PDA

View Full Version : Against The Giants Campaign Journal



evil-frosty
2009-07-06, 09:06 PM
My IRL group decided to convert some old characters from 2e to 3e. After going thru some sort of yuan-ti module the DM made up we are going to go thru Against the Giants mods. And i remember when i told someone that my dad (the DM) was converting them to 3e to then post how it went on these boards. So here i am. Our group doesnt meet a lot as we live far apart and a few people have jobs and stuff. So posts might be very infrequent. Sorry for this. Also we are more of a hack 'n slash type of group.

Party
First is my character, Zack, a human ranger3/druid8. I fight with 2 weapons a yataghan(fancy scimitar) and scimitar. I made this character right after i finished the drow trilogy. And next level i will be taking the practiced spellcaster feat.

Next is Strider a half-elf fighter/paladin with a sunblade and a short sword of speed and sometimes fights using both of them. I dont know his exact levels and what he plans on doing.

Then there is Tempe a elf cleric/mage focusing on the mage part. Has some useful spells but has gotten very unlucky finding scrolls.

Grahammer, not sure how to spell it, a half orc fighter/cleric. I am not really sure what he focusing on. I think fighter. He has this whistle that summons blink dogs wasvery helpful in our last adventure.

Next is Cozmo a human(i think) cleric/mage/mystic theurge. He only has 26 hit points and is very aware of this fact. He has many different staffs and wands for healing.

Red Raven is a straight fighter 10th level who focuses on archery.

There is Hoss a stragiht 9th level ranger who also fights with 2 weapons.

And then there is the NPC Junior who is a half ogre paladin/fighter. He is a good NPC just holds a flank and does what we ask and just hits things.

Lastly i have 2 characters only because we are going to need the healing. I also play Meth a human cleric/radiant servant. So all he does is heal and turn undead. Fun fact about him is he has a carpet of Flying :smallbiggrin:

We arent really optimized but we have fun which is all that matters. We have some weird multi-classing because of converting from 2nd edition and we couldnt just drop a class completely. Also i am sorry for the lack of information i just told you what i know.

Ok so on to the adventure, we were just on a tropical island in the south fighting yuan-ti slavers. As we are coming back north we stop at this huge port to sell some items and to buy some stuff. But dont stay long, we make it back to this village which supports this Abby of the Sword which guards an entrance to the Underdark. We go there stop in and the resident wizard talks to us and tells us about the recent giant activity and sends us out to this hill giant fort.
The Beginning
We get there no problem, but as we near the fort we realize that there are many tree stumps. We see the fort, its at the base of a hill and is just like one big stockade with a courtyard with a tower. Zack wildshapes into a hawk and scouts around finding out that there is a small courtyard and there are 3 hill giants in the tower and about 2 dozen worgs in the courtyard running around. The roof is made out of logs and is very thick with no hope of getting thru it.

We just watch the fort for the day pretty much. A few work teams come out to tune up the wall and slather mud on it to make it less flammable:smallannoyed:. Then a patrol comes out circling the fort and making bigger circles with every pass. We avoid them easily enough. So we realize that are best bet to get in is the tower since carpet of flying and access to spider climb. So me in bird form goes into the tower and as i turn back to human Meth with the carpet of flying drops off Strider and Hoss and they get a free round of clubbing them since they are distracted by me turning into a human. My job is to make sure no giant gets down the stairs. A few other people make it up side using spider climb and we take out the 2 giants in 2 rounds and then Cozmo coup de graced the sleeping one. After this we hear a party going on down stairs. Creeping down the stairs we come upon a cloak room and there are a pair of double doors which lead outside so we ignore them and go thru the other door. Here we go we have three options either go thru the double doors in the middle and crash the party or go thru either of the smaller doors. We opt for a smaller and after going thru a hallway and having it turn half the party goes thru a door which looks like a sleeping room. In here we find an axe of giant slaying (+4 and double damage against giants and it is sentient:smallcool:) while were doing this a stone giant comes out of a doorway farther down the hall. After a few castings of silence, the stone giant finally notices us and attacks.

