A Swordsage's Journal: The Gladiator Arena

[Dralnu]

For the first time in years I get to take a break from DM'ing for my RL group and participate as a player. A very welcomed change, I'll say!

Pre-game Background:
The campaign starts at level 1 and is being run by the best DM of the group. He's the one that got me and my friends into DnD in the first place and ran our first few campaigns. He has all the attributes of an epic DM: knows the rules inside and out, has a great attitude that carries over to the sessions and players, tells a great story, and really knows how to keep us an inch away from certain doom. This DM was absent for a couple years due to RL issues and this is his first campaign since his break. Awesome!

The group is supposed to be five people, but we started the first session last night with only three. I'll call them Bob and George. Bob is our resident fighter: he always plays a fighter, barbarian, or some combination of both (once was even a half-dragon werebear barbarian!). I recently got him to try out the wonders of ToB and he's playing a warblade in my evil campaign and loving it. He wanted to be a warblade in this one too, but decided a change of pace was in order and decided to go for a blaster sorcerer. I'm going to have to help him out there. He hates support roles or anything that doesn't deal damage, so all his spells will be blasting or self-defense like mage armor.

George is the support player. He doesn't care for dealing damage. He loves buffing the party and debuffing (crippling) the opponents, also patching up the group post-combat. Summoning minions is another hobby of his. He almost always plays a druid for this reason. This time he wanted to play a Lawful Good (/Dumb) Paladin. I convinced him to try out a Crusader, since it did everything he said that he was interested but better.

Enter the Swordsage:
Finally, me. Since I view these forums, I could optimize like crazy if I wanted to, but that's not fun for me. I'd rather just play interesting characters that are in line with the rest of the party's power. I'm just allergic to boring classes. I stay away from anything that just does the same move over and over. I usually play a wizard, but I've also tried out a rogue, duskblade, paladin, and cleric. I always wanted to try a swordsage, so with my friend choosing a crusader I decided that now was a good chance. I've never made a ToB character myself and didn't do any research into the class, but I came up with this (good rolls too):

Garth Bolstrum, Human Swordsage1

STR: 11
DEX: 17
CON: 14
INT: 13
WIS: 16
CHA: 8

Feats: Adaptive Style, Shadow Blade
Stance: Child of Shadow
Maneuvers Known: Burning Blade, Shadow Blade Technique, Distracting Ember, Sapphire Nightmare Blade, Wolf Fang Strike, Mighty Throw

10hp, 13 AC, we have no money or equipment whatsoever.

I always wanted to make a cool combat-oriented rogueish character and just naturally gravitated to the shadow school more than the rest, but honestly I'm just choosing stuff that sounds cool.

Campaign Backstory:
The backstory to the campaign is pretty brief so far and we picked it up throughout the session. The land that we live in is in the process of being totally conquered by a united force of goblinoids. The strongest tribes, the bugbears, are running the show and are the top of the hierarchy. Hobgoblins are in the middle, while goblins are almost slave status. With their combined might, they soundly defeated the armies of the good humanoids, dwarves, elves, humans, halflings, etc.

Midway through the conquering, the goblins started getting restless. Though they're the weakest race, they're also highly numerous, and due to their mistreatment they started the murmurs of some sort of rebellion. The other goblinoids don't want this. So they halted their conquering and set about methods to control their weaker cousins. First, they tired the goblins out by using them to build massive coliseums. Then to keep them happy, they set up enormous gladiator spectacles every week to keep them entertained.

The Beginnings, Free For All!
This is where the party comes in. We have all been "selected" (aka kidnapped) from our respective villages because of our above-average combative talents. We were then taken to a coliseum with hundreds of other folk and stuck in enormous jail cells for weeks. The crusader and sorcerer spend this time making friends. The crusader spreads the good word of Pelor, while the sorcerer makes friends with fellow halflings. Me? I decide right off the bat to make sure everyone knows that I ain't nobodies female dog. I find rusty nails on the floor, sneakily drop it into a fellow prisoner's drink, and when he downs the entire thing and starts choking in a bloody mess, I angrily tell him, "THAT'S what you get for messing with me!" Yeah, nobody tried to bully me after that. Neutral alignment by the way.

One day, the goblinoids haul us all out of our cells and march us onto the coliseum's battlefield, the size of two football fields. The ground is littered with mundane weapons. As one hundred of us spread out on the field, I wisen up to what's happening. I move my way to some of the weaker looking prisoners and pick up two daggers.

Finally, a large bugbear atop a high platform yells out that we must fight to the death or else we all die. There's a pause as people eye one another, unsure of what to make of such a command. It's quite a shock to most people. The crusader and sorcerer are shocked too. Me? I stab a teenager in the stomach and he goes down. Let the fight begin!

Oh man, this fight was crazy. The crusader didn't want to fight, and his "group" of loyal friends were instructed to stick together behind him. He tried rallying people not to fight, but to team up and fight for freedom. Unfortunately, no one heard him or really cared, as a hundred people screamed and stabbed messily at each other. The sorcerer stuck with his halfling buddies -- or rather, safely behind them. With 6hp, that's pretty sound tactic. Meanwhile, I tried to intimidate those in my immediate area to leave me alone, then started running for the most vacant corner of the arena. I got stabbed along the way though for 3damage, taking me down to 7hp.

Chaos continued to ensue. We eventually realized that there was a group of hobgoblins sticking together and figthing, and three ogres going on a bloody rampage. We all tried our best to avoid them. Me and the sorcerer were running for our lives. The crusader was perfectly fine standing his ground though. Surrounded? Ha! DR/5. Oh, you crit'd me? Crusader strike, I'm back to full. 'Kay.

Finally the violence dwindled until there were only 6 of us left: us players, a crazy dwarf, a hobgoblin, and an ogre. The bugbear called a ceasefire. After congratulating us and giving us a feast, he says that we have formed into a gladiator team. We'll have three fights in the future. If we survive them all, we win our freedom and can choose to continue fighting for money or leave. Good luck!

That's A Lot of Zombies...
In this downtime, we learn a little about each other. The ogre is a dumb ogre. The dwarf is a crazy dude who lost an important battle and now wishes to find an honorable death in battle. The hobgoblin is named Grish (I remember this one!) and is a former-prince of a hobgoblin kingdom but was dethroned and forced into the arena to fight. He's certain that he will die here. Clearly an optimist.

We have a week to rest and relax until the next event. Fast forward to that event, and bam, we're in the arena again. Our opponents this time? ONE HUNDRED ZOMBIES! Among them is one ogre zombie. They're all raised from the bloodfest that happened last week. Packed crowd of goblinoids cheering, for who, no one is sure! But it's quite the event for them. Us? We're contemplating what our next characters will be.

Now this was a pretty ridiculous fight. Me and the sorcerer brought up the rear while the ogre, hobgoblin, crusader, and crazy dwarf stand as the front line. I'll tell you right off the bat, we would've died twenty times over if it hadn't been for the crusader's iron guard's glare stance. That +4AC was a friggin' lifesaver. The entire front line got quickly surrounded but managed to stay alive for a bit due to that. Crusader strike was huge too, when he managed to draw it at least. Still, the NPC's healths were dropping in a hurry.

The NPCs start breaking formation, and advancing despite our orders to fall back. At least were taking out a fair chunk of the undead in the process. The Ogre was of course doing the most damage (he also was Fighter2 and had Cleave, very nice) and was top priority to keep alive because of it. The crusader and I were doing some pretty decent damage too (when we hit), but unlike the crusader, I wasn't a crazy good tank. After two hits I was down to 2hp and had to play extremely cautiously. I also noticed that man, my 4 manuevers were far too little for these types of situations. I resorted to nova'ing (Flaming Blade + Wolf Fang Strike), running away, full-round action to refresh, then repeat. Meanwhile, the sorcerer tossed all his blasts at the zombie ogre, who was slowly advancing (he was stuck in the back, thank god).

After a couple more rounds, the hobgoblin ex-prince is getting battered and fully surrounded. I'm trying to give him an escape path to retreat but he'll have none of it. The prince secretly hands me an envelope, then decides that now would be a good time to dig his claws into his arm, peel the skin back, and start pulling out small beads. Seriously. And he's provoking AoO's to do this too. Once he pulls one out, he hucks it foward at the unending swarm of zombies and BOOM! An explosion takes out a good ten of them and weakens the zombie ogre. He takes out another bead from his arm but the AoO's bring him down before he can chuck it. You can see the disadvantages of using such a storage compartment.

As much as I'd like to pick up the bead that fell, 6+ zombies surrounding it tell me it's a bad idea. Instead, the crusader gets it for me. DR/5 at level 1 HURRRRR!!! He hands it to me, I chuck it, and it deals 5d6 damage. And it triggers the extra beads still inside the dead hobgoblin's arms. Boom! More zombies are dead, and the zombie ogre is more mangled.

The fight eventually ends with me at 2hp, the crusader at 0hp(!), the ogre at 2hp, the crazy dwarf at an unknown hp (we didn't ask, he's friggin' nuts anyway). Only person who emerged unscathed was the sorcerer, who had zero spells left and was uselessly shooting crossbow bolts for half the fight (not that I was doing much more either).

Victory! We return to our quarters and congratulated by our captors. We're given a sweet meal and goblin biddys like true king-slaves. We ask for a replacement for the hobgoblin, but the bugbear leader laughs and tells us that we get no recruits, and wishes us good luck on the next fight. We ask the DM if we leveled after we defeated one hundred zombies at level 1. He laughs and wishes us good luck on the next fight. :smalleek:

CR7 vs. a bunch of lvl 1's? BRING IT!
A week passes, we learn more about the history of our world and why the coliseum is here, and then it's time for the next fight. We're downright afraid of what our DM will throw at us next. And we should be. But now we get a choice of armor -- leather, hide, or scale mail. I get the leather. Woo, 15 AC!

When we enter the arena, the bugbear announcer declares that we shall be facing... An umber hulk. A CR 7 monster... AGAINST LEVEL 1'S! YEEEEEEAH! Quoth the paladin, "Man that sucks!" Oh, and it starts the fight burrowed. We don't even have any gnomes!

So it gets the surprise round on us. The DM assigns us all a number and then rolls a d6. The dwarf gets unlucky. The massive beast bursts through the ground beneath him and puts the hurt on him but good.

First round of combat, we all flank the beast and start wailing on it cause, I mean, we can't really run away right? Its 18 AC starts posing a problem to us, but the sorcerer is in the back loading it up with magic missiles at least. It's turn? It looks at the weakened dwarf, and with a full attack mangles the crap out of him, then chops him in half with its mandibles. MAN THAT SUCKS!

We tell the ogre to try and grapple it, but he fails. And then something truly epic happens. I had prepared Mighty Throw, and with it as my last maneuver, I try to use it before I bow out to recharge my moves. The umber hulk rolls a 1 for its opposed grapple (the DM rolls in the open btw). I still have to beat a 17... But I get an 18! And thus the level 1 human swordsage grabs the umber hulk and TOSSES the huge beast to the ground! BOOYA MOTHERTRUCKER!!

My small victory is short-lived, however. The round after it gets up, the umber hulk turns to the biggest threat to it -- the ogre who is actually hurting it. Full attack, dead ogre. Gulp.

By the grace of the divine gods, the umber hulk starts rolling pretty bad. Still enough to bring the crusader down to 1hp even through DR/5 and even clobbers me once to bring me down to 2hp. I got some lucky hits in with Flaming Burst + Wolf Fang Strike for solid damage but things aren't looking good. Just when we think it's over, the umber hulk rolls a 1 and falls prone. I try to end it with my 1d4+3 dagger attack.. and roll a 1 and fall prone. The crusader tries to turn of battle by using a crusader strike.. And misses. The umber hulk stands up and swings a killing blow at the crusader.. And misses. The sorcerer at this point has one more spell left -- Ray of Frost, a cantrip. It hits for 1 damage. AND THE THING DIES! Cantrip'd, biatch!

And so we live. Barely. We got back to our quarters, eat well, have more goblin biddy, and call it a night. We were 6, now we are 3, and we have one more fight before we get our freedom.

Session 1 Closing Thoughts:
That's where the session ended. We were shocked that we lived, but the DM rolls right in front of us so there's no cheatin' involved. He told us that his only form of mercy was that he planned for the umber hulk to attack the dwarf first after the surprise round, but that's it. He was shocked that we lived too! He built the encounters with a party of 4 in mind, and he also assumed that I would've been a cleric (I would've played one if we weren't allowed ToB) for turn undead and that the crusader would've been a druid 'cause he usually is one, so the zombie fight couldve been way easier. Still, the crusader was a GODSEND in these fights.

As for my character, I'm loving it so far but I can see some weaknesses so far. In these tremendously long and dangerous battles, my 4 maneuvers are gone in a hurry. I'm glad I took Adaptive Style or else I'd be just normal attacking for the vast majority of the fight, but I still can't help but feel a little jealous of warblades and crusaders who have such an easy recovery mechanic while I spend a full round doing nada. The biggest issue so far though is HITTING things. I thought that I didn't need a high STR because I could take Weapon Finesse, but to my dismay I found out that the feat requires a +1 BAB, so I couldn't take it at first level. I only have a +1 to hit! That's making me miss way too much.

Because my +hit is so crap, Shadow Blade Technique is a godsend. Rolling 2d20 and picking which one to use makes it far more likely that one will hit, even if I don't deal extra damage. With Shadow Blade feat, my daggers still do +3 damage anyway, not bad. On the other hand, Distracting Ember is fairly useless since I usually have a crusader to help me flank anyway. I guess it may come in handy in the future though.

After all that craziness, the DM says we can level up once. This is huge for me because I get +1BAB, +3 AC, another stance and another maneuver. I still have to decide which new abilities to take... I gotta choose wisely, considering things will only get crazier from here. Second fight was an umber hulk at level one, what will the third fight be now that we're level two??

Session 2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9476668&postcount=26)

Session 3 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10409443&postcount=49)

Session 4 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10911110&postcount=72)

Session 5 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11010455&postcount=82)

Session 6a (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11132413&postcount=84)

Session 6b (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11288658&postcount=96)

Session 7 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11315547&postcount=100)

Session 8 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11475117&postcount=125)

Session 9 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11737934&postcount=164)

[Nick_mi]

tagged for later reading

[El Dorado]

Very cool fights. My DM also has a habit of long fights. It's nice to read how the ToB classes fare in those situations.

[Greyfell]

A very interesting and challenging way to start a campaign, I like it. I also look forward to reading more of this.

[Greenish]

Sounds like a great campaign. :smallcool:

Crusader doesn't get DR 5/-. 5 damage is delayed until the end of his next turn, but then he has to take it. Extra Granted Maneuver is a good feat for getting the maneuvers you want easier.

For you, your to-hit will be seriously suffering until level 3, and that might take a while to reach if you're still level 1 after three fights. Your character sounds delightfully evil, so embrace it, don't deny it. :smallwink:

The sorcerer would do well with a reserve feat, since those are good for tickling less dangerous opponents to death without burning spell slots.

[Nich_Critic]

I assumed he was talking about stone bones, a strike that gives you DR5/Adamentine (or however that's spelled) when you hit.

[Master_Rahl22]

Good read, and you touched on the weak points of the Swordsage very well, especially early levels. If you plan to focus on Dex you can't take Weapon Finesse until 3rd level, and you run out of manuevers quickly. Good call taking Adaptive Style though, or you'd be reduced to mundane stuff like the Sorc is after a few rounds.

Shadow Blade Technique is one of the only first level maneuvers that make it easier to hit, and you have two of the others (Distracting Ember, Sapphire Nightmare Blade) so you're just going to have to suck it up until 3rd level when you gain +3 to hit with a feat, which becomes +4 at 4th level when you boost your Dex.

If you really like the TWF stuff, the Bloodclaw Master is pretty nifty. The first 3 levels are definitely worth it, possibly all 5 although you lose out on some maneuvers for your nice TWF stuff you gain.

[true_shinken]

I find rusty nails on the floor, sneakily drop it into a fellow prisoner's drink, and when he downs the entire thing and starts choking in a bloody mess, I angrily tell him, "THAT'S what you get for messing with me!" Yeah, nobody tried to bully me after that. Neutral alignment by the way.

Murdering people to show off sounds nowhere near Neutral for me...

[Tyndmyr]

Rolling 1's to attack doesn't make you fall down.

[BeholderSlayer]

Rolling 1's to attack doesn't make you fall down.

You mean a trained warrior at level 20 doesn't fall down 5% of the time when they swing? Craziness!!! :smallbiggrin:

[Tyndmyr]

You mean a trained warrior at level 20 doesn't fall down 5% of the time when they swing? Craziness!!! :smallbiggrin:

No, of course not! Thanks to iteratives, he falls down about 25% of the time! The more you practice with your swords, the more time you spend crawling as a result.

