be killed. We did the "Unauthorized Excrutiation" mission, which went great, and then broke for the week.
We reconvened this week with a meeting at the coffee house wherein Joan Jett reiterated that Scarplume was not open to an alliance. So the players decided that the three PCs of a social bent (two humans and the kitsune-as-human) would approach the Red Jills' hideout and pitch their proposed alliance. The martial-oriented characters would hang back and come in if there was trouble.
I gave the PCs a chance to make a Diplomacy check, which, against a Hostile Red Jill member failed. She reached for her sword and I called for initiative. Two of the Jills won initiative, and one landed a sneak attacked Giovanni, who was in the advance group. Another got a nat 20 and confirmed, plus sneak attack, putting Giovanni into negative hit points, though not dead. Giovanni's screams alerted the other PCs, who started to arrive at the fight. The ground fight was going decently from that point on for the PCs with both sides hitting a bit, but the PCs winning, until Scarplume emerged from the building and approached, but wasn't able to take any offensive action on her first round.
When they saw Scarplume the PCs decided to run, and three of the six bolted before she could do anything. After the first three had left, the castrato Witch PC came up in iniative, but rather than run, he spent his standard action throwing an Adhesive Spittle at Scarplume, who made the save. THEN he moved, but only 30 feet. The Magus PC was next in initiative, and she spent an action grabbing Giovanni, and dragged him 30 feet right next to the Witch.
Enraged, Scarplume gave chase, though at half speed. She took the Witch down the next round, leaving the Magus to drop her scimitar, and spend an action grabbing him, and dragging both of them away. Scarplume continued to follow, taking the Magus down. At this point, the other players decided they would have noticed that the downed PCs hadn't met up with them yet, so they turned back, and found Scarplume, as yet completely uninjured, on the ground and looting. Two of them charged in, with only one hit for 6 points of damage. Scarplume takes a five foot step back and hits them with a cone knocking them both down. The final remaining PC decides that honor demands that he attempt a rescue, and charges in himself. He managed to deal a bit of damage to Scarplume before she takes him out.
I have a history with this player group of letting them talk their way out of fights, but I don't believe it can be done in every case. I didn't feel that this was a case where it was likely and the dice agreed. Through the defected Red Jill NPC Joan Jett I explicitly stated several times that Scarplume would not accept an alliance with humans, but they somehow never groked that this was very likely not a social situation. Maybe because they thought they'd talk their way out of the fight they did nothing to prepare, despite having a helpful defector from the group right there willing to provide pretty much all the intelligence that they could have asked for.
Fortunately the whole Silver Ravens concept of this campaign makes for easy introduction of replacement PCs. One player is going to convert Joan Jett into a second level PC, and the other new PCs will come from one of the resistance teams, "promoted" to PC status. The Ravens will then have to replace that team, and will have lost almost all the treasure they've gathered so far to Scarplume and her Red Jills. We return next Wednesday, when we will see whether the new PCs wish to avenge their fallen leaders.
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Allow me to add a strange entry - a death that should have been, had I as DM not been frazzled with thoughts of 'am I being fair in this brutal murder? Is this going to be a TPK they will all loathe?' But the events are too dramatic to NOT add to this list.
Name: Ilias Dune
Race: Human (Kintargan)
Class: Fighter (Mutation Fighter)
Alignment: CG
Origin: Kintargo, of a minor noble family that was brought lower by the Night of Ashes
Adventure: In Hell's Bright Shadow
Location: Many-Steps Monastery
Cause of Death: Nox and a terrible plan.
The party had been carefully moving forward through the Many-Steps Monastery. They have always wanted to minimize how lethal they were being during combat, focusing extensively on nonlethal methods whenever possible; the group consisted of a fledgling Paladin of Sarenrae chosen after the Night of Ashes to the divine calling named Galen, Arryn - a Life Oracle who believes her powers come from Sarenrae, the elder brother Alexander Dune - a wizard and now head of the noble house, the younger brother Ilias Dune - a soldier by trade with an alchemical drinking habit that turned into Mutation Fighter, and a would-be-bartender and play writer Bard Bartholomeus. After taking down Yillev in an exchange that left them short some memories, Bartholomeus quaffed a potion of Invisibility and started scouting ahead alone. Right into Mephiry.
Thankfully, he escaped the Hellhound and armed with information about the enemy troops, they pressed forward. They defeated the group of Redactors and pushed toward the main study where Nox and company had set a trap. Knowing there was an invisible sneak around due to failed Stealth checks + opening doors into people + nearly getting bitten by Mephiry, Nox set some of her troops to prepare an ambush at the door.
Even as the first battle with the Redactors wrapped up, Bartholomeus decided the best plan of action was to open those front doors. Right into a Hellhound ready to breath fire. An addition of my own (to account for five players) was an Asmodean Cleric to beef up the Redactors. This is where the fight started going to hell (pardon the joke). Readied actions went off: the fire was mostly avoided by the still invisible Bard, but he was not in a happy place. The party wheeled to get into position, but Ilias Dune was struck by a Hold Person spell from the Cleric.
Redactors approached ready to deal lethal blows, bumping into the invisible Bartholomeus at times and slowing them down. Nox started a slower approach, letting her minions close ranks first. Ilias threw off the first batch of paralysis, only to get hit by a second Hold Person thrown out by the enemy Cleric, hidden behind the approaching Redactors and Hellhound and the Lout. A Redactor stepped forward to snap Ilias' neck, but he barely managed to survive by strength of will alone (Hero Points to Cheat Death).
The fight only accelerates from here. Alexander threw Glitterdust out over the clustered enemies, but struck the unsuspecting Bartholomeus as well, breaking the invisibility. Bartholomeus took a hit by Nox's glaive that nearly brought him down, but soon took to defending himself with his shield, fending off the worst of the blows. Arryn took wounds upon herself to keep people alive and bring Ilias back to his feet, who crawled away in the confusion (DM not wanting to make the Cheat Death feel pointless). More Hero Points were spent as the struggle continued: one to throw out a higher level spell of Stinking Cloud that failed to stop Nox, but worked wonders at blocking off the Cleric and making Mephiry and a Redactor run off retching. An out of healing Arryn pushed herself to cast a larger curative spell than she had in the past. Galen pushed his body to the limit to strike down a Redactor before they had a chance to deliver a lethal blow to a weak Ilias. Before long all that remained was the Hellhound and Nox, pushed down one of the corridors.
Nox was forced to Dimension Door once, revealing her ability to teleport and positioning herself on the party's flank, leaving Arryn awfully vulnerable. Ilias charged with Lucerne Hammer in hand, to put himself in the way and strike down Nox. He delivered the first blow to Nox, one that hit with a large chunk of damage that crunched bone and brought her body downward a little. Then the worst happened.
Nox. Crit. For those of you who have run the game already, I do not need to say how bad this is. This is where an alternate timeline happens. I made a mistake - she had just teleported, I thought it was an Opportunity Attack at the time of calculation, and I ruled that Power Attack was not an option (for some reason I had it in my head you can only activate Power Attack on your turn). The damage was lowered from an extreme 63 down to a more manageable 42. And so what was truly a lethal blow of Nox's glaive was tuned down to something that only dropped him from nearly topped off to being on Death's Door. But I know, in my heart of hearts, the Rebellion suffered a grievous loss that day and was likely captured as the group failed to beat down Nox.
In our actual reality, they were able to return Ilias to his feet and through a lucky string of two critical hits and another Hero Point to get another action, take Nox down for good.
The party, made with 20-point buy, two traits, and Hero Points, certainly has the power to survive an encounter that by all rights they should have. My calculation after the fact put the fight at +4 CR. Even with full resources, it was close. If I was more careful on the rules, it would have been a wipe due to that Nox crit likely. The upside is they now have a fight I am sure they will remember for a long time.
...that being said, I hope that I do get to give this thread a proper obituary next time. Here's for hoping that the Lucky Bones brings their first true death.
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Name: Beniago
Race: Halfling
Class: Unchained Rogue (Knife Master)
Alignment: CG
Origin: Halfling slave who worked for Molly Mayapple and was sent to Kintargo for safety.
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: Lucky Bones Guardpost
Cause of Death: Elgadazum the Hateful
Big E heard them fooling around with the pit trap to the north and called out to the group asking them to come down and have a conversation with them. He started the noted philosophical debate about soul maturation while quietly sending a warning to Luculla through telepathy.