He wallops Hoss pretty good but he goes down in 2 turns as he was being attacked from both sides. Meth heals up Hoss and we keep going thru a doorway that looks like it goes to towards the center of the building. By going thru we find the armory and going thru a door that in the SW corner i believe we find another part of the armory and a magic warhammer. And there is a door that opens south. We peek out and we find the huge party. And unexpectedly there is cloud giant in there along with the chief, the chiefs bear and a ton load of giants. We settle on just attacking but we had to stop as it was getting late. And me and my dad had a 2 hour ride back home. But so next time we get together we are starting with a huge fight that will take a couple of hours.

So i am rather excited for this fight. I have heard many a tale about it from some of people who have gone thru the mod with 1st ed characters. Something to know my dad feels that clerics get jipped a little(we just use core mostly) and as such once per day they are allowed to unleash a divine bolt that does d8/ cleric level. The damage type and area of effect depends on what kind of God you worship. Like Meth since he follows Pelor gets to use a fire bolt, just like a lightning bolt except fire and D8s. So what do you guys think? Any advice?

Also please try from refraining from mentioning anything that happens in the mods as i would like not to metagame.Please and thank you.

Colmarr
2009-07-06, 09:32 PM
Best of luck with the campaign!


Something to know my dad feels that clerics get jipped a little (we just use core mostly)

This will take a lot of people by surprise. Unless I'm mistaken, a lot of people consider cleric one of the best 3 classes in 3.X D&D (yes, even with just core).

evil-frosty
2009-07-06, 10:49 PM
As a group we sorta look at clerics as just heal bots and the only straight cleric in the group is my second character which is 2 levels behind the party. Also we dont buff a lot, we do some. But usually we forget too. I know not a great strategy.

And my dad remembers things like the 1st edition cleric which only got 7 spell levels, couldnt really hit things all that well and didnt have the greatest spell selection in the world.

ericgrau
2009-07-06, 11:12 PM
No time to read now but I've heard about this module and expect good times. Subscribed.

Halna LeGavilk
2009-07-06, 11:14 PM
That's a lot of part members. Wow.

evil-frosty
2009-07-24, 02:18 PM
So yesterday we had an 11 hour session roughly. A lot of fun. So now i try to get to remember most of it. but as it was mostly just one big battle, and i cant give you a round by round as my memory isnt that good. But anyway here it is.

Party Crashing
So we only casted one extra buff for this fight in edition to what we casted before we entered the fort(mostly barkskins and bulls strength and bears endurance) and it was bless which we always forgot about:smalltongue:. But anyway here is how we open up with our surprise round
1st: We use all of the fireballs in a necklace of missiles centered on the head table for a total of 24d6 dealing a below average 78 points of damage (those poor serving orcs)
2nd: Zack and Tempe use a summon monster 4 spell and a scroll of summon monster 5 respectively to summon fire elementals out of the huge fireball, getting 12 HD ones each.
3rd: Meth and Grahammer use there divine bolts of energy both just aiming up the middle getting the stupid chief.
4th: Cozmo shoots off an Ice Storm from a wand over where the Cloud giant was on the high table.
5th: Everyone else just shot arrows at the nearest hill giant.

That was just our surprise round. Very little actually died except for a bunch of mooks and stuff that really isnt a threat. And predictably all of the giants, ogres charge. We form this sorta line going left to right in the front were Strider, Zack, Hoss, Junior, and then Grahammer. In the back between Zack and Strider was Meth and then Red Raven, Cozmo and Tempe were all hanging in the doorway.

The first round consisted of us exchanging ranged attacks. Them throwing orcs and boulders. And us firing bows at them except for Zack who casted Giants Wrath and threw 2 boulders at the chief hitting twice dealing around 30 some points of damage to him as he was trying to get his ballista off the wall. Tempe sended her elemental after the chief while I had mine attack the chiefs nice and giant cave bear. Also Grahammer summoned his blink doggies and got 9 of them out of a total of 12. He had them blink to the back of the room to distract the could and 2 stone giants. The could killed off 6 of them the next round but the one stone giant just ignored three of them.

So the next several rounds just included of the sides exchanging blows Zack, Strider and Hoss when we connect every time in a round can do some nice damage. We also got hasted, which helps... a lot. Coz threw out a Major Image Fireball, which if they made there save would take nothing but if they failed they took 6d6 fire damage. Meth used his 5th level domain spell of Flame Strike right in the center of the oncoming mass of giants.