[Greenish]

Rolling 1's to attack doesn't make you fall down.Fumble rules suck. :smallmad:

Oh, and Mighty Throw uses a trip attempt, not a grapple attempt (which should make life easier for you, since you don't add your BAB to resist being tripped).

[BeholderSlayer]

No, of course not! Thanks to iteratives, he falls down about 25% of the time! The more you practice with your swords, the more time you spend crawling as a result.

Touche my good man. Touche.

[Dralnu]

Crusader doesn't get DR 5/-. 5 damage is delayed until the end of his next turn, but then he has to take it.

I meant Stone Bones maneuver. He doesn't always have it ready , but between that, crusader strike, and Martial Spirit Stance, he soaked damage pretty darn well for a level 1. Which reminds me.. He shouldn't have two stances at first level. I'll have to tell him that.


Extra Granted Maneuver is a good feat for getting the maneuvers you want easier.

When we were looking for feats I showed him that but he didn't want it. He took Power Attack and Combat Expertise instead.


For you, your to-hit will be seriously suffering until level 3, and that might take a while to reach if you're still level 1 after three fights. Your character sounds delightfully evil, so embrace it, don't deny it. :smallwink:

Yeah, if a 200-person FFA, a 100 zombie apocalypse, and a friggin' umber hulk gives us a single level, I have my doubts about reaching level 3 anytime soon unless the DM keeps raising the bar at the same pace... Which I pray doesn't happen. :smalleek:

I didn't mean him to be evil evil. Killing that prisoner was pre-emptive measure to make sure I wouldn't be shanked during dinner time or something. Then the killing of the teenager, well, someone had to start the fight, and I wanted to use the murder as a way to intimidate everyone around me from leaving me alone -- which worked, except it enraged his father, and boy did he know how to hold a grudge!

Okay okay, maybe my character is just a lil' evil!


The sorcerer would do well with a reserve feat, since those are good for tickling less dangerous opponents to death without burning spell slots.

I'd have to double check but I think he's a couple levels away from taking one.


Good read, and you touched on the weak points of the Swordsage very well, especially early levels. If you plan to focus on Dex you can't take Weapon Finesse until 3rd level, and you run out of manuevers quickly. Good call taking Adaptive Style though, or you'd be reduced to mundane stuff like the Sorc is after a few rounds.

Yeah, Adaptive Style is so clutch.

The sorcerer is doing surprisingly well so far too. Four magic missiles is a great boon against things with ridiculous ACs like umber hulks and zombie ogres. He hasn't been hit yet either. He whines that he wishes he chose warblade instead though. Can't really argue that, unfortunately.


If you really like the TWF stuff, the Bloodclaw Master is pretty nifty. The first 3 levels are definitely worth it, possibly all 5 although you lose out on some maneuvers for your nice TWF stuff you gain.

I'll have to look into it. I don't know what I want this character to be just yet, still just getting a feel for the maneuvers and stuff. I'm very impressed with the book so far.


Rolling 1's to attack doesn't make you fall down.

DM's houserule.


Oh, and Mighty Throw uses a trip attempt, not a grapple attempt (which should make life easier for you, since you don't add your BAB to resist being tripped).

Er, I'll keep that in mind. My knowledge of tripping was fuzzy so I just assumed it was grappling rules with a different effect and the DM went with it.

I still gotta choose another maneuver and stance for next week's session. They all sound so neat, it's hard to choose! I'm leaning towards Stance of Clarity and Stone Bones right now. I like not dying.

Got a question: If you miss with a maneuver, like Crusader Strike, is the maneuver expended? I assume so but want to double check.

[Snake-Aes]

Yes, it is expended.
Extra Granted Maneuver is powerful because it nearly triples your chances of getting that one maneuver you want.

[BeholderSlayer]

Honestly, that's an awful house rule (falling down on a 1). The other DM in my group started with a house rule that if you rolled a natural 1, you dropped your weapon, and we thought THAT was unfair. He quickly agreed with us after several monsters dropped their weapons in back-to-back combats.

As Tyn pointed out, the rule makes even less sense as you gain levels. When you start gaining iterative attacks, your chance to fall down increases. A level 20 full BAB character with a two handed weapon will fall down 20% of the rounds that he swings. A character with two weapons will suffer an even HIGHER rate of falling down, something like a 35-40% chance EVERY ROUND (I don't feel like doing the math, so I threw a guess at it).

A better way to handle critical fumbles is rolling twice. If you roll a natural 1, roll a d20 again. If you roll below, say, 3 or 4, you fall down. If I were to actually do this as a DM (I wouldn't) I would actually rule it as a DEX check vs. a DC of 5.

[Kaeso]

This story is a pretty interesting read and demonstrates the superiority of ToB classes over the core melee classes. Will you post more after your second session? Perhaps you could make a small journal of this campaign, that'd be pretty cool.

[Greenish]

If you really like the TWF stuff, the Bloodclaw Master is pretty nifty. The first 3 levels are definitely worth it, possibly all 5 although you lose out on some maneuvers for your nice TWF stuff you gain.Bloodclaw Master 3 isn't that impressive. The Pouncing Strike is poor, Low Light Vision is meh, Shifting is minor. The rest of the PrC goes along the same lines, so I should think 2 levels is a good drop-off point.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Honestly, that's an awful house rule (falling down on a 1). The other DM in my group started with a house rule that if you rolled a natural 1, you dropped your weapon, and we thought THAT was unfair. He quickly agreed with us after several monsters dropped their weapons in back-to-back combats.

As Tyn pointed out, the rule makes even less sense as you gain levels. When you start gaining iterative attacks, your chance to fall down increases. A level 20 full BAB character with a two handed weapon will fall down 20% of the rounds that he swings. A character with two weapons will suffer an even HIGHER rate of falling down, something like a 35-40% chance EVERY ROUND (I don't feel like doing the math, so I threw a guess at it).

A better way to handle critical fumbles is rolling twice. If you roll a natural 1, roll a d20 again. If you roll below, say, 3 or 4, you fall down. If I were to actually do this as a DM (I wouldn't) I would actually rule it as a DEX check vs. a DC of 5.

I think the critical fumble rule that we use in my group is a bit better. If you roll a natural 1, roll again against the target AC. If you miss, you provoke an AoO. That's it, no falling down or dropping your weapon or blowing up the world. And it avoids the problem of it happening more often as you level, for the most part, since your attack bonuses will usually be high enough to hit the target AC.

But, this isn't a critical fumble houserules thread, so I'm going to add to the group of people saying that fight was epic.

[Dralnu]

Yeah, the prone on a 1 rule sucks. It's not a huge deal but I can bring it up next session.

I plan on recording all the sessions here as a journal. Unfortunately, we've all been pretty busy (especially the DM) and haven't had a chance to play a second session yet. I'll probably host another session of my evil campaign during the time off but I don't think people are interested in reading that journal.

Yeah, ToB is already looking way better than core melee. We would've 100% TPK'd if our crusader was a fighter instead. From a limited perspective I'd say swordsage appears to be the "weakest" of the bunch, and maybe you could make a case that fighter1 is a bit stronger. If I was a fighter instead of swordsage I could've swapped my DEX for STR, picked up a 2hr and Power Attack and two other feats, and likely would've been more useful for the first session. But definitely with an increase in level the swordsage will also pull far ahead of core melee. It's also just more fun in general. I LOVE having so many options and not just power attack over and over.

The crusader is also saying that ToB is overpowered. I agreed with him over core melee, but this guy is usually the druid of the party. I told him crusader is no way stronger than plain old druid, wildshape + animal companion. He disagrees. Oh well. I just hope he's having fun.

Bloodclaw Master looks cool but I don't see my character turning into a feral beast and hacking stuff up that way. I read up on the other PrCs in the book and so far my favorite has been Mo9. So many sweet abilities but best of all, look how many new maneuvers you can learn (from any discipline) and so many more you can READY! That'd be a huge boon in really long battles. The feat requirements are pretty awful though. Honestly, I wouldn't mind straight swordsage either.

[Kaeso]

. From a limited perspective I'd say swordsage appears to be the "weakest" of the bunch, and maybe you could make a case that fighter1 is a bit stronger. If I was a fighter instead of swordsage I could've swapped my DEX for STR, picked up a 2hr and Power Attack and two other feats, and likely would've been more useful for the first session.

{.......}

Bloodclaw Master looks cool but I don't see my character turning into a feral beast and hacking stuff up that way. I read up on the other PrCs in the book and so far my favorite has been Mo9. So many sweet abilities but best of all, look how many new maneuvers you can learn (from any discipline) and so many more you can READY! That'd be a huge boon in really long battles. The feat requirements are pretty awful though. Honestly, I wouldn't mind straight swordsage either.

I'm pretty sure your swordsage just feels weak because he doesn't have weapon finesse yet. If you take it as soon as you hit 3rd level and stick with shadow stances and the shadow hand feat, you'll be superior to any fighter. It's also easier to optimize IMHO because your offensive stat is also your defensive stat.

Also, if you want a sneaky kind of swordsage the shadow sun ninja (p. 126 ToB) might be worth trying?

[Greenish]

If I was a fighter instead of swordsage I could've swapped my DEX for STR, picked up a 2hr and Power Attack and two other feats, and likely would've been more useful for the first session.You could have swapped dex for strength and used a two-hander even with a swordsage. :smallamused:

[Dralnu]

You could have swapped dex for strength and used a two-hander even with a swordsage. :smallamused:

True! But I still wouldn't have been proficient with the Hide armor that the DM gave us. :smalltongue:

Now that I'm level 2 and get WIS to AC and the almighty Stone Bones I should hopefully survive to level 3 and start wrecking stuff. Fighter is already beneath me.

Shadow sun ninja's fluff looks pretty interesting but the mechanics look underwhelming to me. I do have this insane idea of a dervish using desert wind maneuvers. Crazy I know, but fire-themed boosts plus dancing full attacks sound like fun times.

Next session this coming saturday...

[CockroachTeaParty]

I've always found the sword sage looks better on paper, but when seen in action, it has a tendency to disappoint. Their recovery mechanic is such a huge problem... and I like the sword sage-only schools! I just wish they had something a little... more. I don't know what it might be, but I place them behind the Duskblade in the glass cannon competition.

Good luck with your sage!

[true_shinken]

Shadow sun ninja's fluff looks pretty interesting but the mechanics look underwhelming to me. I do have this insane idea of a dervish using desert wind maneuvers. Crazy I know, but fire-themed boosts plus dancing full attacks sound like fun times.

You can't be an evil Shadow Sun Ninja anyway.

[Dralnu]

New session, new journal entry:


Prelude to Session 2:
We don't play often, but when we do play, it's an all-day event. Our session yesterday lasted 9 hours!

We also added another member to the group. I'll call him Dan for convenience. Dan is fairly new to DnD and has a handful of gaming sessions under his belt and he already knows his stuff. He's the type that considers himself far too cool for geeky things like DnD, but at the same time he's a hardcore closet geek that loves gaming. He plays with a very casual mindset, likes simple fighters and knows how to play them, and wants to keep it that way. His current character is a human fighter 2 named "Handsome Dan" (hair type: majestic, skin: bronzed, is an ex-model turned warrior etc). He plays neutral so he can do whatever he wants.

Since we're now level 2, the sorcerer and I took another level of our respective classes. I went with stone bones maneuver so I won't die so fast and step of the wind because it seems situationally spectacular. I'm salivating at the WIS-to-AC bonus that I get this level because I already know how much I need it in this campaign. The crusader decided for something different: a cleric dip. I can only assume that it's because he dislikes the smashing role and would prefer more support as per his usual preference. Fluff-wise it works out fine -- ridiculously devout crusader of pelor decides to change his method of worship to a more clerical route. In this particular campaign, the dip choice proves to be quite effective, as you'll see. I should note, though, that the crusader won't start the session with any of his cleric abilities. He has a level in it, but he hasn't "learned" it yet.

The DM's World:
I want to mention how the DM has built up his world. He talked to us at great length over the past two games that he's trying to convey a "heroic" setting as opposed to a "superhero" setting. He linked us this article (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/d&d-calibrating.html) to explain what he's aiming for.

If the average human is a commoner with 10's in all the stats, then already the average adventurer is the cream of the crop, the top 1% of the population in terms of exceptional abilities. A guy with a 14 CON is big, strong, exceptionally healthy. To tie that in to this specific campaign, where (so far) the bad guys at the top of the food chain are bug bears, their race's average CON is 14, putting them waaaay ahead of humans in physical aptitude.

So at level 1-2, we're highly exceptional individuals. 3-5, he says, we're pushing the absolute limits of our abilities. By level 6 we're reaching the realm of superhuman. He wants us to struggle and feel the mortal danger of low levels before letting us taste the sweet success of higher levels. I really appreciate that style.

The Last Fight:
We pickup right where we left off. Sorcerer, crusader and me have one more fight before we finally win our freedom. The day arrives and when we enter the arena, the bugbear announcer informs everyone that we will be fighting Grish, the reanimated version of the hobgoblin ex-prince. Pfft, one measely undead? We just took down an UMBER HULK! I'm not worried. We dish out some decent damage in the first round and things are looking great -- until its turn. The undead KO's me in one swing. Then he KO's the sorcerer. Then he almost downs the crusader. In a panick, the crusader waves his holy symbol at it -- which triggers his turn undead ability. Instead of turning, the undead is "cleansed," and Grish tells the crusader that he must deliver the envelope (the one that he gave to me before going splat). Then the crusader wakes up. It was a dream, but the crusader feels as if it was a divine mission given to him. And since he now feels a connection to his god and can pray for spells, it's a pretty convincing dream. Cool way to introduce his cleric dip.

Special Request:
So the crusader/cleric is now even more wrapped up about the might of pelor mumbo jumbo. Gravy. If you didn't know, people who constantly speak about righteousness and how great their deity is are just a hoot to be around. But we deal with it while waiting for our final fight. One day, however, we're requested to meet some visitors. We're left alone in a room with "stunning" hobgoblin women in expensive attire that have come to visit us. They don't speak common, but they act flirty and offer us wine. So yeah... They paid for our "company." Well, if we're going to pull this off then alchohol is a must, so we drink some wine. The wine knocks us out. Sweet mercy!

When we wake up, we're in the same room, the hobgoblins are gone, and we're naked. Success!

Or... is it? We find out that we actually look like hobgoblin women now. All of our equipment is gone, but the women left their dresses for us and two envelopes. We get clothed and read the first envelope, which explains that the wine was spiked (duh) and was mixed with a potion that granted us an illusion spell to make us look like them for at least a day. The women, somehow affiliated with the late Grish, had drank a similar potion to look like us for a bit longer than that and take our places to die in our next match. We were to take their carriage and deliver the letter that Grish had given us. Apparently, people really wanted us to deliver this letter personally and were willing to make enormous sacrifices to get it done. We're grateful to be free, so we decide to go along with it.

We make our way out of the stadium, get into the carriage awaiting us at the entrance, and are on our way. The driver is in on this mission. He tells us that he works for Grish's family, reads but doesn't translate the envelope (jerk!), and tells us that we must deliver it to a specific address. Fine. As we ride through goblinoid lands, we notice a human being dragged in a net by a bugbear and complaining that his beautiful face is being bruised in the process. The good characters in the group feel bad and tell the driver to pay for the purchase of the slave, which he reluctantly does. And so the fighter joins our group. He too was captured and was off to be thrown into the gladiator stadium. He decides it's better to stick with us since if he set foot in this goblinoid territory by himself he'd be just enslaved again. Hooray, the group is complete!

The driver eventually stop at the edge of a forest and tells us this is as far as he can go, also hinting that there's a reason why goblins can't undertake this mission that we've been selected for. We try to ask him some questions but he drives away. The potions wear off around this time and we look like our normals selves again. And so our fearless heroes, one beaten up handsome prisoner and his three cross-dressing accomplices, venture off for their epic adventure!

You Gotta Do Better Than Goblins:
We're at the edge of a forest with nothing but the dresses on our backs. We have an address and nothing else. We assume that we should head in the same direction that the carriage was going before dropping us off, so we start heading in that direction. Days pass with little excitement. We catch some rabbits and want to cook them but then have to debate about whether it's smart to make a smokey fire in middle of goblinoid territory. I suggest that we actually WANT attention, because we can potentially ambush someone who investigates and get him to show us where the hell we're supposed to be going. Fighter (neutral) agrees, crusader (lawful good) and sorcerer (chaotic "good") disagree so we don't do it. It doesn't really matter, because the next night we see a band of goblins pass near our sleeping spot, and then the following day we get ambushed by a different group. They've been sent by the gladiator's administration to bring us back.