Beniago, being the most murdery of the group and considering devils the highest form of slaver, chose to sleight of hand and throw a dagger into the chatting devil mid conversation. The devil promptly began focusing his attacks on the halfling with the occasional swipes of his glaive. Eventually the devil took a double power attack swipe at him and knocked him out with the first hit and would have completely killed him with the second.
Beniago used his cards to negate one of the hits and managed to get away.
He went on to have an unfortunate, if hilarious, time in the next few rooms.
Elgadazum had teleported away and gotten healed. Since the group passed their secrecy check Luculla didn’t take the chance of getting beaten and played the damsel in distress card.
The devil hurried forward and focused on the halfling again. After two solid hits he retreated and promptly stopped on the edge of the pit trap (which he had forgotten) and then fell into the pit dropping to near death again.
After the fight the group searched for the likely secret door to bypass the Order of the Torrent door. Beniago found it and rather than ask for the others to join him moved through the hall and opened the yellow mold door promptly losing 9 points of constitution.
Name: Rolicharr
Race: Tiefling
Class: Occultist 7/Investigator 1
Alignment: CG
Origin: Historian of rebellions and subversive anti-Thrune scholar
Adventure: Dance of the Damned
Location: Menador Keep
Cause of Death: Elulae
Fortunately, the party had recovered a few Raise Dead scrolls by this point, so he got better immediately.
As is my way, I have two more deaths averted by grace of Hero Points alone.
Name: Alexander Dune
Race: Human
Class: Wizard (Arcane Crafter) 6
Alignment: LG
Origin: Kintargo, of a minor noble family that was brought lower by the Night of Ashes
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: Lucky Bones - Opium Den
Cause of Death: Swarmed by Wretchghosts, Averted by Hero Points
One touch later, he was filled with an addiction to opium and became the primary target of the remaining ghosts, who stretched out their arms to bring him to the verge of death, only saved by pure willpower. The rest of the party managed to defeat the ghosts (with only one more case of opium addiction) and the near-dead Wizard was brought back from the brink.
Name: Ilias Dune
Race: Human
Class: Fighter (Mutation Warrior) 6
Alignment: CG
Origin: Kintargo, of a minor noble family that was brought lower by the Night of Ashes
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: Lucky Bones - The Watcher in the Walls
Cause of Death: Crit Charge from Xorn, Averted by Hero Points
The group was incredibly paranoid about the colored floor. They attempted to check for pressure plates everywhere. When they found the yellow tiles had treasure underneath, they assumed that the treasure was holding down a pressure plate for a trap. When that did not trigger anything, they suggested that maybe the entire room was one giant pressure plate, waiting to be a trap. They did not pick up on the truth of the matter - the colored panels had meaning to them!
Ilias was the first to step into the room further, moving from a red tile to a green tile and triggering the watchful Xorn. Combat began with two charges out of the walls and while he did his best to swing his polearm at the attackers, the end result was two Xorn maws clamped around his chest, biting down. One of the two crit and ~60 damage later, Ilias only averted death by pure will. The Life Oracle was able to turn the tide with a Calm Emotions, which let one of the two Xorn be taken one-on-one by the Paladin. They eventually had everyone on their feet for a single burst round on the final Xorn, retreating from the dungeon to rest after quite a bit of stress.
Their Hero Points reserves are now VERY tapped. Galen (Paladin) has 2 in reserve, Ilias (Fighter) has fallen to 0, Alexander (Wizard) is down to 1, Arryn (Oracle) remains at 2, and Bart (Bard) is comfortable at 3. This leaves two of the PCs on the edge of permanent death... with the lower floor of the Lucky Bones remaining. We will see if people survive!
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Had a nasty combat Sunday, nearly a TPK. High variation combat happens in a party of glass cannons, though!
Where we are at!
The party set out to a concentration of the doghouses, at the Records Hall. They easily rolled over the rolled encounter with an Inquisitor troop and liberated the imprisoned civilians, then the bloodrager said "we should totally issue our own proclamations, the first being that anyone caught doghousing anyone will receive twice as bad in return!" With that, the party took a moment to disarm the door to the record hall and venture in, finding another inquisitor troop preparing to face them. They were unaware of the invisible stalkers waiting in the alcoves.
Three of the ravens jumped into the hall, the Half-Orc Rogue preparing to go around while the Barbarian/Ninja Halfling vanished and the Bloodrager charged the Inquisitors head-on. The bard turns invisible and begins performing at the head of the hall to buff the party. Out from the side door steps Tiarise Izoni, who leads with a successful slumber hex on the Bloodrager. By the time her turn comes around again, the only visible standing target is the rogue battling an invisible stalker in an alcove.
Name: Hakar
Race: Half-Orc
Class: Rogue 9
Origin: Runaway slave-hunter turned escapee from the Thrune regime.
Adventure: A Song of Silver
Location: The Records Hall
Cause of Death: Only visible target when Tiarise Izoni begins her full offensive spell casting.
Name: Ruh
Race: Halfling
Class: Ninja 2/Barbarian 7
Origin: Runaway halfling gladiator slave.
Adventure: A Song of Silver
Location: The Records Hall
Cause of Death: Tiarise, again!
The bloodrager manages to clean out the rest of the encounter, but MAN did that look like a TPK about to happen. The party has retreated and recovered, but it's only going to get tougher from here...
Name: Kirishima
Race: Kitsune
Class: Witch 6 - Cartomancer (Deception)
Origin: Local working class soothsayer
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: Lucky Bones underwater level
Cause of Death: Drowned while unconscious
specifics
Pounced by the mussle monsters (Shell Sentinels ), and getting struck 4 times...( while escaping the Skum in the first hall ) and failing 3 consecutive Fort Saves leading to her Wisdom being reduced to "0" and falling unconscious from the wisdom destroying poison. With the rest of her group being forced to retreat and unaware of her location she drowned when her water breathing potion ran out
and on the following session
Name: Kovacz
Race: Aasimar
Class: Inquisitor of Cayden (6)
Origin: Rabble Rouser and dedicated Foe of Opppression
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: Lucky Bones upper level, Tiles Room
Cause of Death: chopped (bitten) in two
specifics
After returning to the Lucky Bones the party passed through the riddle room of colored tiles. A high perception roll (new character)revealed a hidden cache under the tiles leading to careful removal of the tiles - upon starting with a different set the Xorn emerged. The Inquisitor guarded the retreat out of the far door and got bite-crited on round 2 with a total damage of 50+ points, reducing him to -17 in one fell swoop. Missing roughly one third of his body (mostly from the torso) , he left early to share a pint with Cayden.
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Name: Viviera Vashnarstill
Race: Human
Class: Investigator 8 - Infiltrator
Origin: First born daughter of the Vashnarstill Family
Adventure: Dance of the Damned (No Response from Deepmar)
Location: Lair of Graavik the Cruel
Cause of Death: Animated Di-section Table
Discovering that the villains were in fact Derro the group fought their way through their defenses to find themselves facing their sorcerer leader, the charmed prison warden, a fungus warped barbarian, and an animated table waving scalpels, syringes, and straps.
Under the command of the sorcerer the table initial focused all it's attacks on the unfortunate investigator knocking her down to -6 hp.
Over the next two turns as they desperately attempted to kill the table it dragged her prone body onto the table. Unable to finally destroy it the table focused all of it's attacks on her prone body, hitting her for a combined total of 46 damage.
I use a card system similar to the hero point system and the bard then used 4 of his cards to prevent Viviera's death. The table was then reduced to kindling and the wounded woman was healed back from the brink of death.
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Name: Noname
Race: Gnome
Class: Bard (Animal Speaker, loves dogs)
Alignment: CN
Origin: Kintargo
Adventure: The Kintargo Contract
Location: The Terapsillion
Cause of Death: Nightshade
The slayer has an interesting habit of walking headlong into danger, and the Terapsillion was no exception. She charged up the steps of the ziggurat and at the top fell 60 feet into the trap room, creating a greater shadow of herself. Meanwhile, the druid was inspecting the stone "door," which turned itself into a nightshade when the trap triggered.
The investigator flew down to help the slayer and promptly had his 8 strength reduced to 0 by the shadow that formed, and the bard jumped down as well. The nightshade decided it was much more afraid of the oracle at the top of the pyramid than the melee druid/rogue at the bottom, so the oracle jumped down into the ziggurat to escape it while the druid turned invisible.
