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Tequila Sunrise
2009-02-22, 08:18 PM
I just got back from the Dreamation con, where I played a great game that I have to share. The DM was running us through a 1st level adventure; I had hoped to find a high level adventure, but it's a con so whaddya gonna do eh? Anyway we fight a few goblins, tame a few wolves and end up at the court of an obviously seedy Lord. The DM drops several unmistakable hints that this lord has tremendous personal power, even without being the favorite of his king. We were there to ask his blessing and aid in tracking down a villain and securing his property, but halfway through our shpiel, a Paladin barges into the Lord's court and gives the typical "I shall punish you for being an evil s.o.b." speech, declares himself a paragon of justice and then challenges the Lord to defend himself.

Now I know what you're thinking: Oh my god, the players are going to be spectators to the DM's personal drama for the next hour, if not the rest of the adventure. But this DM wasn't hired to DM at a con for nothing. Before the fight ensues, the DM tells us to pick which paragon to side with, without discussing with each other or telling each other our decisions. As it turned out, I was the only player to pick the paladin, counting this session and the three previous sessions when the DM ran this adventure. The DM then tells me that I will be running my PC, Paladin and Lord's guards who defected on the spot. The DM tells the other three players that they will be fighting against me using their PCs and Lord. Paladin and Lord are 15th level NPCs while the guards are 10th-ish level minions.

I was terrified; I had numbers on my side but I'm not exactly a tactical genius. But there's nothing I can do to stop this fight, so I buckle down. The other team gets to go first because I rolled horrible initiative; not a promising start for me. The party wizard uses flaming sphere to take out my guards by twos, but my enemies make the mistake of trying to kill or escape from my guards before the sphere gets to them. I manage to hit Lord with Paladin's daily, True Nemesis, but I make several stupid mistakes during the battle like not spreading out my guards properly so that the sphere can only get one per turn. I also forget to use my PC's action point until after he gets knocked out.

In the end I finally assign four guards to successfully take out the wizard and then the other party members. Paladin doesn't have any more healing surges, my PC is down, but Lord missed earlier with his daily power and doesn't have any reinforcements. We called the fight as a win for me when the two paragons got down to at-wills, with Lord losing hp twice as quickly as Paladin. Simply awesome!

Oracle_Hunter
2009-02-22, 09:23 PM
Now that is a one-shot!

Awesome story :smallbiggrin:

Reverent-One
2009-02-22, 09:28 PM
A question, how were level 1's useful in a fight involving mostly level 10+'s?

Who_Da_Halfling
2009-02-23, 12:05 AM
A question, how were level 1's useful in a fight involving mostly level 10+'s?

Cannon Fodder?

Is this a 4E game? B/c i recall Flaming Sphere being a 2nd Level 3E spell, and it being quite difficult to hit multiple enemies with it, what with it having a 5-foot radius.

-JM

Reverent-One
2009-02-23, 12:10 AM
Cannon Fodder?

I'd think so, except it mentions the party wizard hurting the guards.


Is this a 4E game? B/c i recall Flaming Sphere being a 2nd Level 3E spell, and it being quite difficult to hit multiple enemies with it, what with it having a 5-foot radius.

Yeah, it is 4e. They have daily and at-will powers, the level 15s are referred to as Paragons, which is the term for levels 11-20.

Arbitrarity
2009-02-23, 12:47 AM
Flaming Sphere insta-kills minions, with no attack roll, just damage. Very helpful. That's what the Wizard was using.

Tequila Sunrise
2009-02-23, 01:07 PM
A question, how were level 1's useful in a fight involving mostly level 10+'s?
Other than flaming sphere they could take pot shots, aid another and draw attacks from the paragons. My PC was a cleric so I used him to heal Paladin.

And yeah, it was 4th edition.

Limos
2009-02-23, 01:14 PM
That's awesome, I have to steal that.

Shadowtraveler
2009-02-23, 05:31 PM
This sounds familiar. I might have played with this DM at last year's Ubercon.

Tell me, was there a Yuan-ti delegation as well?

Irreverent Fool
2009-02-23, 06:10 PM
That sounds pretty cool. I think I would have enjoyed it even with my irrational hatred of 4e. (I admitted it's irrational!) I must applaud the sudden role-change style of your DM.

I do wonder as well though, what place your 1st-level characters had. Were they merely witnesses to the clash of player-controlled Paragon NPCs?

obnoxious
sig

Starbuck_II
2009-02-23, 07:10 PM
We were there to ask his blessing and aid in tracking down a villain and securing his property, but halfway through our shpiel, a Paladin barges into the Lord's court and gives the typical "I shall punish you for being an evil s.o.b." speech, declares himself a paragon of justice and then challenges the Lord to defend himself.

Awesome story, but I'm totally picturing Sailor Moon now as that Paladin.

But that sounded fun.

Thanatos 51-50
2009-02-24, 05:40 AM
I'm just surprised nobody rolled Stealth and high-tailed it out of there.