Eight of them, four of us. They're armored, we're in dresses and high heels. They didn't have a chance. I even got to use my Step of the Wind stance to catch a fleeing goblin through undergrowth!

By the way: Unarmed Attack + Burning Blade = SHORYUUUUUKEN! :smallcool:

We end up having two hostages -- the one that tried to flee and one that got KO'd. Gear upgrade! I get a small morningstar out of it but the armor is too small to fit any of us. No shadow blade weapons so I'm stuck with +1 to hit and 1d6 damage :(

Epic of Dave:
The battle left us with two hostages: one awake, one KO'd. The awake one speaks Common and can lead us to the address on the envelope. I tell him that if he behaves then we won't harm him. I like this one and we eventually rename him Dave. I revive the other one and ask whether it speaks common. It doesn't seem to, so I punch it in the face to see if I could make it speak normal. It still doesn't, so I knock him out. Dumb goblins.

So, what to do with them? We want to keep the common speaker alive, but the other one seems useless. If we let him live he'll no doubt go back to where he came from and get more troops following us. We can't bind him since we have no rope and taking him with us just isn't worth the risk. He also just tried to kill us, which hurt our feelings if anything. We want to kill him.

Of course, the crusader forbids killing the evil goblin. Lawful dumb ftw! While the sorcerer tries to change his mind, me and the fighter sneak off and kill it. Crusader gets mad but the fighter smooth talks him back to indifference.

I spot Dave sneaking away during the commotion. When I shout at him, he gives me a frightened look and runs through the undergrowth, AGAIN! Not the smartest fellow. I catch him via Step of the Wind stance again and haul his sorry ass back to the group and give him a good scolding. I tell him that if he does it again, I PROMISE to end him in the most painful way imaginable.

We head out again with Dave leading the way (with a morningstar spike in his back). We're eager to make friends with the newbie in our group. But first, we must break him. This is how we named our lil' buddy:

Me: What's your name?
Dave: My name is Rahksu--
Me: -- IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS! *unarmed strike*
Dave: My nose! Why?!
Me: You're a funny goblin. You'll be Dave.
Everyone: "Dave" is a good name!
Dave: Please don't hurt me.

We learn as much as we can about our destination from our new best friend, which sadly isn't much since he's never been there before. Each "city" in these lands are sizeable self-governed hobgoblin kingdoms, each with their own rules and customs. The rules are cruel and strict, but if we keep to them (and find out what they are for that matter), we can walk free amongst the goblinoids, not as full citizens, but better than slaves. Break the rules, however, and we'll be enslaved or killed without hesitation. Sounds like a nice place.

We're not sure how successful our efforts of friendship are, but we try nonetheless. The crusader tries to preach to Dave the goodness of Pelor, I try to beat him senseless until he's my buddy, and the sorcerer randomly offers up his snake familiar for Dave to play with. We're best buds!

Unfortunately, we have an incident on the road to our destination. Dave cracks. He holds the snake familiar in a death grip and then pulls out a knife that he presses against it (we never searched him). He warns us that one wrong move and the snake gets it. Understandably, we're all pretty upset with him at this point. We try talking him down:

Crusader: Dave, you don't have to do this.
Dave: Back off or else the snake gets it!
Fighter: You think I care about that snake? I'm gonna kill it first then I'MA RAPE YOU BITCH!

Somehow our diplomacy isn't working. No matter -- an arrow whizzes by and takes Dave out. 400ft. behind us are humanoids beside horses. Nice snipe!

Initially I assume that these humanoids are friendly, but the hail of arrows quickly convinces us otherwise. Turns out they were five hobgoblins, and these guys were a lot tougher than the goblins we've been knocking around.

This fight is noteworthy because it's the first time that the crusader really showed off his cleric dip. He casts Enlarge Person on himself. At first this seems very impressive -- our tank just got bigger. Then we realized that without any armor or shield, his AC is 10 in this form. And he's a really big target. He gets KO'd fast. The sorcerer eventually goes down to arrow fire too, but me and fighter manage to finish the remaining two hobgoblins and end the fight. Searching the bodies yields wanted posters of us, some silver pieces (keep in mind these are our first coins this entire campaign), and a well-deserved gear upgrade. We have a selection of armor from leather to scale mail and everyone ends up picking up one of the hobgoblin's weapons, which is fairly diverse. I finally find Shadow Hand weapons; a shortsword and a dagger. Back at full offensive capacity! Of course, acquiring horses is pretty baller too!

I go back and get Dave's corpse. I'm furious with the little bugger. We gave him everything and then he goes off and tries to backstab us! Worse yet, I promised him sweet painful agony if he ever crosses us, and then he went ahead and died so I couldn't carry out my promise! I decide that I'm going to bring Dave along to the city and get a cleric to raise him so that I can carry out bloody vengeance. The party disagrees with my idea of bringing a rotting corpse into the city. "Not practical," they say. Party poopers.

With a heavy heart, I leave Dave behind. And thus ends the Epic of Dave. :smallfrown:

Relax! It's Just a Spooky Town:
We no longer have a guide, but we know that we're already on the main road heading towards the city and pimped out with sweet new horses, so we stick to it. Eventually we spot a village up ahead just as the sun sets. As we enter, we notice that no lights are on and not a soul is stirring on the roads. There's a dreadful silence. The horses get restless. Something feels wrong, but we don't know what. Darkness falls.

It's night and we're tired. We decide to "investigate" the inn first and take a better look around in the morning. Maybe there was a reasonable explanation for everything. We hear faint scurrying sounds now and then, sometimes a flicker of movement in the darkness. Creepy, but we're still sleepy. Adventurers need their beauty sleep. I'm not even sure if there's mechanical penalties to being sleep deprived, but Handsome Dan doesn't want dark circles under his eyes!

We put the horses in an empty stable and then enter the inn. Also empty. We check the keys behind the counter. Rooms 1-6 are empty but 7-14 are taken. We go upstairs and check the empty rooms. The beds aren't made but otherwise they're empty. We check room 7. It's locked. We knock, no response. We hear something move inside and decide to act, breaking down the door. Suddenly, an overwhelming smell of rotting meat assaults us. Inside are dozens of human body parts cut up and placed in stacks on the floor. The window's open. Nothing else is inside. Whatever was here is already gone. Then the sorcerer shouts, "the stables!" Yeah, it'd suck if this thing went and killed our pimp rides. We bolt towards the stables.

Thankfully the horses are safe, but EXTREMELY agitated. It's decided that this place sucks. I hear scurrying movement in front of us while at the same time the crusader hears movement behind us. Not good. We decide to get the hell away from here, sleep somewhere else, and come back in the morning.

At this point the sorcerer's player has to leave and the DM picks up control of him. It's around 10pm and we've ridden out of the village and get a good mile between us and whatever the hell was running around in there. We find a place to "sleep" (we're a bit terrified so it's uneasy resting at best) and the crusader takes first watch. They attack within the second hour.

We're suddenly attacked by a co-ordinated ambush on all sides. Six humanoids with bloody canine teeth and bony decaying frames rush towards us with claws and bites. The crusader and I are hit by their claws and bites during the fight and told to make fort saves, which we both roll miserably on and become paralyzed. The fighter handles the remaining two undead. A couple seconds later we get unfrozen and realize that the sorcerer is gone.

The crusader informs us that those creatures are ghouls (knowledge check) and gives us a quick rundown on them -- possess a feral cunning higher than an average human, eat corpses, can paralyze and transmit ghoul fever with their bite. This news is especially disturbing because both the crusader and I have been bit, meaning the disease might be incubating in both of us. I quickly devise a solution:

Me: Are there any head ghouls?
Crusaders: Yeah, ghasts.
Me: So we just need to put a wooden stake through the ghast's heart and the disease will vanish!
Crusader: That's not right at all.
Me: LET'S DO IT!
Crusader: You're an idiot.
Me: And you're lawful good!

The sorcerer needs to be rescued, if he's still alive that is. Waiting until morning would lower our chances of success. We head out immediately for the village again. Time to slay undead!

We sweep the perimeter of the village first this time. The sounds of scurrying movement and shadows moving in alleyways and rooftops means that we're not alone. We come across a barn with barred windows and a line of zombies standing in front of the closed entrance, ghoul corpses around their feet. Very strange. We find a blacksmith shop that also is barred in but empty and we leave the horses in there. We're ambushed by more ghouls but handle them fairly well. The crusader's turning ability is awfully useful.

The barn looks awfully suspicious so we go back there. We massacre the zombies guarding the entrance mostly because of a wicked turn undead roll by the crusader who stopped a dozen ghouls from ambushing us from behind when we engaged the zombies. We break down the barred door, ready to face the evils inside...

... And see around a dozen civilians cowering in a corner behind an angry cleric. "What are you doing?!"

Oops.

I Am Village:
The cleric casts Hold Person on the fighter, since he broke down the door. We're about to explain ourselves when he fires a Searing Ray at us, which whizzes past and strikes something behind us. Turning around, we see it -- dozens of ghouls moving towards the entrance. Oh dear.

The crusader tries to turn undead. It sorta works, but isn't enough. Then the cleric steps in and raises his holy symbol -- of Nerull. The ghouls start ripping each other apart and the stragglers are mopped up by the zombies. That's how it's done!

The door gets repaired and we have a chat with this cleric. Apparently the cleric is here to find out why the ghouls are massing in such large numbers here, as it's generally unheard of for ghouls to do this without instruction (too little food and such). He rescued as many civilians as he could but can't leave the barn. The ghouls watch the building at all times, and the moment that he'd leave, they'd swarm inside and kill everyone. So he wants us to play detective. If we help, he promises that he'll cure us of our disease. The fighter needs more persuasion.

Fighter: What's in it for me?
Cleric: If you need incentive, here.
He offers up a gold coin, and when the fighter reaches for it, the cleric casts Contagion on him.
Cleric: There. Now you do this for me or you die a painful death to Slimey Doom disease.
Fighter: Jerk.

We wait until morning, because the ghouls keep to dark places indoors during the daylight. Very "I Am Legend" vibe. When dawn comes we start investigating.

We head over to the Inn. After some stupid decisions on my part that led to ghouls jumping me, we decide to check out the locked cellar. We hear movement down there and muffled cries. Jackpot! We bust down the door and easily dispatch of a couple ghouls down there. We find infected villagers and the sorcerer locked in a room. They're conscious but very weak and look dazed. There's also an altar in the center of the room emiting a cold and dark aura. Atop the altar floats a dark open book, pages slowly flipping of their own accord. Since it's very clearly evil, I try to destroy the book with stabbity death. No dice, it's immune. I close it instead. That works, and the book one-ups me -- it locks itself in its adamantine casing and I can't open it even if I wanted to. The infected villagers now stare at the book in my hands and line up behind me. Weird. We here massive movement upstairs. I guess the ghouls know we're here!

The crusader wants the book so I give it to him. The villagers now follow him. Seconds later, ghouls pour down the staircase. The crusader tries turning them, but instead they cower in horror where they stand. He moves forward but they don't attack. The book's doing it. We head out of the inn, and all the ghouls close to us are cowering in awe. Further away we see a mass exodus of ghouls leaving the buildings and running for the hills. It seems they're afraid of the book now.

We're about to bring back the book to the cleric when I bring up a concern: the cleric is pretty darn EVIL. I mean, his god is friggin' Nerull! Do we want to just hand a book of ultimate evil to him? I don't and the party agrees. Unfortunately, I have to bring up the counter-argument: if we don't hand over the book then all the infected villagers will die. More importantly, I may die. That sucks. The crusader decides (since he's holding the book hurrr) that we'll tell the cleric that we fixed the problem and that he needs to heal us as he promised, but we're not giving him the book. I know that this won't fly but I'd rather not turn into a ghoul, so I agree.

We go to the barn. Sure enough, the cleric decides not to heal us until we give him the book. He lied. We then have a moral dilemna: hand the book over or not? The cleric points out that if we don't hand over the book, the infected ones will turn into ghouls and then kill all the remaining villagers. If we do hand over the book, he promises to heal everyone and be on his way. He says that he's not an evil person, just interested in studying undead, and that the book would be much worse off in an undead's hands than his. On the other hand, we've now established that he's a bit of a liar, though our sense motive checks say that he seems sincere. On the other hand, as he points out, he can probably kill us all on a whim. Darn.

So we hand over the book. He opens it, looks it over, and then hands it to a zombie servant. If I was more good I'd have tried to take it from the zombie and run, but hey, neutral here. True to his word, he spends the next couple of days healing everybody of their disease, then bounces. We call it here.

Session 2 Closing Thoughts:
I really like how this guy DMs. Plot and direction feel a little wonky sometimes but his delivery is phenomenal. Not too serious, not too casual, good descriptions, good mood. He can wear different NPC hats without any issue of cracking up, something I really struggle with at times when I DM. His improv skill is amazing and fluid.

Forcing us to be so deprived of gear, giving us little nibbles of mundane equipment only to tear it away and force us to fight in dresses and high heels, it raises the challenge in a fun way and makes me really appreciate when we find something valuable. When the cleric held out a gold coin to the fighter, it was the first time that I really appreciated its value. I think all too often we horribly undervalue gold and only think of how many hundred thousand gold pieces is required to purchase our next fancy trinket. Dragon's hill of gold coins? Pfft. It kind of sucked that I spent most of the session gimped without any Shadow Hand weapons, which is a requirement for my weapon focus and Shadow Blade feat, but it made me savor my power boost when I finally got my hands on them again.

I asked the DM if we could've killed the cleric. He said that it was a Cleric6, had minions, and was as wealthy as you'd expect for a level 6. I don't think we would've won.

As for the characters, I'm still loving the swordsage. Stone Bones and Step of the Wind have already earned their spots, while WIS-to-AC means that I'm currently +1 AC higher than anyone else, sitting at 19AC and a bonafide tank (though 15hp is still low). I love the versatility of the class and now have a full understanding of all my abilities, which means I don't slow down combat at all. I've been missing hits waaaay too much though. Level 3's +1 BAB and Weapon Finesse should fix that. Until then I just have to put up with it.

The crusader's change to cleric seems okay. I think he'd be stronger as straight crusader in most cases, but with the campaign's change to heavy undead, having Greater Turning is ridiculously good. I'm very eager to see how he moves the build ahead in the future. Maybe keep switching between the two classes?

Sorcerer still seems fine. He's our only ranged attacker and magic missile is still an MVP spell right now. He hasn't been bothered with fighting naked either. I pointed him to some neat sorcerer spells like Wings of Cover for the future.

Finally, the fighter has been holding his own very well still. He doesn't care for complex things like spells, but he knows how to swing a sword and he's always fast to do things in combat. Power attacking with a greatsword and cleaving keeps him as the most consistently high damage dealer and he also has the highest hp right now. Since he likes keeping things simple, I'm going to suggest to him to try going barbarian for level 3 and beyond. Pounce is simple, rage is simple.

We didn't level yet. Argh. I really want Weapon Finesse. I guess it'll have to wait until next session.

[Ranger Mattos]

... how come my games are never this awesome?

[Elfin]

Your borderline-evil, semi-psychopathic swordsage sort of creeps me out...but I must agree, this sounds like a really interesting campaign.
Can't wait for the next installment. :smallsmile:

[Master_Rahl22]

You should totally suggest Ruby Knight Vindicator to the Crusader if for some reason he hasn't seen it yet. It combines Devoted Spirit maneuvers with Cleric/Paladin spellcasting so it's a great way to combine the two. It also provides him with some great ways to spend those Turn Undead attempts when there aren't undead around.

As for the game so far, it seems like it's been pretty fun. I enjoyed the Dave's epic the most I think. :smallwink:

[Dralnu]

Your borderline-evil, semi-psychopathic swordsage sort of creeps me out...:

Thanks! I've been embracing the borderline-evil side now. My character's intelligence also dropped a bit lower for this campaign so I could up the stupid remarks count and bait more DM traps. Why avoid DM traps when running into them is always more fun? :smallamused:

Someone told me my character's turning into a Deadpool personality. I took that as a huge compliment.

I'm also gonna miss Dave. We gained and lost one of our best men that session. I'm hoping that we'll befriend another goblin down the road and name him Dave to carry on the legacy. And if that one also dies then we'll just find another Dave of course! Less costly than a raise dead spell anyway.

That PrC looks amazing. If the crusader likes it, maybe the DM can reflavor it to a servant of Pelor.

[Greenish]

I suggest the fighter to pick Extra Rage as the 3rd level feat if he decides to dip barbarian. 1/day is a bit sparse, 3/day and it'll cover for most needs.

Speaking of "Handsome Dan", I wonder if his character was relieved when it turned out that the wagonload of hobgoblin chicks who picked him up weren't really hobgoblin chicks, or bummed that the wagonload of hobgoblin chicks who picked him up weren't really hobgoblin chicks.