A few rounds later, the nightshade was in the pyramid with the bard, the slayer, and two unconscious-from-strength-damage other party members. The nightshade took a bite at the bard, who had already taken negative energy and falling damage, and brought him to exactly negative con.
The slayer was able to take out the remaining shadows, and the druid went to town on the nightshade, and the rest of the party lived to see another day, thanks in large part to the oracle's scrolls of heal. They tried to rez Noname, but he elected to remain on the River of Souls.
A death? A death that was not averted by Hero Points? It is true! And... a little tragic.
Name: Ilias Dune
Race: Human
Class: Fighter (Mutation Warrior) 8
Alignment: CG
Origin: Kintargo, of a minor noble family that was brought lower by the Night of Ashes
Adventure: Dance of the Damned
Location: Fort Menador
Cause of Death: Death by stepping on a Slithering Tracker
Details:
So imagine the surprise when they find a room that is entirely bare of any dust. Imagine their surprise when the bulkiest, most difficult to injure member of the Silver Ravens steps into the room. Imagine the look when he is suddenly wracked with paralysis. Imagine the fear when he finds that all the Slithering Trackers have won the initiative rolls. After the first Slithering Tracker failed to even be able to grapple a paralyzed, helpless target. The intelligent,
voracious slimes had only one way to feast upon delicious blood.
They had to kill the Fighter. Two coup de grace attempts later,
Ilias was a body cooling on the floor and the slithering tracker that was not shut into the room went after the delicious Bard.
I really wish this had happened in a more epic encounter. ...but given the fact that they have trivially breezed through the last few months of encounters, I did need to put them on their toes a bit. Besides, their Scroll of Raise Dead is gathering dust! As I also use Hero Points, a chance to mitigate the circumstances was already there. I do question my choice of using Coup de Grace a little so soon - they needed a nat 20 to grapple and the first grapple attempt was a 19... since they were intelligent creatures, I justified it as enough to get a sense from there. But maybe another round of wasted attempts was warranted.
...still, what is done is done. And so 8 levels in, the first death has come. Right on track for when they can deal with it more easily.
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Gameplay Timeline 15th April 4716 A.R. - 9th November 4716 A.R., entering Mephistopheles’ layer of Hell on Halloween at the first stroke of midnight.
Name “Bob”, “Dave” and “Johnny” – character names have been changed to protect the players wearing their well-earned hubcaps of shame.
Race Elf, Gnome and Hobbit
Class dual-classed: (other stuff)/Wizard 20/Ranger 1, (other stuff)/Illusionist 20/Slayer 1 and (other stuff)/Oracle 20/Hunter 1
Alignment CG (all 3)
Adventure In Hell’s Bright Shadow
Ye Olde Dirtnappe Shoppe Fair Fortune Livery
Cause of Dirtnap “we got this”
Gory Details The characters did not meet up until after the initial riot and Mr MacGuffin (Rex Victocora) due to player tardiness. The characters were drunk, saw my character in the street and tagged along gabbing about our recent adventures in the Shackles. Doggies, no problem, instakibble. Dire rats? Kebobs. The terrible trio bade the Witch that is out of spells (my character) to return upstairs to conduct a thorough grid pattern sweep-n-loot while they wasted whatever lurks in the cellar. Roger that.
Still drunk as lords, the noisome trio sporting already less-than-stellar CMB, CMD, Fort and Reflex saves hampered even more by in-character booze and metagame-y “AP chapter 1s are wuss, we’re good” clambered down the ladder with their tail-gun Charlie closing the trapdoor behind them. Staggering overconfidence brought them into the rancid chamber with the cesspool wherein the lemures lay beneath the sewage whilst the gremlin quintet waited in ambush.
Blowing their Perception checks - not a particular surprise given the assorted penalties - they were successfully puked on en masse, all three failing to not become nauseated and starting blowing chow. On the surprise round. While in lightning bolt formation, aka “a conga line” adjacent to the cesspool they then proceeded to (a) lose initiative to all of the monsters; (b) fail their Reflex saves against the gremlins’ grease and (c) die.
One after another the nauseated and prone characters were ganged up on by five gremlins using the grease to slide them into the sewage wherein the lemures delivered enough claw damage to render them unconscious before tag-teaming the next character the gremlins brought them. Between sliding, four aid another actions to boost CMBs by 8, putrid breath weapons ‘renewing’ (read: characters continuing to fail Fort saves against nauseated for 1d4 rounds at a clip) and flank-gangbanging by lemures, they died without getting to take a single offensive action.
“Where was your character?!” Well, with a DC 25 Perception check to make, that didn’t happen whilst the terrible trio were getting themselves killed. What did happen is that my character completed the sweep, popped open the trapdoor, did not hear raucous carousing, snoring or much of anything else other than some disturbing chewing noises. Cantrips, judicious use of the slumber hex and coup-de-grace via elven curve blade took care of the monsters. Seeing only chunky salsa floating in utterly disgusting sewage while lacking access to prestidigitation, looting the bodies of my comrades-at-arms was not an option.
“No way am I dying of filth fever to drag your carcasses out of there for burial. I say last rites over the floaty bits, then leave with what I do have.”
Once the shock wore off, the players donned their figurative hubcaps of shame, whipped up fresh meat and eagerly anticipated continuing the campaign.
Name “Bob”, “Dave” and “Johnny”
Race Dwarf, Human and Strix
Class Ranger 1, Slayer 1, Hunter 1
Adventure In Hell’s Bright Shadow
Ye Olde Dirtnappe Shoppe Longroad’s Coffee House
Cause of Dirtnap Blosodriette’s pipes of the sewers as a follow-up to sneak attack poisoned blowgun darts
Gory Details Heavy Dex damage and no small amount of sneak attack damage via blowgun dart made things go pear-shaped for each of them when a trio of rat swarms devoured them alive.
Name “Bob II”, “Dave II” and “Johnny II”
Race Aasimar triplets
Class Paladins of Sarenrae 3
Adventure In Hell’s Bright Shadow
Ye Olde Dirtnappe Shoppe Many-Steps Monastery
Cause of Dirtnap using your 1/day smite evil too early
Gory Details Nox with minions, but the death blows were all dealt by Nox. “Mental note: Stealth is a good thing.”
Name “Bob III”, “Dave III” and “Johnny III”
Race Aasimar triplets
Class Warpriest 5
Adventure Turn of the Torrent
Ye Olde Dirtnapping Shoppe Lucky Bones
Cause of Dirtnap having net penalties to Climb, infernal wounds from a fiend’s glaive and being shoved into a spiked pit trap
Gory Details A particularly tough barbazu, a trio of melee characters with the mobility of wet pasta and repeatedly failing to remove their infernal wounds before passing out from blood loss only to die in the belly of a mangy 20-foot deep spiked pit.
Name “Bob IV”, “Dave IV” and “Johnny IV”
Race Aasimar triplets
Class Warpriest 5
Adventure Turn of the Torrent
Ye Olde Dirtnappe Shoppe Lucky Bones
Cause of Dirtnap yellow mold spores
Gory Details death by yellow mold spores after winding up in a spiked pit full of the stuff, slower than green slime, just as effective.
Name “Bob V”, “Dave V” and “Johnny V”
Race Aasimar triplets
Class Warpriest 6
Adventure Turn of the Torrent
Ye Olde Dirtnappe Shoppe Lucky Bones, lower dungeon
Cause of Dirtnap supernatural drowning while running low on gas
Gory Details Drowned to death. At least they didn’t drown in sewage after repeated vomiting.
Name “Bob”, “Dave” and “Johnny” – aka “Joe”, “Angel Eyes” and “Tuco ‘the Rat’”
Race Humans
Class Gunslinger (Mysterious Stranger) 5/Brawler 4, Gunslinger 5/ Paladin (Holy Gun) 4, Gunslinger (Pistolero) 5/ Swashbuckler (Picaroon) 4
Adventure Dance of the Damned
Ye Olde Dirtnappe Shoppe The Ruby Masquerade
Cause of Dirtnap relying on one Witch to keep the entire group alive
Gory Details The sheer firepower the bad guys bring to bear is impressive. The sheer firepower of three gunslingers is also impressive. Sadly, Joe and Tuco didn’t have the strongest Will saves. Angel Eyes lasted longer ... but not long enough. Much discussion was had about the value of consumable magic items and being smarter about packing better magical ammunition.