After a few rounds of this huge melee people started to need healing so Meth used a Cure light wounds mass, and everyone got back 40, which is max. I got that number by adding 9(my level)+ 10(Augment Healing)+8(What i rolled)= 27 plus empowered healing which adds thirteen. Then the very next round Hoss goes down from being an open target for the 2 stone giants and being critically hit a few times. So Meth has to tap him with the staff of Life and use a charge to get him back up.

Then the sub chief, and the chiefs wife with her cave bear come thru the door behind us. :smallmad: Junior and Grahammer pull back to deal with them and the three in the doorway had to deal with the ugly wife.

By now both of my and Tempes elementals were dead (the chief can do a lot of damage) but mine did manage to kill his bear.

The cloud giant says screw this as he was just an emissary and leaves and the stone giants and the chief leave too but we do manage to kill off one stone giant. In the last rounds of combat, the stone giants were still here, Meth does another cure light wounds mass (we like calling these group hugs) healing another max amount of 40 (this saved our lives:smallbiggrin:) and Zack used an Arc of Lightning spell to kill 2 of the 4 giants still attacking us and taking the other 2 below 30 hits. They die within a round. And that round is when the stone giants fled.

And thru some miracle we get thru this fight (which i think had an EL of 20 something) with only one person going down.

The After Party
After that long fight, Tempe and Meth go around healing people for two rounds, while we barricade the door leading to the armory and the door where the chiefs wife came thru. Then thru 2 side doors where the few giants fled thru comes about 18 dire wolves, childs play. Cozmo puts up a wall of ice to funnel them and Zack turns into a bear for fun so Zack and Strider just clog the 20 foot space left open by the ice wall. Killing these things with ease.

So we now go along and loot the first floor getting some much gold in gems and jewelry and coins it really isnt funny. So after going around we find some sick orcs who we give food to and get them to draw us a map of the basement. We then send them away.

We go downstairs and in this big room there are 4 bugbears, a hill giant and 2 ogres and 2 apes. Also there was a bunch of orcs, but we casted a fireball from Tempe which killed the orcs and the ogres. Strider does 70 something to the giant killing it, Zack and Hoss each kill an ape while Red, Junior, Grahammer, and Coz take out 3 bugbears. Leaving one left and Meth makes his FIRST ATTACK ROLL OF THE NIGHT :smallamused::smallamused: and he hits with his crossbow for 2 points of damage. The bugbear then asks for mercy and Zack since he is right next to hit just cuts him down.

DM: So much for mercy.
Paladin: I would have done the same thing.

So we go exploring after that, we find 3 stone giants who offer us 10,000 gold so they can just go home and live. :smallamused:. We then go thru the Keepers room (the hill giant in the fight) and find some cash and gems. Then going thru the cell block we find a psychotic merchant who we mercy kill and a few skeletons.

In another cell block there are a hundred something orc slaves and in each room Cozmo throws a dagger and some food. We hear screams rather quickly.

Then we find a smithy with 2 fire giants who we take out with little problem. In here we also rescue 7 dwarves and find a secret door. The door leads us to a room with 2 portcullises one has 4 insane manticores who we nuke with spells. In there we find a lot of coins mostly silver and copper and some gold. We give the thousand something copper to the dwarves so that they might be able to start a life. The other portcullis leads to some stairs which leads to a secret room on the first floor.

And we have finished the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief.

With that we all level up. Zack and Hoss actually leveled up after the big party crash but we were the only ones. I rolled a 1 for Zacks hit point total :smallmad::smallmad: but i still broke the triple digit mark with my plus 3 con. :smallsmile:. So i have 101 hits. Also we missed the big treasure room since we werent actively searching the stairs leading up at the end there. :smallfurious:. We missed out on 23,000 gold, 1400 platinum, a +3 Spear, and 2 +1 flaming burst long swords.

Now we are going to go back to the Abby and to train and most likely head on to the next mod. So all that money we found gets to go training what fun:smallannoyed: but when i am done with training i will get 6th level spells with practiced spellcaster :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:.

We might meet one more time before school starts up again but the player of Cozmo and Grahammer is a school principal and as such goes back to work the first of August. So we will see i guess.
Any advice and/or things you think we could have done better? Never know we might need the help later on.