[BeholderSlayer]

This thread is awesome. Sounds like a fun campaign, wish I could participate.

[Dralnu]

The bugbear that captured him actually did the courtesy of knocking him out before giving him to us. He woke up on the ground with three cross-dressing men telling him that they were going on an epic quest. He wasn't happy, but it was that or get captured by goblins again. :smalltongue:

Extra Rage sounds good, I'll tell him about it.

[NineThePuma]

Subscribing to the awesome before it blows my mind.

[Master_Rahl22]

Yeah, taking away/changing the deity requirement for RKV is one of the most common homebrews around.

LOL the idea of Dave v.2, Dave v.3, etc is even funnier than the original Dave was. I think you might need to continually thrust Dave into dangerous situations just to make sure you have a continuing need for more Daves. :smallbiggrin:

[Kaeso]

Subscribing to the awesome before it blows my mind.

:smallconfused: Call me a noob but how does one subscribe to a threaD?

[Snake-Aes]

:smallconfused: Call me a noob but how does one subscribe to a threaD?

Thread Tools, just under the Top Right paginator.

[Kaeso]

Thread Tools, just under the Top Right paginator.

Ah, many thanks :smallbiggrin:

[DragonOfUndeath]

:smallconfused: Call me a noob but how does one subscribe to a threaD?

you can also set your options to auto-subscribe whatever you post into. subscribed

[Torvon]

He was shocked that we lived too! He built the encounters with a party of 4 in mind, and he also assumed that I would've been a cleric
Why the heck did he not change it?

[Dralnu]

Why the heck did he not change it?

Well, he did give us a hobgoblin, ogre, and dwarf to help us out. I don't think we would've had that much help if we had 4 players.

EDIT: Next session is tentatively posted as Dec 4th by the way. Surely another 12+ hour session. I have this strange infatuation with playing a Master of Nine after watching Avatar. Considering how slow we level this is a very longterm goal but I still want to try entering the PrC as early as possible. I think the most optimal way would be at level 3 to take a Monk2 dip if the Sleeping Tiger variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantcharacterclasses.htm) is allowed. That should get me into Mo9 by level 7. Variants should be okay since the DM is easygoing with sources, but justifying taking monk out of the blue might be hard.

[Elfin]

Hm. Master of Nine is commonly regarded as a trap PrC, but there's no denying that it's cool - perhaps you could persuade your DM to retroactively allow you flaws to help qualify? It shouldn't be any balance issue at all: if anything, they'll make the Mo9 a more balanced PrC by not making you waste nearly all of your feat slots on (pretty awful) prereqs for a class that's sadly mediocre mechanics-wise.

[Kaeso]

Hm. Master of Nine is commonly regarded as a trap PrC, but there's no denying that it's cool - perhaps you could persuade your DM to retroactively allow you flaws to help qualify? It shouldn't be any balance issue at all: if anything, they'll make the Mo9 a more balanced PrC by not making you waste nearly all of your feat slots on (pretty awful) prereqs for a class that's sadly mediocre mechanics-wise.

A trap, why? It can access all the schools.

[Elfin]

It gains lots of maneuvers and has lots of disciplines available, but it also has 3/4 BAB, pretty weak class features, and requires a ton of feats to enter - most of them weak.

[Dralnu]

Yeah, the pre-reqs are pretty awful, but the PrC itself looks solid to me. Better progression than a swordsage and the new maneuvers are from any school. The abilities look sweet too.

If I do go straight swordsage I take Weapon Finesse for level 3 but I don't have a clue what to take for level 6.

[Master_Rahl22]

Gloom Razor, the Shadow Hand tactical feat, is actually pretty cool. I think it should be accessible at 6 IIRC.

[Elfin]

Yeah, Gloom Razor is pretty neat. And you could do worse than to grab Improved TWFing and go that route, even if you aren't going to enter Bloodclaw Master.

[Girshtop]

Honestly, that's an awful house rule (falling down on a 1). The other DM in my group started with a house rule that if you rolled a natural 1, you dropped your weapon, and we thought THAT was unfair. He quickly agreed with us after several monsters dropped their weapons in back-to-back combats.

As Tyn pointed out, the rule makes even less sense as you gain levels. When you start gaining iterative attacks, your chance to fall down increases. A level 20 full BAB character with a two handed weapon will fall down 20% of the rounds that he swings. A character with two weapons will suffer an even HIGHER rate of falling down, something like a 35-40% chance EVERY ROUND (I don't feel like doing the math, so I threw a guess at it).

A better way to handle critical fumbles is rolling twice. If you roll a natural 1, roll a d20 again. If you roll below, say, 3 or 4, you fall down. If I were to actually do this as a DM (I wouldn't) I would actually rule it as a DEX check vs. a DC of 5.

I actually play the crusader/cleric in this campaign, and we look at the falling down on a 1 not as "your character swings and falls to the ground", but more as an interaction with your opponent. Combat isn't just two guys standing around waiting for their turn to attack each other, it's two characters locked in epic combat and our hero swings his great sword but the hobgoblin deftly parries and counters with a punch to the face, knocking the off-balance hero prone.

And besides, where's the fun in being awesome all the time?


Forgot to mention, we're finally continuing the campaign again either this or next weekend!

[Dralnu]

Session 3:

The Journey Continues:
(The sorcerer player couldn't make it for this session so the DM took control of him when necessary. And by that I mean the sorcerer doesn't have an enjoyable experience this session. :smalltongue:

Keep in mind that the sorcerer and crusader are good, while the fighter and I are neutral. With the sorcerer missing, the alignment balance has shifted.. And there will be repercussions to that.)

The necromancer gone and the surviving villagers attended to, we have a moment to bask in some well-deserved glory. Since we're the heroes of the day, we're treated to drinks and just about anything we want to take from the place. While the crusader preaches to them the virtues of his god and all that jazz, the fighter and I start looting the place for anything that seems valuable. There isn't much, but we grab some mundane weapons from the blacksmith. The villagers collectively decide that they should pack their things and go, as too many of them have been killed and the place is too damaged to maintain. The crusader, using knowledge religion, knows that there once was a temple of Pelor in the mountains to the west, so he convinces them to go there for shelter. With my knowledge local and history, however, I know that area to be under the rule of a tyrannical giant king who enslaves humanoids to work in his mines. I keep this knowledge to myself though. Save innocent lives or make the crusader look dumb? I choose the latter. The crusader bids them farewell and we go our seperate ways.

We continue down the road when suddenly we stop to get some things straight.

Me: Wait, so where are going again?
DM: You're going to the hobgoblin city of (blank) to deliver a sealed letter that was given to you by the people who saved you from the arena.
Fighter: Are they paying us for this?
DM: Well, no, not that you know of.
Fighter: So why are we going?
Crusader: Because they saved us from the arena.
Fighter: I say screw 'em and let's go somewhere else! Somewhere with adventure where we can kill and loot!
*DM looks concerned*
Crusader: No, we're delivering the letter.
Me: We can make them pay us later anyway.
Fighter: Okay.
Crusader: ...

Once we've re-established what we're doing, we move out. The sorcerer never was fully cured of the disease from the wight incident and has been slipping in and out of consciousness, so he's effectively useless and he rides on the back of the crusader's horse.

Days pass uneventfully. Then one night as we sleep with the crusader on watch, we get ambushed by three bugbears. The sorcerer immediately gets booted in the face and knocked unconscious before they focus on the crusader. The rest of us wake up and join the fight. During this surprisingly long and embarrassing battle, the fighter and I are knocked out along with two dead bugbears and the third flees from the crusader. We assume the arena administration still wants us brought back and these are yet more goons to fetch us. After some recovery (aka crusader/cleric heal battery) we move on.

The Hobgoblin City:
Along the road we come across a large imposing tower draped in banners. I recognize these banners are symbols of hobgoblin nobility and happily inform the group that the inhabitants are probably very wealthy and lootable. I also know that, unfortunately, the inhabitant is an exceedingly old and powerful hobgoblin wizard. There's a guard outpost in front of the gated entrance and we decide against messing with them, so we leave.

Finally, we arrive at the hobgoblin city. The massive city is enclosed by an equally massive wall and ornately armored bugbears flank the opened gate, observing the constant bustle of people moving in and out. When we enter, the DM describes it as basically a hobgoblin equivalent of golden age Rome in terms of city layout, staggeringly modern for the times and brutally orderly and efficient.

We come across a problem. None of us speak hobgoblin and we're struggling to find people speaking common. The crusader spots some elves wearing purple uniforms and tries some elven, but they look at us confused and respond in hobgoblin as well. After some searching we convince a human farmer who speaks common to help us out by buying his wares for the day and hiring him as a guide. He tells us about the customs of the city. Everyone is welcome here as long as you abide by the rules. If you break the rules, the punishments are very harsh. One big rule is no violence in public. We also find out that all the elves roaming around in purple uniforms are domesticated slaves to hobgoblins. They've been broken decades ago and seem content with their lives now and are treated fairly well. The crusader was heartbroken by the news. I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to start a revolt.

Our guide leads us towards the address in the letter when the fighter notices that we're being stalked by a bugbear. We turn a corner and find ourselves trapped inside a ring of bugbears moving in on us. Luckily, a hobgoblin official intervenes just in time and shoo's them off before things turned ugly. The guide is a bit spooked by this and leaves immediately after taking us to our destination, a nice looking house in the residential district. We're received by an elf servant and sent in to meet with the elderly hobgoblin owner, whom I affectionally refer to as Whatshisface.

After opening and reading the letter, Whatshisface treats us warmly, though the jerk won't tell us what the letter said. He explains that he's affiliated with a group of people looking to get the deceased hobgoblin prince (Grax I think?) back in power. And he wants us to help. We're tasked with delivering another letter, this time to the old wizard in the tower we passed by earlier. This time, however, we put our foot down. As the Fighter put it, "WE WANT MONEY!" Whatshisface promises that the wizard will pay us on delivery. Score! We head out for the tower.

The Kindly Old Wizard:
We ride back to the tower and approach the guard post. Inside is a bearded devil. The crusader recognizes it as evil and immediately wants to kill it. I recognize it as a devil and I'm immediately impressed by this badass wizard and his entourage. We show the devil our letter and it grudgingly escorts us into the tower, where we meet the shriveled up old wizard. Before we even show him the letter, we immediately bombard him with questions and demands.

Me: You command the infernal legions? That's awesome!
Fighter: Wealth! Power! Want!
Crusader: You're clearly evil and I don't want to associate with you.
Fighter: RGJHLDFKMONEYNOW!

Amidst our random banter, our handsomely intelligent fighter decides, without any provocation, to tell this wizard we just met all about the Book of the Dead that we gave to a necromancer about a week ago. You know, as smalltalk. Unsurprisingly, the wizard is incredibly interested in this artifact, but eventually gets around to reading our damn letter. He tells us that he's going to resurrect the dead hobgoblin prince but he'll need our help. We'll need to bring him crushed diamonds, a piece of the dead prince, aaaaaaaand the Book of the Dead. He'll give us sweet loot if we do. The fighter and I think it's a good deal, and the sorcerer is having a seizure so that's basically a yes too.

The crusader snaps.

Crusader: No, screw that. I'm not bringing you the Book of the Dead. You're clearly evil.
Fighter: Come on! He's promising us sweet loot!
Crusader: No, we can do other things to get treasure.
Me: So giving the book to a necromancer of nerull is fine, but giving it to a kindly old hobgoblin crosses a line?
Crusader: He associates with devils! He's evil! The necromancer wasn't evil!
Me: You mean the necromancer who worships the god of DEATH and EVIL isn't EVIL?
Crusader: Screw this I'm leaving.

The crusader heads towards the door while me and the fighter look at each other confused. The sorcerer is passed out on the floor. The wizard calls out and tries to propose an offer he couldn't refoose -- a Hold Person spell, but the crusader's unbreakable will fights off the effect and he yells saying he won't take none of that crap. Finally, all of us give in. We can't get the crusader to stay. We take the offer and bid the crusader farewell. He heads for the door... And the wizard casts another Hold Person, this time being successful. The crusader is stuck in place and very pissed.

Then a true test of morality is placed on us neutrals. The wizard turns to us and kindly asks for one of us to knock out the crusader before he breaks free of the spell. To turn on our friend and fellow adventurer, betray his trust and knock him out cold? Is our friendship worth a mere handful of fancy trinkets?! The fighter and I lock gazes and instinctively we knew what must be done. At the same moment, we struck.

Rock.
Paper.
Scissors.

Fighter won and lined up a home-run hit on the helpless crusader, knocking him out cold. We don't leave friends behind. :smallsmile:

The wizard has a plan to make the crusader more "agreeable" to this mission. He instructs us to all hold hands, including himself, and casts a spell. He tells us that we are all now magically bonded to our contract agreement. We must bring him the diamonds, piece of dead prince and the Book, while he must give us shinies. If we don't carry out our contract in a timely manner, the magic will kill us. Details, details.

The wizard has a devil servant bring us our shinies. We're all given magical rings of protection and magical armor, some health potions, and a bonus sword for the Fighter. We'll be given the rest of our reward once we carry out the mission. The wizard carries out some divinations and locates The Book, then gives us an updated map and compass. We revive the crusader, who for the time being seems to have mentally repressed the memory of HORRIBLE BETRAYAL and is in a more agreeable mood. Since we're back as a functioning group, we set out for adventure once more!

Unfortunately on our travels the crusader remembers the incident and becomes all snappy and mopy again, not wanting to help us but is obligated to because he doesn't want to die to magical lightning bolts and whatnot. He's a grouch all the way to our next destination, which is a cave where the necromancer of Nerull is chilling at with the Book. We get jumped at night again by five bugbears, led by the one who got away last time. Again the crusader sucked at spotting them. We barely hold them off, with the crusader knocked out and both me and the fighter on the verge of falling over. We kill all the bugbears this time, heal up with some potions and cleric healing, and are left unmolested all the way to the necromancer's cave. We call it here.

Closing Thoughts:
We obviously had some alignment debate after the, uh, incident. The crusader says I'm clearly evil and maybe the Fighter too, but the DM agrees with me that I'm neutral and borderline evil. Honestly, I wouldn't mind being evil at some point. I tried convincing the wizard to replace my share of the loot with infernal contacts but he said no. Having an imp familiar or something would've been badass.

We had two fights with bugbears and both turned out to be almost deadly. This was mostly due to terrible rolls on our part, but especially by me. I literally rolled an average of 5. Even with Shadow Blade Technique and Sapphire Nightmare Blade I couldn't hit and all my +8 Tumbles provoked attacks. It got to the point that the DM was yelling at me to roll better!

The loot: All of us got a ring of protection +1 and +1 armor. I'm not sure what the fighter's greatsword is but I think it's just a +1 greatsword. The fighter is also holding on to all of our health potions, forgot what they are.

We didn't level yet. Still level 2. Still +2 attack with my daggers. Next level it'll be +6. One can dream, right?

[Warlawk]

It gains lots of maneuvers and has lots of disciplines available, but it also has 3/4 BAB, pretty weak class features, and requires a ton of feats to enter - most of them weak.

Master of the 9 maneuver selection and progression thrown on top of the crusader recharge mechanic gives you a huge selection of abilities that automatically recharge every 3 rounds (assuming extra granted maneuver). Yeah, you're still a T3 class and you might miss some of the feat based tricks but you have a huge bag of tools from your maneuvers that recharge with no action needed on your part. It's pretty solid depending on what you used to get there (Having a DM that allows unarmed variant swordsage for imp unarmed strike helps).

Will have to take some time tonight and skim the campaign notes, the responses you've gotten makes it sound like you've got a cool game going.

[Sith_Happens]

Honestly, that's an awful house rule (falling down on a 1). The other DM in my group started with a house rule that if you rolled a natural 1, you dropped your weapon, and we thought THAT was unfair. He quickly agreed with us after several monsters dropped their weapons in back-to-back combats.

That's nothing. Most of the DM's in my dorm rule that if you roll a 1 you hit yourself (or a random ally if it's a ranged attack). A Warblade Ruby Nightmare Blade'ing himself with a -10 Power Attack = not good for character longevity.

[Torvon]

Please keep the journal going. I love the way you write, fun fun.

ta-ta
T.

[true_shinken]

Both the Swordsage and the Fighter are clearly evil. You attacked your friend just for money, for crying out loud.

[Girshtop]

Both the Swordsage and the Fighter are clearly evil. You attacked your friend just for money, for crying out loud.

THANK YOU. The friend who happened to save their lives with magical healing the last battle we fought, no less.

[Dralnu]

I'd like to think that we knocked out the crusader because he was being a snobby party pooper. We also attacked with nonlethal damage. That's basically just intense playfighting.

He was a total hardass about it after too. We literally saved his life in the last bugbear ambush (which he failed to spot) and he didn't even want to heal us after. Lawful jerk alignment, am I right?