Name “Joe II”, “Angel Eyes II” and “Tuco ‘the Rat’ II”
Race Humans
Class Gunslinger (Mysterious Stranger) 7/Brawler 5, Gunslinger 5/ Paladin (Holy Gun) 7, Gunslinger (Pistolero) 5/ Swashbuckler (Picaroon) 7
Adventure A Song of Silver
Ye Olde Dirtnapping Shoppe atop the Kintargo Opera House
Cause of Dirtnap assuming one knows all that there is to know about blue dragons without paying attention to the flavor text
Gory Details Fighting a dragon out of doors is always a tough proposition. It gets worse when you assume that it is a ‘bog standard dragon with flavor text attached’. The final shots from Joe II crippled the dragon’s wings before it roasted the gunslinger alive in a blast of Hellfire for his temerity.
Name “Joe III”, “Angel Eyes III” and “Tuco ‘the Rat’ III”
Race Humans
Class Gunslinger (Mysterious Stranger) 7/Brawler 6, Gunslinger 5/Paladin (Holy Gun) 8, Gunslinger (Pistolero) 5/Swashbuckler (Picaroon) 8
Adventure A Song of Silver
Ye Olde Dirtnappe Shoppe Temple of Asmodeus
Cause of Dirtnap jump-starting the showdown with ‘Barzy’, his high priest buddy and a few mini-onions
Gory Details The gunslingers blew away the high priest and minions in short order. ‘Barzy’ proceeded to lay the smack down in short order, beating the brains out of each gunslinger in turn, one by one. With strong Fort and Will saves ‘Barzy’ ignored the Witch while dashing out gunslingers’ brains one by one: Angel Eyes, then Joe, then Tuco.
Name “Joe IV”, “Angel Eyes IV” and “Tuco ‘the Rat’ IV”
Race Humans
Class Gunslinger (Mysterious Stranger) 7/Brawler 7, Gunslinger 5/ Paladin (Holy Gun) 9, Gunslinger (Pistolero) 5/Swashbuckler (Picaroon) 9
Adventure The Kintargo Contract
Ye Olde Dirtnappe Shoppe Mangvhune’s Heart, surgical amphitheater
Cause of Dirtnap Mangvhune taking advantage of a very amusing haunt
Gory Details Mangvhune’s death attack took out Angel Eyes right out of the gate. Joe and Tuco died via coup de grace after strapping themselves into surgical apparati.
Name “Joe V”, “Angel Eyes V” and “Tuco ‘the Redeemed Rat’ V”
Race Humans
Class Gunslinger (Mysterious Stranger) 7/Paladin (Holy Gun) 9 [retraining prior to entering Hell], Gunslinger 5/Paladin (Holy Gun) 12, Gunslinger (Pistolero) 5/ Paladin (Holy Gun) 12 [retraining prior to entering Hell]
Adventure Breaking the Bones of Hell
Ye Olde Dirtnappe Shoppe The Apex of Bone
Cause of Dirtnap Barzilai ‘Barzy’ Thrune
Gory Details The final combat of the campaign against our old buddy Barzy and waves of ‘Hounds of Kintargo’. Barzy had an infernal halo over his head ... and initiative. His first action was to send Angel Eyes screaming into the depths of Hell for all eternity with a nod of his damned halo. Smite evils were declared, greater named bullets slammed home while my character dug a special scroll out of a handy haversack and targeted that accursed halo with a disjunction to no effect.
Another infernal nod, Tuco ‘the Redeemed Rat’ follows Angel Eyes into the Inferno. Another bullet takes a chunk out of Barzy’s head as the Hounds start swirling around making things difficult while the monster cackles gleefully. disjunction #2 ... nothing.
Once more the Infernal Halo does its foul work, sending Joe into the fiery chasms of Hell. The third and final disjunction obliterates the talisman of ultimate evil that was Barzy’s halo ... and the backlash strips the 18th level Witch of spellcasting ability, forever, shattering the character’s bonded wand into motes of mithril dust.
Barzy’s failure to resist the Witch’s evil eye hex cascades into being unable to act from excruciating agony, other than writhe around in pain. This his fate is locked shut with a dire prophecy followed by shoving his own heart into his chest before pronouncing Barzy’s death curse, taking 3 glorious rounds to take effect - with the Witch triggering dire prophecy’s “free action to bring the full force of the prophecy to bear” on Barzy’s Fort save to not die. Suffering a massive penalty to his Fortitude save against death by cardiac arrest, Barzy does fate one better by throwing a natural 1 on his save, and dies.
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So, in the campaign I'm GMing we've come to realize that our real enemies are not Cheliax or Devils, but a far greater threat: maces. And their more vile cousins, glaives- which are simply sharp maces on a stick.
After some close calls with death (because I couldn't stop rolling and confirming crits) by mace from a variety of Chelish citizens, Dottari, and low level NPC's, the party's hatred of these weapons was only cemented. Also, if you pay attention, a significant number of the villains actually wield maces (it is the favored weapon of a certain Asmodeus after all).
And then they ran into glaives. Literally. Wielded by Nox, at least at first. Seriously, x3 crit + power attack + high STR is brutal.
Early in the campaign, we had 3 of 4 party members knocked down but not killed by Kossrani at the Salt Works, at which point I took over as the GM and the previous GM started as a player. While the PC's were held prisoner at the Works, the escaped PC (Veltin) and his new friend (the oracle) tried to secure a chelish citizen's armband and pendant to infiltrate the Works. Unfortunately, a critical hit from a mace led to the immediate loss of the oracle and a retcon that he wasn't actually the PC's character.
Later the PC's managed a daring rescue by slumber hexing the horses on the carriage taking the captured PC's to the temple of Asmodeus. They slew the guards and managed to get away clean, thus preventing the Silver Ravens from ending before they even managed to start.
Anyway, I'm including some non-deaths that resulted in the loss of the character (at least temporarily). To the gory (and less gory) details!
Name: Veltin (no last name)
Race: Elf
Class: Witch 4.
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Origin: A small swamp south of Kintargo. Surprisingly similar backstory to Kermit the frog.
Adventure: Hell's Rebels
Location: Hocum's Fantasmagorium
Cause of Death: A sudden by inevitable betrayal, killing blow by Azvernathi Raul
The Gory Details:
Unfortunately, when the party finally encountered Azvernathi Raul Blosodriette saw her chance. As they were already worn down by the encounters in the Fantasmagorium, she disappeared and used her pipes of the sewers to summon a rat swarm and unleash it on the PC's. But Veltin having already taken damage from the redactors, the swarming rats took him down to the negatives. The oracle opted not to heal him, hoping to do so next round in a more advantageous position. Unfortunately, Azvernathi Raul channeled negative energy and Veltin failed his save.
He would have likely survived this whole encounter had he not dumped his constitution down to a 10 in pursuit of his build. Sadly, the frail old elf was no more and his friends buried him out in the swamp near his hovel.
Name: Amalia Arvanaxi
Race: Angelblooded Aasimar
Class: Oracle of Nature 1/Paladin 3
Alignment: Lawful Good
Origin: Originally my character, was turned into a GMNPC when I took over. Surprisingly well liked for a GMNPC paladin. Amalia was secretly an agent of the Glorious Reclamation sent to start a cell in Kintargo. As you might guess, it didn't work so well.
Adventure: Hell's Rebels
Location: The Many Steps-Monastery (attempt #1)
Cause of Death: Nox! Is anyone surprised?
The Gory Details:
Bad idea. Nox attacked, rolled a natural 20, confirmed, and dropped the young paladin. With her allies too far away to help, Nox dimension doored away with the unconscious Paladin- who stabilized in the rafters of the Fantasmagorium. Then Nox dimension doored back in to continue the carnage...
Name: Alissa Wildcarde
Race: Human
Class: Swashbuckler 1/Unchained Rogue 3
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Origin: A native of Kintargo, Alissa cared nothing for politics and save for the way it distracted folks from her pickpocketing... until her brother was slain in the Aria Park protest. And then it was personal.
Adventure: Hell's Rebels
Location: The Many Steps-Monestary (attempt #1)
Cause of Death: Nox again! Is anyone surprised (again)?