[NineThePuma]

Eh, honestly, if you attacked him I don't think him withholding healing is that big a deal.

But I do believe that the error is with the Crusader. There's a personal code of conduct for good (which can amount to 'be nice and merciful') and freaking out over association isn't part of them.

Pelor's beef is with the Undead, not devils. While he would be annoyed, remember that conversion is a very easy thing to do.

[true_shinken]

I'd like to think that we knocked out the crusader because he was being a snobby party pooper. We also attacked with nonlethal damage. That's basically just intense playfighting.
Suppose two of your friends want to play Pro Evolution Soccer. You don't - you want to play Street Fighter IV. So your friends beat you until you faint. Would you find that acceptable? Would you say that's a reasonable course of action?

[NineThePuma]

That's not a very good analogy. They ARE working at a higher stakes.

[true_shinken]

That's not a very good analogy. They ARE working at a higher stakes.
SO let's say two of your friends want to rob a bank. You don't want to rob a bank. So they beat you senseless. Is that good enough?

[NineThePuma]

No, cause that's STILL wrong.

Lets say you're asked to steal a package. Said package is being held by someone who doesn't want to give it up, obviously. The person who's asking you to do it is a rebel against a corrupt and tyrannical government, but is no better than the government. Now, there's no Good way to deal with this. Because every angle is bad. The best way is to go with the Lawful way and intentionally sabotage the rebellion.

[true_shinken]

No, cause that's STILL wrong.

Lets say you're asked to steal a package. Said package is being held by someone who doesn't want to give it up, obviously. The person who's asking you to do it is a rebel against a corrupt and tyrannical government, but is no better than the government. Now, there's no Good way to deal with this. Because every angle is bad. The best way is to go with the Lawful way and intentionally sabotage the rebellion.

There is always a good way to deal with stuff. And this whole thing is about money, anyway. Don't pretend it isn't.

[NineThePuma]

Yeah. I'm pointing out that for the crusader, there's no way to be Good in this scenario. It's an Evil vs Evil vs Neutral.

[true_shinken]

Yeah. I'm pointing out that for the crusader, there's no way to be Good in this scenario. It's an Evil vs Evil vs Neutral.
There are many ways to be good in this scenario. Why does he have to join one of the sides? He could start his own group.

[Dralnu]

Suppose two of your friends want to play Pro Evolution Soccer. You don't - you want to play Street Fighter IV. So your friends beat you until you faint. Would you find that acceptable? Would you say that's a reasonable course of action?

I love this analogy, it actually made me laugh out loud. My last post was just a joke by the way. It was a pretty evilish act. I'm sure I'd hit the evil alignment eventually if I keep this up. Also yeah, the crusader doesn't have to be over the top good, but I think that's just how he wants to play the character. It's all in good fun.

[Corrik]

Interesting read, can't wait for the next entry.

[Hazzardevil]

I actually quite like this. Also does teh crusader know about teh RKV? you could ask the DM to allow it for Pelor and see how it goes.

Intriguing plot, I must find a DM willing to use this sort of plot.

[Grendus]

I actually quite like this. Also does teh crusader know about teh RKV? you could ask the DM to allow it for Pelor and see how it goes.

Intriguing plot, I must find a DM willing to use this sort of plot.

I was actually thinking the same thing. Except for the deity requirement, it's a great divine/initiator hybrid class that would be a good fit for him.

Edit: but you misspelled it, it's RNW. Ruby Knight "Win"dicator.

[Hazzardevil]

What actually happended to this?

[Beowulf DW]

I love this analogy, it actually made me laugh out loud. My last post was just a joke by the way. It was a pretty evilish act. I'm sure I'd hit the evil alignment eventually if I keep this up. Also yeah, the crusader doesn't have to be over the top good, but I think that's just how he wants to play the character. It's all in good fun.

Just a question, then: Why did you call your character neutral in the first place?
All you've really done is evil. You don't even seem to be role-playing a descent from neutral to evil. You hit the evil ground running (evilly)...(is that even a word?).

[Dralnu]

What actually happended to this?

Everyone just got busy. Some of us ended up playing two sessions of my evil campaign located in my sig. We don't play D&D that often, it's usually once every couple of months. The summer time is when we crank out more sessions though.

Next session is scheduled this sunday!


Just a question, then: Why did you call your character neutral in the first place?
All you've really done is evil. You don't even seem to be role-playing a descent from neutral to evil. You hit the evil ground running (evilly)...(is that even a word?).

It wasn't my intention to play him straight-up evil. If I have done so then, well, my bad. I honestly don't mind crossing out "neutral" and writing "evil" on my sheet. I'd still play him the same way.


EDIT: AND WE'RE GOING TO LEVEL UP!

I'll try and see if my DM will let me take the sleeping tiger monk variant so I can eventually take Mo9 at level 8 (or can I get into it at level 7?). I don't care that it's a little "unoptimized," it looks fun in an Avatar style ass-kickery way.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Your character doesn't seem evil yet, but he's definitely borderline. If you continue having him act like this, then he will be evil.

[Dralnu]

Session 4:

Re-introducing:
Up until this point, I have been referring to the PCs by their mundane classes. Fighter did this, Sorcerer said that. But this hardly does justice to the epicness that are the PCs, whose personalities and names demand to be shouted in the halls of legends. From now on, I shall be referring to the PCs by their names instead of generic class labels. I present to you:

Garth Bolstrum: Human Swordsage. Neutral, borderline evil. Likes to stab things with daggers and get paid for it. Stealthy and a good scout. Dabbles in all martial schools but favors Shadow Blade.

Handsome Dan: Human Fighter. Neutral. His character sheet describes his Skin: Bronzed and Hair: Majestic. Woo's any humanoid and beast he comes across with his staggering charm. Also likes to stab things with swords and get paid for it. Tanky and primary damage dealer.

Teddy Derwin: Human Crusader/Cleric. Lawful Good. Loyal servant of Pelor. Hates evil things and anything that goes against his moral code. Primary support and tank, able to heal like a mothertrucker both in and out of combat.

Fylo Goodleaf: Halfling Sorcerer. Lawful Good. Dislikes non-good things, but not to the same degree as Teddy. Primary blaster with a side helping of more blasting.

As you may notice, there's a small divide in the party. The good PCs have some degree of distrust of the neutrals and there's some arguments of the next course of action (which the good side usually wins). But when our backs are against the wall, we somehow find a way to be united and get the job done.

When We Level:
After over two months hiatus, another session was announced. The DM also told us to bring our character sheets along with a level 3 sheet of our characters, as we would be leveling up during the session and he didn't want us to waste lots of time leveling up.

Suffice to say I was overjoyed at the idea of hitting level 3. Finally being allowed to take Weapon Finesse would shoot my craptastic +2 attack bonus up to +6 so I could actually hit things. I asked the DM if I could spontaneously dip into Monk after all those naked combats but he said that to take a level in monk I'd need someone to teach me the ways. I ended up sticking with Swordsage and taking Flashing Sun as my new maneuver.

Handsome Dan took a feat that lets him use his CHA to Will saves. This choice meshes well with his Distracting Blow feat. Now, not only will his enemies be distracted by his rugged good looks each time he attacks, but spellcasters will also be unable to charm such a charming man. I suggested Dan take Improved Sunder to lead him to some good Tactical Feats for level 6, but with no guarantees of even hitting that level he had none of it.

Teddy decided to continue advancing his Cleric levels, which is a solid choice considering how much undead we've been facing. Not only that, but it offers more support potential for the group, something we completely depend on in order to not wipe during every single combat encounter. Not sure of his feat choice.

Fylo had some trouble deciding on a feat and spell to take. He's too low level to make use of metamagic feats and the PHB is pretty dry on other sorcerer feats to take. I think he settled on Spell Focus and picked up his first AOE, Burning Hands.

Remember, we're not level 3 yet. Now, on to the session!

A Good Start:
The hobgoblin wizard gave us some nice provisions for our quest. Dan now wields and +1 sword, I believe Teddy has a +1 full plate, and we all now wear a ring of protection +1 and have four healing potions on us. I was given a map of the area and a magical compass that points to our destination, which I use to lead the way.

As we approach our destination, however, we notice that all the villages within miles of the necromancer's cave have been burned to the ground and the residents have all vanished, with signs of things being dragged away. Continuing onward, we come across an ogre zombie hauling a large wagon filled with bodies. Obviously the necromancer has been busy since we've last seen him. We decide to follow the zombie and see where it goes. Sure enough, it leads us to our destination, a cave situated on a hill.

Guarding the entrance of the cave is a skeletal giant that I identify as an skeletal Ettin. It's a bit intimidating to take head-on, especially after those embarrassing bugbear fights. We instead decide to jump the ogre zombie heading out of the cave with an empty wagon. Teddy and Fylo wish to stop it from harming any more innocents. Dan and I wish to stab (in this case, slash) stuff.

We follow the zombie down the path and out of sight of the cave and then jump it. Teddy runs in first and attacks it, with me going in second. I attempt to tumble in and strike, but stumble and fail (+8!) and the zombie fractures my skull with its morningstar, dropping me into negatives. It then turns around and smacks Teddy silly, knocking him to an inch of consciousness so he decides to play dead. Dan and Fylo watch the massacre from the nearby bushes and decide not to engage. After the zombie defends itself, it leaves us alone and returns to its mission. We regroup and patch up our wounds, but the Heal check DC for our pride is too high.

"Scouting":
After that disastrous attempt at taking on a lowly zombie minion, we decide the giant skeletal ettin may be a little too much to fight head-on. I have a devious plan:

Garth: How about we build a giant pit and lure the ettin into it?
Fylo: How will we dig a giant pit?
Garth: I have an umber hulk mandible, we can use it as an improvised shovel.
Teddy: That would take forever.
Garth: But zombies and skeletons are clumsy and can't climb! They can't even climb stairs.
DM: That's cows.
Fylo: Did you just confuse zombies with cows?
Garth: ...
Dan: You're a real space cadet, aren't you, Garth?

Teddy comes up with a different plan. He can cast Hide From Undead on two people. That way we can scout out the place while avoiding any disastrous confrontations. Teddy decides to cast it on himself and Fylo and they head in, while Dan and I start hunting boars.

Teddy and Fylo survey the layout of the cave. The place is pitch-dark, so they cast Light on their holy symbols and proceed forward. An initial tunnel winds its way deep underground, then splits in a three-way intersection with passage with a door ahead and two paths leading left and right. The place is bustling with zombie ogres, either pulling full carts of bodies or empty ones. The duo head down the left passage and end up in a room where carts are being unloaded and bodies are being handled by zombie bugbears, stripping them of gear and preparing them for animation. They then head into the right passage and find two ghouls, who quickly notice the Light and then notice the intruders. Teddy quickly raises his holy symbol and turns them, and then both the ghouls and our heroes run screaming in opposite directions!

Meanwhile, Dan and I have caught a boar and have begun roasting it. I turned its head into a stylish hat. But our delicious meal is interrupted when Teddy and Fylo return. After telling us what happened, we decide that we've lost the element of surprise and should instead gather up to full strength and try entering the cave tommorrow. We run away to find a safe place to rest for the night. We notice some zombie patrols during the night but none find our hiding spot.

When A Halfling Cries:
We go back to the cave the next day, dispatching of a zombie patrol along the way. We employ a tried and true videogame tactic on the ettin skeleton: leashing. Teddy gets the skeleton's attention as the rest of us hide nearby. As the skeleton chases Teddy, we sneak into the cave, then Teddy casts Hide From Undead to lose the skeleton and meet up with us inside. It works without any problems. This is the first and probably the last time we successfully execute a plan! Huzzah!

Teddy casts Light on a rock and we proceed onward. As we turn into the intersection, a ghoul spots us, shrieking and running into the left passage. We give chase and Fylo hears a low grinding sound as we run. We end up in the room with the two bugbear zombies that completely ignore us as they work. No sign of the ghouls. We search the place for a hidden doorway, but no luck. We leave the bugbear zombies alone and go back to the intersection, deciding to go through the previously unexplored doorway.

Inside is a storage room filled with tools and mundane equipment that was likely removed from the collected bodies. We don't have time to search the place, however, because suddenly we hear the necromancer's booming voice commanding his undead to destroy us. Seconds later, there's the moans and movement of dozens of undead rushing towards us. We decide to close the door...

Seems they found us though, as the door starts getting bashed on. We hold it with our combined strength, but we're sitting ducks in this room. We formulate a plan. We probably cannot take the legions of undead all at once, but if we fight at the doorway, we can bottleneck them in the narrow tunnel and kill them off one by one. True Spartan stuff right here!

Okay, so we have a plan. We hold the doorway and kill them off in the bottleneck. Ok! We open the door and Fylo shoots a blast of Disrupt Undead and runs to the back wall. Yeah! The first zombie coming down the tunnel rushes straight for the halfling, and the DM asks who is taking attacks of opportunity. All of us, of course! We all attack it as it charges past us into the room and kill it before it can attack our sorcerer. YEEEEEEAH!

...

Wait, what?

So, remember that plan about blocking off the doorway to make a bottleneck? You know, the tactically smart choice when facing a swarm of undead? Yeah, we all got caught up with the idea of AoO's that we decided to line up beside the door as the first zombie ran in. By the time we realized our mistake, it was too late. The room was filled with undead! And they're all gunning for the halfling first because he's in clear view. Aaaand he forgot to cast Mage Armor.

At this point the halfling is weeping. That, or bleeding from his eyeballs due to the brutal undead lynching. Whichever.

This Could Get Messy:
So now we're being attacked by two dozen undead: mostly zombies, some skeletons, and even two ghouls for funsies. The room is literally covered with them. The halfling and I are fighting side by side with our backs against the wall, while Teddy and Dan are lost in a sea of undead somewhere else in the room. Fylo summons his mage armor and starts blasting the undead, but he's taking hits that he simply cannot afford. I'm fighting the skeletons surrounding me with a morningstar, but with my piddly +1 attack bonus and my abysmal rolling I simply cannot land more than three hits the entire battle against their 14 AC. Teddy attempted to turn the tide with some greater undead turning, but I guess Pelor doesn't pay much attention to level 1 clerics because it. Never. Worked. He did, however, save us all from certain doom with his clutch crusader healing abilities. But special shout out goes to Dan in this fight. Never has Power Attack and Cleave looked so damn good. Even going sword and board (legions of undead, remember) he was still clearing at least half of the enemies by himself.

Things aren't looking good as the battle rages on. Despite our comfortably high AC's, we're still getting hits just from the sheer number of undead claws and bites flying at us. We're all battered, but poor Fylo gets it the worst. A brutal swing knocks him to -9HP as we hear the halfling scream. Teddy tries to heal him with Martial Spirit + Crusader Strike but misses his hit. Uh oh.

Understanding that his ally is in serious trouble, Dan saunters into action, taking 6 AoO's from the zombies surrounding the dying sorcerer in order to enter his square and pour a healing potion in Fylo's mouth. The first three miss as the DM mentions he'd need a 19 just to currently hit the fighter. Then he rolls for the potion pouring. He raises the DM screen.

19, 19, 20.

With Dan almost dead already, this looks really bad. Then comes the damage.

1. 2. 1.

DAN LIVES!!!!

The fight keeps going. Fylo regains consciousness from Teddy's crusader healing and busts out a dagger. He hacks away at a zombie. FYLO THE WARRIOR! Unfortunately, doing so provokes zombie wrath and he promptly gets dropped to negatives. This happens at least two more times during the fight.

Eventually we kill off all the undead, including the two ghouls. As the dust settles, I'm the only one who isn't teetering on the brink of death. We use up all our potions.

The place is silent. Phew. We calmly collect some mundane gear from the storage room; shovels, pickaxes, longswords, etc. We then set out to find that jerk necromancer that tried to kill us. We thoroughly search the entire cave but there was nothing. We're convinced that there has to be a secret door somewhere, but our highest Search is a +1 and we simply cannot find it by conventional means. So we turn to the unconventional. We start breaking crap and scraping the walls until eventually we find a secret door hidden in the wall of a hallway.


MVP Familiar:
We dig a hole under the doorway big enough for a halfling and Fylo goes through into a 20ft. wide pitch-black hallway on the other side. With some lights, he spots two heavily armed zombies. They also spot him. They stumble forward and the sorcerer hurries his ass back through the hole. The secret door grinds open.

Out of spells and battered, we still charge in for a fight. I flip over the zombies for a flanking position and we start wailing on them. Unfortunately for me, my positioning makes me the first clear target for the necromancer, who runs into the hallway screaming random gibberish about "The Book" and firing a Searing Ray right at me that luckily goes wide. I decide to engage him head-on while the rest of my party deals with the zombies. After missing two attacks on the full-plated cleric and narrowly dodging another ray and a hand glowing with dark negative energy, I decide maybe solo'ing this guy isn't the wisest idea and retreat to the back of my group.