The Gory Details:
Nox being rather taken off guard by her attackers, she didn't execute the survivors on the spot- wishing to interrogate them as to why they were even aware of the Many Steps Monastery.
Both were taken into custody by Nox and taken away. Alissa was later rescued from the clutches of a certain Kyton on the Holding House, but as of yet the party has not located Amalia.
Name: Vánagandr
Race: Angleblooded Aasimar
Class: Bloodrager 4
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Origin: A wandering adventurer and warrior, who fought and killed a strange aberration but was infused with its blood. Believes himself to be related to Amalia (the paladin) and came to Kintargo looking for her. He instead found decapitation.
Adventure: Hell's Rebels
Location: The Many Steps-Monestary (attempt #2)
Cause of Death: And... yeah, Nox.
The Gory Details:
Mephry had been left out of the previous fight (locked in his kennel) but Nox had the hellhound on a short leash due to the previous security concerns.
The party destroyed the zombies (stationed where the Scrivinite had been ) and tore through the redactors, though one survived long enough to warn Nox. When the party attempted to engage Nox, she had the ghoul Lout and surviving redactor attack from the front, while she and Mephry dimension doored to flank.
The fight was going well, and Nox took a brutal beating from Vánagandr until she rolled a natural 20. And confirmed. And did enough damage to take the already damaged aasimar from full hit points to his negative con score. So even had he been at full hp, Van would have been toast. Nox decapitated him.
The rest of the battle was downhill, a desperate struggle to escape (but escape the PC's did). They just couldn't do enough damage to Nox or keep her down with spells. I wonder if the original slumber hex + dual cursed oracle combo had took Nox on, perhaps she would have just been knocked out and CDG without issue.
Anyway, my party now hates Nox, who didn't actually fail her mission- and therefore I've had to readjust the campaign somewhat to take that into account.
Name: Vánagandr
Race: Angleblooded Aasimar
Class: Bloodrager 6
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Origin: Decapitation was only a setback for Van, whose alien blood knit his body back together but left him stranger... less human.
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: The Smugglers Tunnels (Lucky Bones)
Cause of Death: Elgadazum the Hateful, and you guessed it, a critical hit with a glaive.
The Gory Details:
They made short work of the cultists, but failed dispatch the downed changelings- and with a potion of invisibility and cure light wounds, the surviving cultists managed to awaken all of her sisters save one (who had been hacked in half).
The party noticed the spiked pit trap but not the falling platforms, and the cleric accidentally activated it and fell in. Split apart and trying to get the bleeding cleric from the pit, Van decided to push forward and met the advanced bearded devil. Elgadazum was in a mood to talk (as in the AP, and it was good because the party desperately needed to regroup) but Van very much was not. He shrugged and attacked the devil.
Elgadazum responded in kind- with a confirmed critical hit. His serrated blade nearly split the bloorager in two, and again the party was turned to its heels. They managed to free the twin sacrifices and escape while the bard invisibility took reconnaissance of the dungeon, learning of the it's leader's treachery (they had very recently been lovers).
The bearded devil was later cut down by the bard turned swashbuckler and the newly returned slayer. The party was far more prepared and his glaive never made contact with any PC.
Van again pulled his regeneration trick, but came out stranger yet... hints that would foreshadow his connection to a certain Aboleth later in the campaign.
Name: Quillon
Race: Ifrit
Class: Bard 8
Origin: Player in the Kintargo opera; upstairs tenant at the Silver Star before the Night of Ashes; author of the seditious operetta "Impotence," his work was subsequently banned in Kintargo under Proclamation the Tenth
Adventure: Dance of the Damned
Location: Western approach to the Menador Keep
Cause of Death: Elulae; or, too many bolts, followed by too many arrows, followed by hot and cold dice. Oh, and lots of illusions.
The Gory Details: Tonight's session began with the GM debuting his new tshirt, noting that the one with the holy symbol of Asmodeus he'd been wearing since the Night of Ashes wasn't working – the Black Ravens had managed to reach Lv 8 without a single PC death – and joking that his new "I [HEART] ASMODEUS" shirt would turn the tide. I am pleased to announce that prophecy is once again alive and well in post-Aroden Cheliax.
Determined to close the Menador Gap, the Ravens rode horses (on loan from Lady Aulamaxa) south along the Ravounel Road, encountering a trio of Hellknights of the Rack (who'd been delayed on their way to Kintargo by some pesky paladins of Iomedae) about a 30 minutes ride from the Keep. Two Hellknights were pummeled, pumped for information and slain. The third retreated south on horseback, back to the Keep, which was subsequently put on high alert.
After scouting ahead (and spotting the albino erinyes lurking atop the arch – "watch out, her bow is deadly" warned the witch), the halfling brawler (rebuilt PC Laria Longroad) and elf transformation witch used gaseous form and screech owl shape to squeeze through the arrow slits into C3a, but couldn't take out both soldiers before one managed to unleash a screaming bolt.
All hell broke loose, with the brawler clearing out the room and working to open the iron gate, the witch flying atop the battlements and casting silent fog spells to incapacitate the ballista, the tengu melee inquisitor buffing and scouting while invisible, and the gnome sorcerer (rebuilt PC the Newt) keeping as far away as possible, distracting soldiers from a distance with an illusory silver dragon and causing several crossbowmen to take defensive stances.
Quillon, having sculpted sound to transform every word spoken by a half-dozen Menador soldiers to "Down with Thrune," heard the gate opening and stormed forward. He absorbed several readied screaming bolts. Then Elulae threw up a minor image of a wall of fire blocking access to the west entry, but Quillon pushed ever forward, peering through the flames with his Firesight racial feat (and, quite tragically, rolling a 9 on the subsequent Will save to disbelieve the illusory fire). He spotted Elulae and decided not to storm through the wall of fire quite yet, hoping to benefit from its cover a little longer.
Meanwhile, the Newt redirected his own illusory silver dragon's attacks towards Elulae, who rolled a Nat 20 to disbelieve. On the next round, the albino erinyes gave Quillon a knowing wink and unleashed a full-round volley of arrows through her own nonexistent wall of fire. Three hits (I rolled max damage on two) and Quillon was at -10 hp (Con 11). Not good. But nobody was in a position to either see/hear him fall, or to be able to reach him. The best the Newt could do was to create a new major image of himself dragging a fake Quillon away, covering the real Quillon with a blanket of illusory rocks until help could arrive.
On his next round, Quillon grabbed our Big D20 and rolled to avoid bleeding out, needing a Nat 20 (vs DC 10 + negative hp).
A 2 came up.
But wait! The halfling with the once-per-day, reroll-saves-for-an-ally racial feat Lucky Halfling was technically within 30 feet of Quillon, albeit with an arrow slit between them.
So Laria Longroad rerolled Quillon's death save.
A 3 came up.
And with that, this GM has his first PC kill of the AP.
The witch is carrying Luculla Gens's scroll of Raise Dead, but Lucien Thrune has just crested the arch riding on the back of Zailosorn. So the shorthanded party, which is not optimized for ranged combat, has got some work to do before they can try to raise Quillon.
(Meanwhile, while the bard's soul is navigating the great waiting room in the sky, Quillon's player may take up the character sheet of the cowering genie Zorumar next week ... he is technically bound to serve Lucien, but there are bound to be other workarounds by which the mistreated kitchen genie can subtly oppose his master.)
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Name: Sliver
Race: Strix
Class: Rogue 10
Alignment: I forget
Origin: A strix amongst the humans, she seeks to avenge her mother's killer, having sacrificed her wings to the Savored Sting.
Adventure: A Song of Silver
Location: The Fair Fortune Livery (again)
Cause of Death: Skinsaw Cultist #263
The Gory Details:
After encountering the Skinsaw cultists en route to break the Bleakbridge blockade, the Silver Ravens delved back into the depths of the livery, none too happy that the cult was using a former Ravens safehouse as their base of operations within the city. Their first fight was against one of the jorogumo and a half dozen of the cultists. Sliver rushed forward, striking one of them with her sap, but when the cult recovered, they struck back hard. One of them cast a spell to paralyze the rogue, which took effect immediately. Seizing the opportunity, the one who Sliver struck with her blackjack drew his war razor across the woman's throat, sending her crashing to the ground instantly.
Name: Thrace
Race: Human
Class: Rogue 3
Alignment: CG
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: Public Excruciation
Cause of Death: Impaled on Halberd from a charging Dottari Guard
The Gory Details:
The party decided to wait until after the Hellknight Armigers left the scene and just the remaining Dottari Guard. Six seconds into the action a Dottari guard charged across the stage with a power attack. The Critical wound resulted in 36 + 3d10 of damage. Outright killing the poor rogue. GM note- we have 7 players so the players are a little behind the recommended level for this section.
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Name: Theodore Uode / Mathas Vashnarstill (NPC)
Race: Gnome / Human
Class: Bard 11 / Unchained Rogue 10
Alignment: Chaotic Good / Lawful Neutral
Origin: A university student with an obsession with hats and for inflating his legend by 'kill-stealing' enemies with low-hit points
Adventure: A Song of Silver
Location: The Kintargo Opera House
Cause of Death: Rivozair (A DM who hasn't learned the danger of templates)
Rivozair flew in to attack the group when Shensen began singing the Song of Silver. What followed was a round by round effort by the DM to avoid a TPK.
With a barbed devil and the two initiative dragon churning her way through the unfortunate characters many of them dropped into negative HP multiple times.
Ultimately the mythic dragon bit the rogue NPC in half and the devil bashed the bard with a single punch which dropped him into negative hp. Not willing to pull punches at such a high level the devil immediately grappled and tore the unfortunate bard into pieces with it's spiked body.
Ultimately, with the song just finished the Vanguard / Cleric managed to use his lawful outsider bane dagger to slice pin the dragon's mouth closed (with a critical hit), finally killing her to end the threat of the mythic dragon.
Name: Theodore Uode / Mathas Vashnarstill (NPC)
Race: Gnome / Human
Class: Bard 11 / Unchained Rogue 10
Alignment: Chaotic Good / Lawful Neutral
Origin: A university student with an obsession with hats and for inflating his legend by 'kill-stealing' enemies with low-hit points
Adventure: A Song of Silver
Location: The Kintargo Opera House
Cause of Death: Rivozair (A DM who hasn't learned the danger of templates)** spoiler omitted **
Given the agile mythic template doubles the actions/damage output of the dragon.... that's not something a GM should do unless either A) Their PCs are grossly overpowered for their level (which is dubious when there's a rogue and gnome bard) and/or mythic themselves, or B) They're trying for a TPK.
My sympathies.
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Given the agile mythic template doubles the actions/damage output of the dragon.... that's not something a GM should do unless either A) Their PCs are grossly overpowered for their level (which is dubious when there's a rogue and gnome bard) and/or mythic themselves, or B) They're trying for a TPK.My sympathies.
The party had recently gained a new player and had been breezing through encounters. It was a pretty epic fight from a (dead) player's perspective, and it was a good reminder that we're not One Punch Man. Plus the bard deserved it, dirty kill stealer.
The group has finally reached the Ruby Masquerade. And boy was it a doozy.
A few general notes: I am running with Barzillai Thrune as Occultist and ran with this for certain other characters as well. Further, since the trap happened with no distractions, I handled all associated Summon SLAs in advance, which likely did not make things any easier on my group. The group also chose to cause no problems, only mingling the entire Masquerade. So when the trap was sprung... oof.
Name: Alexander Dune
Race: Human
Class: Wizard (Arcane Crafter) 9
Alignment: LG
Origin: Kintargo, of a minor noble family that was brought lower by the Night of Ashes
Adventure: Dance of the Damned
Location: The Opera House
Cause of Death: Death by Barzillai Thrune, Averted by Hero Points
They were greeted to the vision of Barzillai Thrune caving in Alexander's skull in a ruthless full attack. Hero Points allowed him to survive the ruthless assault... but only just.
Name: Nirasah
Race: Silvanshee
Class: Chosen One Familiar
Alignment: NG
Origin: Guiding familiar of Sarenrae to lead Galen Jayr to his destiny.
Adventure: Dance of the Damned
Location: The Opera House
Cause of Death: Pierced full of arrows and glaives.
alone and choosing to draw the attention of every devil in attendance, especially the Erinyes and the Bone Devil. This was going about as expected - he was knocked to the ground after being pierced with numerous arrows and was on death's door. His familiar worked desperately to get him back to his feet, only to be rewarded with being the subject of Bearded Devil glaives and Erinyes arrows.
A desperate bid at becoming gas was made to land the last heal to get Galen back to his feet - allowing him to witness when a last salvo of arrows brought the familiar to an end.
Name: Alexander Dune
Race: Human
Class: Wizard (Arcane Crafter) 9
Alignment: LG
Origin: Kintargo, of a minor noble family that was brought lower by the Night of Ashes
Adventure: Dance of the Damned
Location: The Opera House
Cause of Death: A failed Dimension Door and Unholy Blight
Unfortunately, that failed. The ensuing blasting of Unholy Blight by the Erinyes was sufficient to bring him to a more permanent death as the cloying miasma filled the room time after time.
Name: Bartholomeus Muninn
Race: Human
Class: Bard (Negotiator/Soundstriker) 9
Alignment: CG
Origin: Kintargo, would-be bartender and playwright
Adventure: Dance of the Damned
Location: The Opera House
Cause of Death: Death by Barzillai Thrune
and promptly resumed his approach under invisibility. Ultimately,
his attack began anew in between Bartholomeus and the healer Arryn,
leading to the former being driven to the ground and the latter being forced to flee. Unfortunately, Ilias was back in the battle and taking advantage of the reach of his weapon and his ability to fly in order to stay out of reach of Cizmerkis' mace.
The cruel devil made his next gambit - come to face him in combat on the land itself, or he would finish the wounded man at his side.
Ilias decided that his reach was his only edge against the terrible inquisitor and stuck to his flight, leading to Bartholomeus being on the receiving end of another strike of the heavy mace which sent him to the next world.
Thankfully, they ultimately ended triumphant (if only just) and Galen Jayr, with his Ultimate Mercy, has resurrected Alexander... in time for the inevitable approach of the Dottari, lead by Tombus Regegious and their recurring enemy - Lucian Thrune. As a GM, I underestimated Galen's resilience - assuming I could keep him down when he is was at negative HP with this party turned out to be false. He probably should have been added to the death tallies, though it likely would not have changed the outcome, as it only distracted two Bearded Devils who were getting one-shot by Ilias' Evil Outsider Bane fauchard, Anathema.
Still, a suitably epic encounter and the group impresses me again by managing to survive a CR 15 encounter by the skin of their teeth, albeit with a lot of resources expended.
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Name: Abbad
Race: Ratfolk
Class: Magus (12)
Alignment: LN (I think)
Origin: A mercenary hired by Hetamon Haace to help him investigate his mother
Adventure: Song of Silver
Location: Temple of Asmodeus
Cause of Death: The Nine Infernos
The group decided that the most effective route to taking the temple down was to use their gathered intelligence and hit the two infernal engines on the second floor after scaling to the balcony. After entering they discovered and defeated the two Nessian Warhounds alerting the four Erinyes next door.
The group entered and immediately begun a spider climb aided book shelf to book shelf fight with the bow wielding devils. Attacking them set off the Status spell and alerted Constinian who immediately set in motion the investigation of the chamber by Barzillai, Aluceda, and Natsiel who was eager to prove her remaining worth to the inquisitor.
I rolled max (6 rds) on their arrival time and just as they were dispatching the last Erinyes the new group arrived, attacking from two directions.
The fight proved effectively dangerous for the entire group and ultimately fatal for the Abbad, the Ratfolk Magus. Choosing to chase a foe out into the next room the player made the crucial mistake of mentioning, "I'm glad this room didn't end up being trapped."
The mention tripped my memory and I triggered the Nine Infernos. Asmodeus and the other Lords of the Nine stepped from their paintings and as he whimpered pleadingly on his knees the Father of Lies dispatched him (when he failed both his will and fort saves).
Name: Galen Jayr
Race: Human
Class: Paladin (Chosen One) 10 / Oracle (Nature) 1
Alignment: LG
Origin: Kintargo, son of a local healer who has received divine inspiration from Sarenrae
Adventure: Song of Silver
Location: City Streets
Cause of Death: Death by falling, averted by Hero Points
But this means their reserves were taxed when Rivozair swooped down from high above the sky, having spotted the Silver Ravens. Going down invisible, Rivozair was able to easily land a Hellfire Breath that left the party in an immediate panic despite being able to get mostly out of the way. She circled at first, pummeling the enemy with a Fireball before being goaded into attacking Galen. Swooping down, there was a brief exchange where she took a bite out of the Paladin before being driven off through Bartholomeus' use of Greater Dirge of Doom and Intimidate to buy some time.