The zombies go down along and we're left with a very angry cleric of Nerull. Like, a few screws loose type of angry. We get some hits in before he moves forward, casting a spell that explodes in a burst of intense sound that paralyzes both me and Teddy and knocks out Dan. The only one who can still fight is Fylo, who has no more spells and has backed away to a safe distance. The cleric moves up to kill me, when suddenly a dagger flies past and cuts his cheek. Flyo proves that EVEN A GOD CAN BLEED!

Angered, the bloodied necromancer rushes after Fylo and fires off another burst of sound but the sorcerer covers his ears in time. In utter desperation, Fylo charges with a dagger. Not only that, but he also flings his tiny viper named Eddie (of "Epic of Dave" fame) into a charge as well, knowing every little thing counts now. And both hit! Fylo stabs the cleric's kneecap while the viper latches onto his forehead!

Now, despite being tiny, Eddie is still a viper (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/snake.htm). Thus, his venom is still very potent if you fail your save. The DM rolls the cleric's save.

1.

He takes 3 CON damage. With a viper still latched to his forehead and injecting venom, the CLERIC MOTHERTRUCKIN' DROPS! Yeah, seriously. That just happened. Next time you forget to use your familiar, remember this.

Since the necromancer is going to die to poison/bleeding any moment and we need some immediate healing or else our crusader will drop, Teddy smashes in his skull for some sweet divine invigoration. Pelor 1, Nerull 0.

We quickly find the Book of the Dead after that, get some loots but not much, and leave the cave. As we step into the daylight, we feel a sense of accomplishment and experience. WE GAIN A NEW LEVEL! Woo! We eagerly swap to our new level 3 character sheets.

To The Mines Of:
We start heading out when our wizard employer scries on us and tells us to wait for one of his messengers. Sure enough, a hobgoblin rider eventually shows up. He likes to withhold information, including his name, so we call him Bob.

Bob tells us that the wizard is pleased with our progress but we need to accomplish two more tasks: acquiring diamonds and a piece of the dead hobgoblin prince. The map and magical compass will lead us to both destinations. Bob takes the Book from us and then produces a box with an evil spider. He says that one of us must be the carrier of the spider and warns that it will be rather unpleasant. I look at it and pet it. It looks back at me with an "expression" as if it's looking down at me as its lesser. I think it's cute, so I take it and call it Whiskers. Bob then places a ring with three gems into the box and the spider "wears" the ring. Whiskers is blinging up! Later that night we find out that Whiskers is a bonafide spellcaster, as he cast a Message spell after doing a little spider dance. Smart lil' guy!

We decide to go to the mines of somethingorother since it's closer than the gladiator arena and we can get diamonds there. With my knowledge of the area, I know that the mines are under the control of a stone giant named Lax, who has slaves work the mines for him. This is the same place that Teddy sent the villagers to for shelter at an ancient temple of Pelor. We head out in that direction.

We eventually reach the mines and meet with this Lax fellow. We do some smalltalk and he tells us that business is in trouble lately because his mining tools are getting worn out and the nearby villages that he used to trade with for his supplies have recently been burned down, its inhabitants either gone or sought refuge in his town and "work for him" now. We explain that the culprit of this was a jerk necromancer and we crushed his skull in for it. Lax likes us now.

We tell him what we want. Five diamonds. When he asks what type, the spider crawls out of its box, picks up a pen, and writes down the order. Four "regular" diamonds and one specific, more expensive diamond. We're all a little surprised. What a smart lil' guy! We talk some business. Since we have no money, we decide to pay with services. Lax could solve his equipment problem by setting up his own smithy with his new dwarf "workers." I'm a highly accomplished smithy myself, so I can oversee the entire operation and teach them what to do. We settle down in the area for a while so I can do just that and lax pays us four regular diamonds for the effort.

Lax tells us he will give us the last, special diamond if we can do something else for him. Apparently his nephew, Edwin, was fooling around and got caught by bugbear slaves and is now in the gladiatorial arena that we used to be in. The stone giant doesn't care about Edwin, but the wife nags and nags about it. If we can rescue the adolescent stone giant, he'll give us the diamond. We agree, and off we go!

Like The Italian Job:
As we journey to where our adventures began, the wizard scries on us and tells us once more to wait for Bob the messenger. Bob meets up with us again and asks for our diamonds. He takes them and uses some magic to turn them into diamond dust. He produces four potions and puts the dust in each of them. The spider gets in on the funky action too, leaving his box once more to do a little dance that changes the color of the potions and causes one of the three gems in the ring he wears to disappear. Odd.

Bob tells us to drink the potions. Since he refuses to give any other information and we kinda have to, we drink it. Nothing happens. Bob journeys with us to the arena.

That night, I have a horrible dream of bugs chasing and stinging me. I wake up and notice there's a gaping swollen hole in my leg and friggin' Whiskers is squirming around inside. Bad Whiskers! I thought he was cool but now he's invading my personal space. I pull out a dagger and want to cut him out, but the group thinks that annoying the magical spider may be a bad idea. I put the dagger to Bob's neck and demand some information, but he laughs and said I knew what I was getting into. True enough, but I warn him if I get harmed during this mission, he's getting dead. He agrees. So we leave it alone for now, though I'm not happy about it at all.

Bob leads us to some catacombs that goes underneath the gladiator arena. We go deeper and deeper until the hobgoblin tells us that what we need lies straight ahead, and he'll keep watch outside. We move forward in the darkness until we hear iron gates slamming down behind us. Trapped. Almost like someone knows we're here. We keep moving forward to another set of iron gates that open for us. Yeah, someone knows we're here.

We go through the gate, through a tunnel, and into the daylight. The place is awfully familiar. Then, in a booming voice, an announcer shouts, "Brought back from the dead for your entertainment, team GarthTeddyFylo and an extra!" The crowd roars.

As Fylo points out, we've been set up. Crap.

And the announcer continues, "And in the other corner, a stone giant that only needs one more victory to win his freedom, Edwin!"

Double crap.

Don't Fear The Reaper:
The good-aligned PCs try to talk Edwin out of fighting. After all, we ideally want to rescue this kid. Edwin ignores us and hurls a boulder our way. With diplomacy not working, we move to attack.

Fylo starts things off with his new and improved magic missiles. Edwin retorts by throwing a boulder at the halfling that instantly kills him. Craaaaaaap!

We rush in and start wailing on the young stone giant, but his formidable defense (23 AC!) is quite daunting and I miss my first attacks. He quickly drops Handsome Dan next. Teddy hits him with Vanguard Strike, giving me the clear to go nova on him. I try my Burning Blade + Flashing Sun combo and roll a 1 and a 11, just barely hitting him with one attack but still dealing a nice 17 damage. He responds by crushing my skull in with his fist, and proceeds to do the same to Teddy. Fail.

As all fades to black, we hear the crowd cheer as the announcer shouts that Edwin has earned his freedom.

But that's not the end for us. We suddenly wake up in a room, naked on top of a heap of bodies. To add to our confusion, the spider crawls out of my leg and tells us in Common, "Well done."

End scene.

Closing Thoughts:
The potion we drank was a delayed Raise Dead spell. So we're back to level 2.

:smallannoyed:

Very clever, clearly planned. My DM side loves it. My player side is still somewhat annoyed. I really hate being stuck at +2 attack bonus and don't like the idea of having to put up with more sessions of being a waste of space in fights.

On the whole, I thought this session was awesome and filled with crazy moments. The fact that a lowly familiar took down a high level cleric is just amazing. Had lots of fun.

Teddy is rocking. We simply could not have lived through any of those fights without his healing. Crusader is very potent, and cleric is unquestionably great. Dan is dashing. Naysay Fighter all you want, but right here Power Attack + Cleave is dealing the vast majority of damage in every fight and he's connecting with his hits too. Fylo is our only ranged damage dealer and the only one who can guarantee damage as well. Disrupt Undead is an MVP cantrip here. I think he can find a solid niche in AOE damage, something we desperately need in this massive fights. As for me, I feel pretty much useless at these levels. I'm rolling horribly bad the past two sessions, but in general a +2 to hit is just awful. I'm relying on Shadow Blade Technique and Sapphire Nightmare Blade just to hit things, then I'm basically out of maneuvers and have to waste an entire round doing nothing to recover them. It's pretty bad, especially in these very long type of fights. I'm hoping it gets better.

I'll have to rethink my maneuver choice for next level. Flashing Sun is basically a bad Wolf Fang Strike for me. I might take Hatchling's Flame instead. Swarms of zombies beg for some decent AOE ability.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Let's see, is there anything in my campaign this cool?

Oh yeah, once, we fought a bunch of sky pirates on an out of control falling airship. One of the party members made Molotov cocktails and used them against the pirates.

That's about it.

[Torvon]

Cheers. Still reading your updates eagerly :)

[Dralnu]

Glad you guys enjoy reading it! When I was finished writing it up I was afraid I wrote too much.

I got two ToB questions if anyone's familiar with the mechanics:
1) Are stances still active when paralyzed?
2) Flashing Sun, a level 2 desert wind maneuver, looks way worse than Wolf Fang Strike, a level 1 tiger maneuver, for a swordsage (the only one who can take it anyway). One's a full round action and one's a standard action for basically the same effect. Am I missing anything?

[Lateral]

Yeah, you're missing something- Desert Wind sucks.

[true_shinken]

Glad you guys enjoy reading it! When I was finished writing it up I was afraid I wrote too much.

I got two ToB questions if anyone's familiar with the mechanics:
1) Are stances still active when paralyzed?
2) Flashing Sun, a level 2 desert wind maneuver, looks way worse than Wolf Fang Strike, a level 1 tiger maneuver, for a swordsage (the only one who can take it anyway). One's a full round action and one's a standard action for basically the same effect. Am I missing anything?

Flashing Sun is a lot better later on. At level 2, Wolf Fang Strike is just better. At level 8, with full TWF feat, Flashing Sun allows for 5 attacks. Huge difference.

Flashing Sun is flurry in maneuver form. Take it if you have enough bonus damage.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Yeah, you're missing something- Desert Wind sucks.

Are you kidding? Burning brand gives you reach, and burning blade and searing blade scale with level.

[true_shinken]

Are you kidding? Burning brand gives you reach, and burning blade and searing blade scale with level.

Leaping Flame is a good counter as well.

[El Dorado]

Very cool. Thanks for the update.

[Mayhem]

Great Journal :smallsmile:

[Dralnu]

Session 5

And We're Back!
So we just got brutally murdered and resurrected, naked on a pile of corpses, with a talking spider climbing out of my leg and congratulating us. After spending a moment to take this all in, I go for the logical course of action.

I try to squish the damned spider.

Unfortunately, my recent resurrection has left my dizzy and I end up tripping over myself instead. The spider ignores me and transforms into the hobgoblin wizard that sent us on this task: dear old Whatshisface. He continues to praise our efforts, which has convinced everyone in the world of our demise and has allowed WHF to bypass all security and enter this area, whatever this is. The old guy is in a really good mood. He produces a table from a magical bag and begins setting up alchemical equipment on it, along with the Book of the Dead, all while muttering how the plan is nearly complete "after all these years" and other senile gibberish.

I help him set up, to make up for the fact that I just tried to kill the high level wizard and everything. We're almost done setting up when he turns and fires a lightning bolt at Fylo, which narrowly whizzes over the halfling's short head and incinerates some strange beast that was shambling over to us. The wizard tells us that these are beasts that eat the corpses piled in these rooms, sort of like walking recycling bins. With a smirk, he then tosses the three-gem ring (now with only one gem left) that he was previously wearing in our direction, announcing that he has fulfilled his end of the magical contract that binds us.

Of course, since the ring is shiny, we all jump to catch it. With my boss reflexes, I'm clearly going to catch it -- but Dan, annoyed with his gorgeous yet slow body, decides instead to punch me in the face to knock me off balance, because, "If I can't have it, no one will!" It takes the handsome thug a moment to realize the ineffectiveness of his action, as Fylo easily catches the ring instead and begins conversing (aka plotting) with Teddy in Elven as usual so that us neutrals can't listen to what they're saying. Dan and I reconcile, realizing that we must band together or be stuck as third wheels to the goodies in our party.

WHF's tolerance of our presence ends the moment he's done setting up his little lab. He bids us farewell, telling us that if we stick around any longer he'll simply dispose of us. We leave, but I decide to be an idiot and stay a little longer to make sure he's all set up. I eat a lightning bolt on the way back to my group for it. The blast instantly knocked me unconscious. Had I not made my save, I would've been instantly killed. Woops! With no holy symbol to channel his spells, Tedy can seal my wounds but not revive me, so he picks me up and we leave in a hurry.

Even Climbing Rope Is A Struggle:
I would've skipped this part had it not been a classic proof that even the most trivial obstacles are epic challenges for our dear heroes. You'll see what I mean.

After stumbling naked through some poorly lit halls we see another pit filled with corpses. Natural sunlight pours down into the pit from above, signalling a way out but also revealing one of the creatures the wizard had killed earlier. The large unnatural beast had no eyes but observed its surrounding by moving two barbed tentacles around, aiming them like sensory organs as it happily munched on corpses. As we approached, it stopped eating and aimed one of the tentacles in our direction, which prompted us to halt and watch it watch us. The DM did an hilarious impression of this creature, holding a "barbed tentacle" up as it cautiously continued to eat. I honestly didn't even want to act because the scene was too priceless.

Eventually Dan was the one to act, moving forward and trying to intimidate it. The creature, somewhat nervous, tried to intimidate back, but ended up just flailing around corpses in a comical manner. We were still in a standoff though, nobody wanting to move any further. But suddenly Dan has another idea! TWO IN ONE ENCOUNTER! He picks up a corpse's dismembered arm and tosses it down the hall, which the beast merrily chases after like a dog chasing a ball. We take the opportunity to make a dash for the pit and look up at the light, where lo and behold, Bob leans over the edge looking back down. He throws down a rope and we try to climb up as fast as possible. Dan goes first and begins climbing with great speed and finesse, but Fylo isn't so lucky; the poor guy loses his grip halfway to the top, fails to catch himself, and falls all the way down into the pit, knocked unconscious! I think he's setting a new record for number of blackouts per level. The beast starts running back in our direction.

Teddy springs to action. The cleric uses a spell to enlarge himself and saying a quick prayer/apology to Pelor, he launches another corpse at the beast to keep it busy, picks up the little sorcerer, and granny tosses him up to Dan before dismissing the spell and climbing the rope with me over his shoulder.

Us heroes climb out of the pit, naked and tired, into the sunlight of the outdoors. Through trials and tribulations, we managed to overcome the great task of climbing a rope out of the pit. The fulfilling experience has left us with a sense of accomplishment. Bob then asks us if we got a piece of Grish's body, which was the point of entering the pit.

...

Screw it, we level anyway. LEVEL 3 BABY!

Progress:
Bob is not happy with our mission report. We were supposed to retrieve Grish's body, though he admits that we'd have no way of locating the body amongst the thousands down there anyway. He has no clue what the wizard meant by him "fulfilling his obligation" and sees his actions as treachery, but can't do anything about it because he knows the wizard can kill us all. Still, we have a job to do:

1) Retrieve the Book of the Dead Complete(?)
2) Get a special diamond from Lax, the stone giant who owns a diamond mine
3) Retrieve a piece of Grish's body

Well, at least we "saved" Lax's nephew, so that diamond is as good as ours. We head back towards the mines with Bob accompanying us to help fulfill the mission. He gives us some crumpled clothes so we don't prance around naked and a couple weapons. Hooray!

We learn more about Bob on the way. Apparently his real name is Pricks. How fitting.

Pricks tells us more about why he's on this mission. Grish was next in line to be the ruler of his hobgoblin tribe. One day, Grish had a vision that he would be killed and then restored to life. He wanted his followers to carry out the resurrection. Pricks clearly isn't in charge of this mission but merely a loyal follower. The wizard, WHF, was paid to help accomplish the tribe's goals but seems to have decided to do his own thing. Pricks is also very suspicious of all the events that led to this point. Someone from the tribe must have betrayed Grish to his rivals and orchestrated his enslavement and death in the arena. Even our breakouts from the arena and subsequent missions were not supervised by anyone that Pricks personally knew. The whole thing sounds like a conspiracy theory. Adventurer translation? Whatever, let's kill stuff for loot.