Preparations were made - flight, True Seeing to bypass the Mirror Images, and a holy blanching for Ilias' fauchard Anathema. A few rounds later, she returned, peppering the group with more fire and fury on the descent before Galen invisibly descended upon the dragon to engage her in melee. The resulting fight was furious - with Smite being able to barely land a critical hit out of invisibility, but with Rivozair forcing two Hero Points from Galen to allow him to use Hero's Defiance to stay conscious.
Ultimately, even this was not enough and another set of blows later, Galen plummeted from the sky. The tapped out Bartholomeus also used a Hero Point in order to cast Featherfall, stopping the Paladin from dying from his fall from the heavens. Shortly after, the burned and struggling Ilias was able to deal just enough damage to Rivozair to send her plummeting down to be ended next. The Devil's Bells pealed out in the background.
The party now recovers, having struck Level 11 and 12 in the same day, ready to take the fight to Thrune at the Temple of Asmodeus.
Name: Aimar
Race: Human
Class: Cleric
Alignment: CG
Origin: Kintargo, estranged son of a wealthy merchant, who dabbled in painting, but specialized in partying and the lustful part of Calistria worship. Until his rebellious girlfriend got caught by the Asmodean inquisition and hung. Then he discovered the vengeful aspect of his goddess.
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: Lucky Bones
Cause of Death: Death by two glaive crits
Name: Tyre
Race: Human (Chelaxian)
Class: Unchained Rogue 3 / Inquisitor of Abadar 1
Alignment: N
Origin: Much abused servant of the Sarinis, now a child of the streets.
Adventure: Turn of the Torrent
Location: Holding House
Cause of Death: Unconscious and fell into a Create Pit spell
Details:
He had just converted to Abadar too, so we'll have to see how his afterlife goes.
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Name: Laria Longroad
Race: Halfling
Class: Brawler (Snakebite Striker) 9 / Rogue 1
Origin: Kintargan coffeeshop owner and covert smuggler, Laria was upgraded from NPC to full-on PC when a new player assumed her character sheet at Lv 3 and rebuilt her as a Snakebite Striker
Adventure: A Song of Silver
Location: Basement of the Fair Fortune Livery
Cause of Death: Hei-Fen and the unholy power of Norgorber
Defeating a first wave of traps and cultists upstairs, the Ravens descended into the basement and were quickly smacked with a Flame Strike from the wererat cleric.
After being hit by the tiefling bloodrager's Lightning Bolt, Hei-Fen retreated to the large chamber with the dirty cistern, with most of the party in hot pursuit (the jorogumo, tracking the party, used Suggestion to draw the tengu inquisitor back upstairs for a solo combat that he only barely survived).
Laria Longroad had attracted Hei-Fen's attention at the dinner party in Vyre by flirting with the Queen of Delights. Hei-Fen suspected that Laria was Manticce's favorite – indeed, after dinner the halfling went to bed with Manticce and willfully accepted a 17-day Dominate spell. Manticce had recently teleported to Kintargo to help Resurrect some fallen resisters (Jilia, Rexus, Lady Jarvis), and the witch had placed her Ward hex (+4 to AC and saves) on Laria. Still, the cleric of Norgorber was definitely gunning for Manticce's precious pet halfling.
As the Hasted party moved into the cistern room, Hei-Fen cast Confusion, addling the mind of the bloodrager and the ifrit bard. Laria, with her newly silvered fists (a huge Lv 9 boon to anyone regularly brawling against devils and lycanthropes), charged into melee, feinting and delivering a solid sneak attack to the wounded, flat-footed cleric.
Sensing her opportunity, Hei-Fen cast Harm defensively and delivered a devastating jolt of negative energy. Laria, even with her Ward bonus, failed the save. Those 120 points of damage were more than enough to drop her to 1 hp, thereby ending the Ward and alerting Manticce that her girlfriend was in trouble.
Standing toe-to-toe with Hei-Fen, Laria decided to forego withdrawal/healing and tried to finish off the cleric (who was down to 42 hp). With a Hasted brawler's flurry, the halfling lined up 5 punches against the cleric's jaw. But Hei-Fen's AC 29 is no joke, and Laria only managed to hit once.
Hei-Fen made the same calculation – instead of healing up, she wanted to finish off Laria. Conveying the murderous power of Norgorber, Hei-Fen channeled negative energy. Laria failed her save, and 6d6 was enough to drop her from 1 hp to dead.
The bloodrager managed to shake off the Confusion long enough to charge in and kill Hei-Fen, who in her moment of dying felt satisfied having completed one glorious murder for Father Skinsaw. The ifrit – the only other PC who's died in our campaign – carried Laria's lifeless body back to the Lucky Bones, where the brave halfling jumped to the very front of the Queen of Delights' lengthening Resurrection queue.
Technical TPK
Name: Cadrel
Race: Elf
Class: Rogue 2
Adventure: In Hell's Bright Shadow
Location: Roof of Humbright House
Cause of Death: Elemental Ray from Scarplume
Name: Kallen Darro
Race: Human
Class: Fighter 2
Adventure: In Hell's Bright Shadow
Location: Roof of Humbright House
Cause of Death: Attacked a heavily injured Red Jill at 0 HP
Name: Calen Arturus
Race: Tiefling
Class: Investigator (empiricist)
Adventure: In Hell's Bright Shadow
Location: Roof of Humbright House
Cause of Death: Crit from Scarplume's shocking grasp.
The party had already had trouble with gangs of Red Jills in the streets. The first time they ran across them, they left one party member bleeding out in the street while the other ran off. Thankfully, a group of Dottari were able to save Calen and get him to a temple.
After recuperating, they sought the Jills out at full strength. The Jills found them again instead and Calen ended up unconscious again. The party had the opportunity to take prisoners but executed the two Jills who hadn't already died or run away.
I decided to throw them a bone the third time they went looking and they quickly made their way to their hideout. The Jills weren't rolling below a 16 on their stealth checks to stay out of sight while observing the party so all the PCs had was two tall, gutted, abandoned buildings.
They took to the balcony on the 2nd story of the orphanage and made their way to the door. I had one Jill just inside the door to serve as a delaying action and the other two perched just beyond the far edge of the roof, ready to pop up and attack once the party opened the door.
The Jill inside the door fails to jump Kallen in the lead and the two on the roof miss their shots. In the first round, the Jill in melee gets cut down on a crit from Kallen's greatsword, but Calen took a scorching ray crit to the face. The crossbow wielding Jills struggled to hit anything.
The party pushed into the top floor of the orphanage and attempted to draw the Jills to them. Given they had the party essentially pinned down, the Jills decided to wait them out. A couple of great stealth rolls later I had a JilThl watching each exit and Scarplume lying in wait until someone came into the open. The party decides to push and the Kallen is able to block all the crossbow bolts on his way.
Here's where the dice turned. Scarplume swoops out and unloads her last scorching rays, missing both. The Kallen and Cadrel struggle to do anything against the Jill near the makeshift bridge. The Jill that was watching the balcony gets some lucky rolls and Scarplume unloads a burning hands on the fighter and rogue. Calen tags Scarplume with a crossbow crit, dropping her dex and str(we are using the crit hit and fumble decks).
Kallen is finally able to deal with the second Jill and moves off to attack the one still firing on them with his crossbow. Cadrel tries throwing a few daggers at Scarplume but he and the Calen have no luck. Scarplume is able to finish off the rogue with an elemental ray.
Kallen and the remaining Jill struggle to hit each other while Scarplume realizes her elemental rays are pretty ineffective against the Investigator's fire resistance. The Jill gets a lucky hit, dropping the fighter as Scarplume swoops in and casts shocking grasp. Before I rolled the dice I said 'I hope it comes up a 1' to my players. A confirmed crit later I get the party thinking about what characters they want to play next.
Thankfully, the wizard was unable to make this session so a member of the rebellion survives!