Goblins ambush use on the road, which was surprising because we presumed that everyone, including the arena administration this time, would think (correctly) that we had died. We dispatch them quickly, taking their weapons and armor. Pricks searches their body and finds a Wanted scroll with his ugly mug on it. It turns out that he's the one being hunted now. If he was annoyed before, now he's furious. He's certain that a traitor is trying to get rid of him because he knows too much. Personally, I would LOVE to get rid of him, as I still had a promise to fulfill from the previous session and him accidentally crit'ing me with an arrow in the fight didn't soften my view of that Pricks. For the record, each night watch I contemplated murdering that damned Pricks, but I figured that Pricks might still be useful in our travels and can be disposed of when that use runs out. It'll make the painful murdering all the sweeter.

A few more day's travel brings us back to Lax's mines. The giant is incredibly grateful for returning Edwin and thus stopping his wife's nagging. He gives us the diamond we wanted, this huge honking gem the size of the halfling's head. Teddy uses some diplomacy while the giant is still in a good mood, trying to get the "workers" he previously sent this way (the villagers from the ghoul encounter) freed, but his Diplomacy 1 rolls basically amounts to "Aaaaaaaaay!" (http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00130/F_200611_november30_130427a.jpg) and ends up insulting the wealthy and powerful slavedriver. Still, he agreed to storing anything we don't want to take on our travels, so we keep the really expensive diamond with him. It was time to retire for the night.

Safe in our guest quarters, we had time to sit down and figure out what to do next. After some terrible spellcraft and knowledge rolls and some DM prodding, we figured out that the ring is a Ring of Three Wishes. Then we had to figure out what to do with said Wish, which had us stumped even longer. Finally, with some not so subtle DM prodding just to get things moving again, we realized that we could use Wish to get Grish's intact body and then find a Cleric capable of the Raise Dead spell, which is fairly rare but not impossible to find. We performed the Wish with no complications and stored the body in Lax's vault. The stone giant also tipped us off that he's heard of a cleric powerful enough to perform the spell. The cleric is rumored to reside at an old temple of Pelor not too far from the mines, the same temple that Teddy was thinking about when he sent the villagers over this way. Teddy knows some stories about the temple itself, but that would be something he'd need to fill here.

So now our mission looks like this:

1) Retrieve the Book of the Dead Complete(?)
2) Get a special diamond from Lax, the stone giant who owns a diamond mine
3) Retrieve a piece of Grish's body
4) Find a cleric that can perform Raise Dead on Grish's body

We bid farewell to Lax and head back on the road, restocked and relatively healthy. Wow, progress!

Move over, Napoleon!
We get jumped on the first night heading toward the temple. Hobgoblins. Heavily armored and clearly elite warriors. Utterly terrible rolls from everyone let them get a surround on our locations. Darn.

I've detailed some of our previous notable battles, so you guys should be getting an idea for how we think. This time I wanted to show you an illustrated example of our tactical genius. This is how the battle started:
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/5210/beforedc.jpg
Brown guys are the advancing hobgoblins. Let's pretend you're in our shoes and they're moving towards you. There's no time to draw up a plan. You've got a couple seconds to act. What do you do?

Got something? Okay, good. Now here's what we ended up doing: Dan goes first, charging the northwest group. I follow Dan to give him support. Fylo then rushes towards the eastern group and unloads a cone of fire on them with his new spell, Burning Hands. Teddy moves east to give Fylo support. Pricks is left to handle the three remaining hobgoblins because, well, nobody cares about Pricks.

So now it looks like this:
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/2914/afterqm.jpg
Yup.

And so the battle starts. Dan and I are doing well in the northwest group, and surprisingly so is Pricks in his 3on1 situation. Fylo, unfortunately, is not doing as well. As the DM put it, "You ran in front of them and basically announced, 'Hey! I'M A WIZARD!'" The fire spell, while awesome and catching their clothes on fire and horrible burns, did not kill the elite hobgoblins. It made them mad, and they stabbed the halfling in retaliation. The sorcerer repeated the spell the following round. As Fylo later put it, "I figured that if the first fire spell didn't kill 'em, the second one would."

It didn't.

Fylo was stabbed more until he dropped, again. To make matters worse, a mist had begun moving towards us from the south at an alarming speed, transforming into a hobgoblin. The new enemy moved towards Teddy, who froze in place, and whispered something in his ear. Next thing we knew, our cleric was fighting with the hobgoblins, attacking Pricks.

The battle raged on. Dan and I dispatched of the hobgoblin in the northwest and were moving back towards the center. Pricks was in a rage, hacking down hobgoblins and dodging Dan's blows. Fylo was bleeding out. And then...

Closing Thoughts:
... And then Dan and I had to leave the session early before the fight finished, unfortunately. Apparently the fight finished shortly after the two of us left. Our characters were set to normal attacking because no one could figure out how the hell to use my character, though Dan was simple enough. Teddy will have to fill in the rest of the fight.

Well, we're level 3 again. I'm loving my +6 attack bonus and was consistently hitting things all session long. I took Hatchling's Flame as my new maneuver but haven't had a chance to use it yet due to friendly fire issues. Level 3 gets me over the "useless" hump and now I'm loving the swordsage. I have yet to land a double hit Wolf Fang Strike + Burning Blade nova, but when I do, it will be glorious! Desert Wind looks like my favorite school. I'm already drooling over the Death Mark maneuver for when I get it.

Not sure what Teddy and Dan took when they leveled up, but I assume they stuck with what they originally took. Fylo learned Burning Hands and Eschew Materials feat on account of all the times that we're stripped naked.

Final note: I think it might be fun to start tracking how many times Fylo gets knocked into the negatives. I think we're averaging at least 3 per session. :smallbiggrin:

[Rhothaerill]

Just read through this whole thread. Fun game!

[Dralnu]

Session 6

Prelude:
Last session wrapped up shortly after Dan and I left. Prix took a beating while dishing out double he received. Teddy was commanded by the vampire (an elf, by the way) to use his "special abilities" on Prix instead of mundane (and failing) swings with his sword. This command entitled Teddy to another saving throw, which he passed, but he still carried out the command -- he used his special ability called Turn Undead, rolled a 19, and sent the vampire screaming into the forest.

Shortly after the fight ended, Prix's rage finished and our hobgoblin guide drops dead. Teddy takes his greatsword and vows to finish the mission in his honor before we all book it in the opposite direction of the vampire, knowing that the guy will be mighty pissed with us once the turning duration wears off. That was the end of Session 5.

We have a new player joining us. His character is William Sweet, a veteran human bard who is well known across the land for his concerts. Unfortunately, the years have not been kind to Sweet, and he's now quite the alcoholic. He'll be making his debut later in this session. For the record, this player also plays the drow scout in my evil campaign (see sig).

Run Away!:
We run as fast as we can in the opposite direction of the vampire until Dan's failed Fort save forces us to stop. We've made some good distance, but hardly enough on account of the whole the undead never rest thing. We're running through plains, but there's still undergrowth and patches of trees, so I hide the group as best as I can and we wait. Not long after, a pack of wolves arrive, sniff around the area, but don't seem to notice us and continue on their way. Teddy mentions that vampires can summon wolves to do its bidding, so it's likely that these were its scouts.

Anything Else Would Be Boaring:
With the crisis averted and all of us not looking too great after the last battle, we decide to buckle down for the rest of the day. We don't have any food, so I decide to use my expert Survival skills to hunt down a boar for us to eat, like Dan and I did earlier when we waited outside the necromancer's cave.

I go into the wilderness alone and find a boar munching on some vegetation. I sneak up near it very sneakily with shortswords out, but unfortunately not sneaky enough because it notices me. We both freeze for a moment, staring at each other. Then it charges me and gores me. What the hell?! I just wanted an easy "and you come back with a new boar hat," like before! :smalleek:

As the DM explained, boars aren't cute lil' piggies that a pre-pubescent child from Lord of the Flies can solo with a pointy stick. Boars (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/boar.htm) are serious business and require groups of people to properly hunt. It's one of the things that I neglected to brush up on with my knowledge: nature. In short, I was in for a real fight, and the little bugger drew first blood.

With some low rolls on my part and some high rolls from the boar, the overgrown pig managed to drop me and hobble away. My party managed to find me before I bled out and carried me back to camp for some healing in the morning. I wasn't allowed to go back and hunt it in the morning either, as my party told me that it's "done enough." Instead, I forage for some berries and other mundane things that can’t disembowel me. Sigh.

I'm now contemplating dipping ranger for favored enemy: boar. No joke.

Of Undead and Sweets:
With our map in hand, we continue onward to the temple of pelor where reputedly we can find a cleric powerful enough to raise our corpse back at Lax’s mines. As we near our destination, however, we spot patrols. Zombie patrols. We hear galloping coming from behind us and manage to duck into bushes just in time for a cloaked figure on horseback to ride passed us. We get a glimpse of his face as he rides by; it’s the elf vampire we faced earlier. Well, there goes our sad hope of finding a sanctified temple of light, goodness, and lollipops.

We slowly advance to our destination, carefully avoiding patrols along the way. We’re pushing through the undergrowth when we hear digging nearby, along a familiar voice: the vampire. I scout ahead and peer through the bushes. Humanoids are standing by a ransacked graveyard where zombies are busy digging up the final few graves. In the background is the ruined entrance of what was once the temple of pelor, clearly vandalized and even sporting a shiny new symbol of Nerull on top of the doorway. Two tied up captives, a hobgoblin wearing a holy symbol of Pelor, and the famous human William Sweet, are being held by hobgoblin guards and cloaked figures as they watch the vampire start tossing out bodies from an average-sized bag. I recognize the bodies as the hobgoblins that died in our last battle, including Prix. The vampire instructs the pelor-loving captive to raise the bodies, explaining that if he isn’t useful to them, they’ll just capture and use the other cleric that is on his way to them. He complies, producing a scroll and invoking the divine powers from it. The cleric makes some epically poor fumbles with the incantation as the scroll sputters with power. The spell still works, better than intended actually, and it raises all the dead at once… except it kills the cleric in the process. This annoys the vampire, and he mentions that now they must go with their backup plan, aka Teddy. After a couple seconds, the woozy newly raised get to their feet, including Prix. When our guide realizes where he is, he flips out and tries to attack the vampire, but is quickly dominated with a gaze.

The vampire then interrogates the captive bard. It seems that him and his associates have been turning the ruins of this temple upside-down in search of “Sandal’s Heart,” some object of great power. They can’t find it anywhere and the vampire wants the bard to tell him where it is. Thankfully, William Sweet knows quite a few things on this subject. DM STORY TIME!

Some Backstory:
Unfortunately, I don’t remember everything the DM said for Sweet’s bardic knowledge checks, so this is the gist of it unless the DM himself wants to add the missing info:

On Sandal:
Long ago, these ruins were a shining temple of Pelor. The greatest champion of this temple was a hobgoblin named Sandal, who was an immortal. Legend has it that the most minor healing spells could heal his most grievous wounds, a miraculous ability that he relied on so he could fight bravely on the battlefield against the forces of evil and get patched up by his allies after. A magical item dubbed “Sandal’s Heart” was the reputed source of his strange power. Eventually, when he died, his body was interred in the temple and his Heart was offered to champions of pelor, who may temporarily borrow it to aid them in worthy missions. Modern scholars (us) still debate whether the title of “immortal” was justified if the guy died of old age, and shouldn’t instead of been called “invincible,” or just “ the guy who’s really efficient at healing from stabs.”

On the Temple:
Many heroes throughout the ages were interred here, not just Sandal. Because of this, the Temple was also a repository of super awesome artifacts that the heroes carried in life. All of these could be borrowed by a worthy servant of Pelor to aid in a sanctified mission.

On the Unfriendly Vampire:
Long ago, when the Temple of Pelor still stood, there was a kingdom of elves located around this area. Some of these elves embraced vampirism, and in time their numbers grew large and powerful enough to take control of the entire kingdom. These vampiric elves began expanding their influence and conquering their neighbors. The neighboring goblinoid tribes decided they’d have none of that, so they united all the tribes together to take down their foe. The most important battle was fought at the Temple of Pelor and drove back the elves.

The combined might of all the goblinoid tribes made them into the new superpower of the land, and they utterly crushed the elven kingdom, enslaved the living elves while ruthlessly hunting down the vampires. This explains why the hobgoblin metropolis we visited earlier had a huge population of elf slaves (nice tie-in, DM!). After the elven kingdom was demolished, the newly formed goblinoid nation began conquering everything else, which leaves us in the world we’re in now.


William Small knows all this from his travels, tales, poems, songs, whathaveyou. But he doesn’t know where Sandal’s Heart is!

The Power of Nerull Compels You!
Sweet doesn't know where Sandal's Heart is, so instead he tells them the next best thing: a lie. The vampire sees through the lie immediately and gives him a smack, reminding him that after spending days searching through the Temple, his patience is nonexistent. Sweet changes tactics and nervously sings a ballad about Sandal. It doesn't work either. With an irritated sigh, the vampire instructs a "neophyte" beside him, another cloaked elf, to dispose of the bard, and mounts his steed once more, stating he has an errand to do. Suddenly, the vampire looks directly at me (or through me) and grins before riding out of the clearing. Since I'm a master of stealth, I think nothing of that weird moment and assume all vampires randomly grin at undergrowth every so often.

The neophyte starts dragging the helpless bard over to the bushes for disposal while all but two of the newly raise hobgoblins head into the temple. Unfortunately for the newbie, he picked the wrong bushes to off someone. As soon as he sticks a blade in the bard's back, I jump from behind and stick two fiery shortswords into his. For the record, I wanted to attack him before the bard got stabbed, but oh well. No harm no foul. The elf neophyte is dead and the bard's bleeding out. Sweet gets healed back to consciousness by Teddy, we make some hasty introductions, and we convince the confused bard to join our cause. After all, it's either join us or try your luck avoiding the vampires, hobgoblins, and zombie patrols.

Realizing that our enemies will figure out that something's wrong if the elf doesn't come back, I don his clothing, including his splint mail and holy symbol of nerull. I emerge into the clearing and do my best impersonation of the elf. The ruse ends up not working. I think the hobgoblins got a "this guy murdered us yesterday" bonus modifier to see through my bluff. Unable to fight very well in splint mail, I run away from the angry guards while my party rushes in to dispatch them. Interestingly enough, the zombies stop digging and begin attacking the hobgoblins as well. t seems that they were under instructions to protect me -- or rather, the elf that I now resemble. I can't help but cackle and raise my holy symbol of Nerull as my minions destroy the foes. Yes, yesssssss!

Unfortunately, my new zombie pals don't actually take orders from me, and certain party members decide to destroy them as they may become a liability. One such party member even wants to take away my new holy symbol because it's "evil," but I manage to hold onto it. Party poopers.

We're Getting Better:
With the guards dispatched and no signs of reinforcements, we venture into the main temple. Things are going well until we enter a huge chamber with rows of pews flanking both sides. Sweet tells us this chamber used to hold great ceremonies to Pelor. Moving our way from inside the chamber are all the hobgoblins that we killed yesterday. We see them, they see us, and we duck back out of the chamber to quickly formulate a plan. We decide that we'll hide by the doorway until the hobgoblins draw near, then Fylo and I will blast 'em with fire before ducking back out of the chamber and fight at the doorway, using it as a chokepoint. Sort of like our previous agreed tactics except, y'know, we'd actually stick to it this time. And we actually pull it off! Well, sort of.

The hobgoblins approach the doorway. As soon as they're all in range of my Hatchling's Flame, I let it rip on them. Unfortunately, Fylo's Burning Hands only reaches half the distance of my fire ability, so he cannot hit them from his position when I attacked. So he decided to move into range to do it. Though the hobgoblins ate two fire spells to the face and look severely burned, they're still standing, and they're mad. Dan charges into the thick of things. The usual shenanigans ensue: We barely defeat our opponents, Fylo and I get knocked out, and Teddy gets pissed that he has to spend all his spells patching us back up as best he can. Still, I think this fight was a vast improvement.

Baby Come Back!
We're all hurt, tired, and in no real condition to continue exploring the temple, considering the next nasty surprise may be our last. We leave the temple grounds in search of a place to safely rest and recuperate. As we're looking for a spot to settle down in the nearby forest, a pack of wolves block our path. They watch us from a distance, not engaging, but clearly herding us back to the temple. Teddy tells us that these are probably minions of the vampire. Unsure of whether or not we could take them on in our current condition, we grudgingly return to the temple, and the wolves park themselves at the entrance. Next time, wolves. Next time.

Deadliest Manhunting Catch
With the wolves at our backs, we delve further into the Temple. Everything is thoroughly turned over and desecrated. Statues are smashed, there’s gaping holes in the walls, all the furniture is broken up. There’s a scratched mural of Sandal on one of the walls, holding up a holy symbol that shines a blinding light. Teddy senses fate.

Teddy: I hold up my holy symbol up the same way. Do I look just like him?
DM: Considering that he’s brown and furry and you’re pink and relatively hairless… No.