Name: Tango
Race: Tengu
Class: Inquisitor of Milani 11
Origin: Former head gardener of the Victocora Estate
Adventure: A Song of Silver
Location: Bleakbridge
Cause of Death: Fireballs from a horned-devil-bound dragon
The party infiltrated the bridge in the guise of dottari forces using a combination of disguise, bluffing and a chorus of illusory Asmodean priests produced from Lorelu the halfling ghost’s Deck of Illusions. They managed to mostly avoid revealing themselves while disabling the troops and captains, but Tango assumed his large Tengu Raven Form to take on Trex face-to-face and absorbed some volleys from the dottari troops in the process.
Once the combat ended, I asked each member of the party what they were doing next. A couple wanted to loot the bodies, a few others wanted to check out the shops, the witch started scribbling a note to send back via raven figurine to the Lucky Bones. Nobody healed, least of all the inquisitor. They’d already fought 3+ encounters this day, so resources as well as hp were dwindling.
At this point it was around 11pm on a Saturday night. We’d gathered for my wife’s birthday and she’d requested a fun combat session, so we’d all had a good dose of night coffee along with our other typical game-night indulgences.
Me: Everybody roll Perception [begins making the sound of heavy wings beating]
I didn’t even need to ask whether they wanted to go late. The gleeful looks on their faces said it all. (I did, however, decide to refrain from summoning the barbed devil because we’re all in our 30s/40s and coffee is not speed.)
Rivozair rolled a Nat 20 on Initiative and began closing the distance between the tower and the bridge – or rather, a Minor Image version of her form flew head-on towards the bridge, while her Invisible form looped around to approach the span lengthwise, hoping to catch the unawares party in a nice straight line. Hey, even with her devil dealing she’s still an illusion-loving blue dragon.
“How did we fight this thing last time?” asked the guest player running a buffed-up version of Hortense the Hellknight.
“We always just run,” my wife said.
The party did a good job of finding nooks of cover on the awesome tactical Bleakbridge map that comes with the print version of AP 100. The Hellknight loosed a volley of arrows when the dragon was only 100 ft away, and I rolled high behind-the-screen to allow her to pass the Will save and see through the illusion. “FAKE DRAGON!” she began shouting.
The real Rivozair lit up the exposed Hellknight with her breath weapon and make a large dragon-y loop. The party cowered and healed and buffed with what resources they had left, finding their standard ranged options limited against the dragon’s AC 37 and resistance/immunity to fire/electricity. When she landed atop one of the guard towers, the inquisitor and swashbuckler swarmed, braving AoOs to set up a flank.
Rivozair regained her breath weapon and chose to target Tango, rightfully judging him to be the most threatening combatant. She then flew off, unwilling to leave herself open to full attacks. Her SR managed to keep the gnome sorcerer and elf witch at bay, although she did eat one pretty nasty Cone of Cold.
Tango and the flying swashbuckler launched into a brave but risky pursuit, and on her next turn Rivozair immolated herself with a fireball, resisting most of the fire damage but severely wounding her melee threats. This cat-and-mice game continued, Tango’s hit points dwindling precariously as they chipped away via AoO each time Rivozair flew out of melee, until the dragon fled a clustering group of attackers hovering above the Yolubilis and fired her last fireball back towards her pursuants.
I snapped a photo for posterity of the mighty 10d6 dice roll that reduced Tango to -14 hp, exactly his negative Con. The photo is time stamped 2:27am:
3-3-3-4-5-5-6-6-6-6
Tango’s body plunged into the river below. He was saved from sinking to the bottom of the Yolubilis by the elf witch’s Prehensile Hair, and meanwhile Rivozair decided to try to put an end to the swashbuckler with a toe-to-toe, full-attack duel. Gojee Shakes the former Chelish navy man managed to dodge enough attacks to stay alive, and he slayed the dragon with a crit from the mayor’s heirloom rapier Reprisal.
The party plans to return Tango’s body to the Silver Star’s shrine of Sarenrae, where the witch will Raise him from the dead and the beaten-down party will recover their strength from the Dawnflower Font before beginning their assault on the Temple of Asmodeus.
Technical TPK... again
Name: Baelyn
Race: Human
Class: Dual-Cursed Oracle 2
Adventure: In Hell's Bright Shadow
Location: Nighttime in the Devil's Nursery
Cause of Death: Bleed Damage From Non-Consensual Dentistry
Name: Dean
Race: Tiefling
Class: Musket Master Gunslinger 2
Adventure: In Hell's Bright Shadow
Location: Nighttime in the Devil's Nursery
Cause of Death: Bleed Damage From Non-Consensual Dentistry
So I ran a session to introduce new characters set a few days before the events at Humbright house. I modified a PFS module and plugged it in to Kintargo and the players rolled through it. I was all set to bring them in since they had recently done a job for Laria and the Rebellion was going to need some new Ravens.
Fast forward to this weekend's session. Surviving member couldn't make it and two others couldn't make it. We had two at the table plus me and my gut was telling me to call it and try again next month. One of the players had been unable to make any sessions up to this point so I didn't want to leave him hanging. I decide to run it and just cut the encounters down. Everything should be fine.
I had already planned to hook his character in by having him come up and report the murders in the Devil's Nursery and accompany the party to investigate so I stick with that since the fairy encounter should be pretty easy to cut down.
So I cut the number of fairies in half and had them perched along the rooftops ready to jump a passerby. The party fails it's perception rolls to spot the little buggers and I have them roll initiative to get a chance. It's a little metagamey, but I really did want them to succeed. One of the fairies got top spot, the rest were below the party in init. Seeing as there were two targets and the fairies usually picked out people alone the fastest fairy cast sleep. I figured the DC was low enough that they had a pretty good chance of having at least one of them awake to kick the other back awake. Both fail.
Ok, NBD, not like these things deal a ton of damage. The three that can still attack begin pulling teeth. Both players wake up but neither is well equipped for close-up combat. The gunslinger fired a shot and missed and then switched to his short sword but couldn't land a hit. The Oracle got bit and failed his save vs paralysis. The fairies made short work of them.
We sat for awhile and looked at new characters but most of the party is pretty new to Pathfinder. I'm hoping the brutality they've faced so far doesn't discourage them too much.
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Name: "Dalanar"
Race: Human
Class: Swashbuckler 13
Adventure: The Kintargo Contract
Location: Professor Mangvhune's Lair
Cause of Death: Externally influenced PvP
The party was fortunate enough to avoid the Professor's assassination attempts as they worked their way through his lair, but they found that death could only be held at bay for so long. Geoffrey, the party kineticist, uncovered the body using his telekinetic powers, which was enough to cause the haunt to activate. His soul was sucked out of his body, and placed inside the heart. Meanwhile, the dybbuk appeared, and immediately possessed his body. They were able to knock Geoffrey unconscious, at which point the dybbuk failed to possess Osiria, the urban ranger. Things were looking up - right up until the moment it succeeded in possessing Dame Abigail Jhaltero, the abyssal bloodrager. Worse, she was already buffed, with haste, heroism, stoneskin chief among them. "Dalanar", the name that the party's swashbuckler is currently going by, faced off with her, along with Sliver, the strix rogue, and while they tried to subdue her, she was too strong - his blows knocked Sliver unconscious, but outright killed Dalanar. They were eventually successful in bringing her down, and ending the threat the dybbuk posed, but it was a very tight race!
(And the player running Dame Abigail rolled a few 20s during the fight, and failed to confirm them each time. I had never seen a party cheer when one of their own failed to confirm a crit - until now!)
Name: Lykos
Race: Tiefling (Rakshasa-Spawn)
Class: Unchained Rogue (Kintargo Rebel)
Alignment: CG
Origin: Kintargo, Redroof District
Adventure: The Kintargo Contract
Location: Slavers' Warehouse (repurposed by Hei-Fen et al.)
Cause of Death: The Jorogumo cast "hold monster" on poor Lykos right near the beginning of combat followed up immediately by one of the Skinsaw cultists taking a 5' step and delivering a coup de grace while Lykos' girlfriend (another PC) could do nothing to stop it.
Thankfully, with a casting of Breath of Life, he was brought back into the fight right away.
This is my favourite death I've committed in a game.
Names: Valeria / Sentenciae / Glitz
Race: Human / Human / Gnome
Class: Cleric 12 / Paladin 10 (cohort) / Slayer 12
Adventure: A Song of Silver
Location: Temple of Asmodeus
Cause of Death: Barzillai and Rivozair(x3)