We go through more hallways and pass by some rooms, possibly dormitories. We enter one of them. The room is fairly clean and shows signs of recent use. Fylo detects magic and announces that there’s magic in the area. Illusion magic. Then we hear footsteps. There’s someone in the room! We shout for whoever is in here to show themselves and stand in a tight pack at the doorway to block the only exit out. Fylo greases the floor outside of the room for good measure. Teddy announces that he is a servant of Pelor!!! No response. Silence in the room.

We’re getting tired of waiting. I tell our invisible buddy that if it doesn’t show itself within 10 seconds, it’s getting a face full of fiery death. Nada. Just then, we hear something slip and fall behind us. The cheeky bastard managed to squeeze through us without a peep but fell on the greased floor. Not it’s day. Then Fylo lights up the exit, along with the grease, with a wave of fire. Now our buddy is writhing, on the ground, on fire. Certainly not it’s day! We want this mystery figure interrogated, so we start kicking it for nonlethal damage while it’s on the ground and on fire. I smell the start of a new friendship. That, or burning flesh.

Our new friend isn’t down for the count yet though. No sir! It drops its cloak, which was the only thing on fire, and disappears again. We’re about to blindly give chase down the halls when Dan hears the faint clinking of armor against the floor. Buddy is trying to crawl away! Nooooo, buddy! Quick thinking Dan pulls out a grappling hook, hurls it down the hall, and then drags the metal hook back towards us along the floor. Thunk! He snagged something big! We cheer as he reels the catch in, while it’s screaming in pain. When dragged back onto the flaming greased floor, we all put the boot to him until he stops moving. Hooray! We caught Buddy!

This is something I’d never have imagined occurring, ever. It was some glorious mix of Deadliest Catch, Manhunter, some other awesomeness, topped off with a healthy dose of fire. Things are always better on fire.

He Wasn’t Using It Anyway
Buddy’s invisibility wears off and we see that it’s an elf wearing the exact same outfit as the neophyte that I killed earlier. We don’t have the means of waking him up from his booting-induced concussion for interrogation, so we decide to carry him with us while we explore the rest of the Temple. We eventually reach a huge room filled with statues, which Sweet informs us is the burial chamber for heroes of the temple. This was the end of the road. Like the rest of this place, it’s been thoroughly ransacked. The base of each statue would have held artifacts of the depicted hero in the olden days, but now there’s only smashed-in holes. We’re convinced that if Sandal’s Heart is still in the temple ruins, it would be here.

We find a statue depicting Sandal. His statue is still intact. After some searching, we notice that there’s a small hole in the base of his statue containing three scrolls. (Forgot what spell these scrolls had, will add in later). Upon closer inspection of the statue itself, we notice that the holy symbol its clutching in one hand is metal, not the stone of the rest of the statue. The statue’s eyes are closed. We thoroughly inspect the chamber but find nothing of note. The group ponders whether the statue was facing a certain direction or whatever and keeps searching the place again, but I’d have none of it. I knew the answer to this puzzle right off the bat. I walked over to Teddy and tell him to use his greater turning ability in front of the statue. Light radiates from our cleric’s holy symbol as he invokes the power of his deity. The statue’s eyes open and it releases its grip on the holy symbol, which falls to the ground. Bam!

As Teddy picks up the shiny new holy symbol and relishes the obvious power of his deity radiating from it (it also granted him an additional Greater Turning), the rest of us inspect the statue again. The hand that released the symbols now glistens. Touching it reveals that it’s cold and sweaty. There’s more to this statue after all. We eventually convince Teddy to try greater turning again on the statue, hoping that, if this statue is actually Sandal himself, it will free him from his stone prison. Using the new holy symbol, Teddy does his thing again, and this time the entire chamber fills up with a blinding light, the likes we’ve never seen before. As the light fades, we see Sandal… and he’s still a statue. Ah well.

Sadly, at this point I had to leave the session early again. I was told the jist of what happened and will either write it up soon or get someone who was there to fill in what I missed. It was epic.

[raxies94]

Why is this so epic?

[chando]

This is GREAT! =)

[Reb46]

I've just read the whole journal, it's very well made, keep it up! :smallsmile:

[Hazzardevil]

It's amazing how much or little Bardic knowledge can overcome isn't it?
Once again, great journel entry.

[Dralnu]

It's amazing how much or little Bardic knowledge can overcome isn't it?
Once again, great journel entry.

Yeah, what a sweet DM tool. I wish I had a bard in the campaigns that I run. Or just Knowledges. The PCs in my evil campaign have none of that at all. :smallannoyed:

Glad you guys like the journey so far. I added the second part of the session, now with 100% more grappling hook!

[Rejakor]

That 'Buddy' thing, right there, epitomizes DnD.

That is how the game should be played.

[marcielle]

Lol getting knocked unconscious a half dozen times a level is funny but our cleric managed to DIE 3 times on our way to level 4 averaging a death every level. Lets see Fylo beat that :smallwink:

Anyway, I LOVE THIS. Really wish I could play a game with you or the DM.

[Reb46]

That 'Buddy' thing, right there, epitomizes DnD.

That is how the game should be played.
Yeah, grappling an invisible elf and dragging him to a patch of grease on fire is really a great idea! I'm bringing a grappling hook in every single game I'll be playing from now on :smallbiggrin:

[Dralnu]

That 'Buddy' thing, right there, epitomizes DnD.

That is how the game should be played.

Those are my favorite moments too. You'll never have stuff like that happening in any "standard" type of game, only in games like DnD.


Lol getting knocked unconscious a half dozen times a level is funny but our cleric managed to DIE 3 times on our way to level 4 averaging a death every level. Lets see Fylo beat that

Anyway, I LOVE THIS. Really wish I could play a game with you or the DM.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Honestly, I think we've been gradually improving our tactics. I bet that KO count is going to lower.


Yeah, grappling an invisible elf and dragging him to a patch of grease on fire is really a great idea! I'm bringing a grappling hook in every single game I'll be playing from now on

Fylo's player almost always plays a fighter type, and every single one of his fighters had a grappling hook. You'd be surprised at how many situations can be solved with it! :smallamused:

[Hiro Protagonest]

Fylo's player almost always plays a fighter type, and every single one of his fighters had a grappling hook. You'd be surprised at how many situations can be solved with it! :smallamused:

Grappling hook based tripper/grappler build=win. Especially fun if you're playing a thri-kreen.

[Rejakor]

Harpoons do it better. They have a built in grappling mechanic. As do nets.

But with harpoons you get to make jokes about how your DM's monsters are fat.

[Girshtop]

Sadly, at this point I had to leave the session early again. I was told the jist of what happened and will either write it up soon or get someone who was there to fill in what I missed. It was epic.

So I guess I (Teddy Derwin, Cleric of Pelor) have to fill everyone in with what happened.. I'm just putting it out there, I can't tell the epic tale half as well (or funny) as Dralnu, I'll have to just give a quick ending to the story. Plus I'd like to note that it's been about a month or longer since we last played, so the memories a little fuzzy in some parts.

We woke up the elf follower of Nerull to interrogate (being careful to make sure he didn't see the new and improved clammy handed Sandal), and all the important info we got out of him was that he was working with the vampire, they were looking for Sandal's body and he was not entombed anywhere, and that one of our scrolls was a Raise Dead spell (Yay! We can bring back Grish!), and the other a Stone to Flesh. They also found no traces of the Relic "Sandal's Heart". With our quick deductive reasoning (about an half a day more of searching the temple) we realize that the pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall into place.

Cold, clammy very detailed stone statue of Sandal..... Stone to Flesh scroll hidden in the base of the statue...Sandal's body is missing.... Aha! We figured it out. Sandal had himself turned to stone so he may return to fight again the evils that pervert the world!

Will Sweet and Garth take the elf out of the room so he won't see what happens next, as I prepare to cast the very high level spell (The DM at this point informs me if I roll poorly on my Spellcraft check things might get funny..and funny for him means gruesome death for us). Luckily, the spell goes off without a hitch, and with the stone Sandal turning back into his old, glorious, fleshy self, Handsome Dan gets ready to catch him as he falls. Finally, just as things are looking up, we notice something. Though Sandal's heart is beating (quite loudly), he doesn't have a pulse. Heal checks confirm that he's as dead as a statue. Damn.

It's at this time that Sweet and Garth come back in the room with more news; the elf slipped and fell on a dagger, 3 times, and finally bled out (pro Sense Motive score on my part, I think I rolled a 2). At least now we can focus on the more important dead guy - Sandal.

With a quick Bardic Knowledge check Sweet mentions that heroes of old would often leave relics and equipment in their final resting place for their worthy followers to use and champion their cause.

Completely decked in gear that have the Symbols of Pelor on it, he is the most awesome looking Cleric I, or any of the group has ever seen. All of his gear detects as magical too. Armor, Longsword, Heavy Mace, Pendant, Shield are all (respectfully) removed off of Sandal, but something is wrong. His heart is still beating...

We come to the conclusion that Sandal's Heart isn't a magical item, it literally is his heart. After much debate, it is decided that I would use his Heart to fight the evils we faced, and the best way to get to it was some open heart surgery. Knowledge checks told us that Pelor would understand, and finally we obtained this wierd, still beating, golden heart, that had convenient necklace hooks.

Somehow (call it divine intervention), there is no fighting over loot, everyone decides that I should, as a cleric of Pelor, wear his gear, and carry the relic, at least until it's all appraised. Handsome Dan, normally a loot-centered person, is happy about this as he is now the new caretaker of Prix's Shiny Greatsword.

We begin our ascent out of the basement when at the top of the stairs we see guards. They beckon us outside and as we come up in the middle of the day we see an army of about 50 or so humanoids. About half the guards wore the colours of the large city of the South (can't remember the name, the one we were in), while the other half wore different cities colors, but these ones had a strange look in their eyes. They almost looked dazed, and with a successful intelligence check I knew they were dominated as I was a couple nights ago. In the middle of the army stood a dark tent.. so dark that sunlight could not enter..

The guards from the south told us that we did well in retrieving the item, to sit tight, and we'll talk with the Prince of the Southern City, who was waiting for nightfall.

Garth: "You guys realize you're prince is a vampire, right?"
Guards: "That's nice."
Apparently they weren't as weirded out by this as we were. We could do nothing but wait. We decided to be Diplomatic as long as we could. Maybe with some sweet rolls we could get away with Sandal's Heart and the Raise Dead Scroll we needed for Grish.

When we met the Prince (Surprise! The very same elven vampire we fought the night before) he was nothing if not cordial, "Give me Sandal's Heart and I'll consider not killing you."
Me: "I don't know what you're talking about." (Wearing a very conspicuous beating necklace under my robes)
Vampire: "I know you have it, do you really think I didn't plan this all along?"
Me: "Well, You know I won't give it to you. So maybe we can talk this out and we can both benefit. We can help open trade routes and put in a good word for you at the Diamond mines."
Vampire: "No, I'd rather just take the Heart by force."

Diplomacy over. Vampire snaps his fingers, a Large humanoid with an even Larger Axe comes closer, and I reach for Sandal's Holy Symbol.

Vampire: "Do you really think you have any power over me? When we last fought I made you believe that you turned me. Don't be foolish, I know your strength, puny cleric."

I guess he didn't realize I was wearing Sandal's Armor. With Sandal's Relic around my neck. Holding Sandal's Holy Symbol. Invoking a Greater Turning from the God of the Sun. I rolled my turning check..

Natural 20.

As the skin of the vampire seared off his body, then exploded, the light outside of the defiled temple was powerful enough to completely destroy all the symbols of Nerull around. The temple was no longer desecrated by evil, and chaos ensued. As the domination wore off half the army, a battle began, between the guards from the south, and everyone else, including us and that Large Axe wielding hulk.


That's where we ended for the session, and we're picking it up again (albeit with half the party) tomorrow. More updates from Dralnu. Thanks for reading, sorry it's longer than I intended.

- Teddy Derwin, Champion of Pelor

[Hazzardevil]

Wow, who said clerics were boring?

Also, do your charecter as a cleric first or a crusader?

[Palanan]

I was just about to ask if there would be another installment. Thanks for updating us on the end of the last session. A nicely placed natural 20, indeed.

And I've been meaning to say, this just rocks. The campaign setting is well-thought-out, the storyline has some...interesting wild swerves, and you have all the crazy shenanigans that make for the funnest sort of games. --Plus, the writeups are hilarious. Reading these late at night, I have to be careful not to wake other people from laughing so much.

Also, your DM is a madman, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Crazy-good plotting skills, and he does a fine job of emphasizing just how vulnerable characters can be at the earliest levels--which are sometimes the most enjoyable to play, in a desperate-survival kind of way. The less-than-docile wild boar was a great touch.

Looking forward to the next session. Moar!

[marcielle]

Awesomest natural 20 I have ever seen. And I saw one that caused a level 4 rouge to ignite a whole ship's gunpowder storage, insta-killing the kraken currently grappling the ship. At that point our DM facepalmed and just said we could just level up right then and there despite just reaching level 4.

[Dralnu]

Session 7

Prelude:
This was one of the shorter sessions. Fylo and Sweet didn't make it to the session and Dan showed up for the second half of it, so the beginning is just me and Teddy.

Hobgoblin Hospitality:
With the vampire dead, those that were forced under his control magically are freed, and they're not at all happy. A battle ensues between them and the vampire's loyal followers. The fight is evenly matched, but not for long: Sweet walks into the fray, and with a power rift here and a loud rocker yell, he inspires the anti-vampire team to fight at their highest potential and crush the opposition. When the dust settles, our side remains, which mostly consists of hobgoblins and a few other humanoids. The hobgoblins group up and begin dragging the bodies of allies into "the dead" pile and the "needs healing" pile, while hacking up the bodies of their enemies for fear of them being raised or out of spite, we're not sure. Teddy helps heal the wounded while I'm approached by the hobgoblin "leader," as only Sweet and I can speak Goblin.

The hobgoblin addresses me with hostility, asking who we are, what we're doing here, etc. They stop pointing their swords at me after I mention how we killed the vampire and freed them from a lifetime of slavery (little things), but not so much as a "thank you" from these guys. I find out that the leader and some of his associates are followers of Pelor and loyal to the late Grish and his family. They're under the belief that Grish was fatally wounded by a boar while hunting, something I empathized with. With Grish's father dying suddenly and Grish himself being killed shortly after, the crown has passed to the younger brother/nephew (forgot which). They're clearly upset about this, so I feel like they're trustworthy enough and I excitedly tell them the good news: Grish didn't die to no stinkin' boar!

The hobgoblins respond by grabbing me and pointing swords at me again, threatening to choose my next words carefully. This is minutes after they found out that we just saved them from a lifetime of forced servitude to an elf vampire. Geez, even the "good" hobgoblins are total *****.

I tell the hobgoblins the important details. Grish had a prophecy that he would be betrayed by his own, die, and be resurrected. True enough, he was betrayed and thrown into the gladiator arena, where he met us, and died. Since then we've been on a quest to resurrect him, and we're really close to doing it since now we've got a Raise Dead scroll. Do the hobgoblins jump up for joy at the news? Do they treat us like brothers, buy us a pitcher, and have a merry time? Nope! Instead, they round us up with their weapons drawn and demand to take us to Grish's body, immediately, or they'll kill us. "Us," as in the people who just saved them from slavery, then made sure that their side won the battle, and then saved the lives of their brothers who were bleeding out. Did I mentions that hobgoblins are huge *****? 'Cuz they are.

We saddle up while the hobgoblin gang gets ready to march out. Teddy convinces the leader that we should ride out immediately, as there's only a couple days left for him to be able to use the Raise Dead scroll on Grish's body, and the entire gang would move too slow. The cleric also tells the hobgoblins to bring the remains of Sandal's body with them, as he apparently made some oath to bury him somewhere. So me, Teddy, and the hobgoblin leader along with an associate ride off to Lax's mines, while the rest of the gang (including Sweet and Dan) moves on foot after us.

Miscommunication:
The four of us make it back to Lax's mines, retrieve our enormous diamond, enter the morgue where Grish's body is being kept, get a room to ourselves, and start setting up for the ritual. The hobgoblins go and inspect the body. Once again they're suspicious of our motives, attempt to grapple me again, and demand to know where we got this body. When my explanation of, "we used a magical jeweled ring we got from a talking spider to wish it into existence," didn't win them over, our assurance that we goddamn saved their ungrateful lives yesterday kept them from attacking.. for now.

Teddy is ready to use the scroll. I act as his translator:
Teddy: Tell them that there's a chance that this won't work.
Me: {He says that this might screw up, badly, with repercussions that we cannot even fathom.}
Teddy: Okay, now I want you to leave. They can stay.
Me: W-what?!

You see, Teddy doesn't like me. The feeling is mutual. I can handle inner-party hostility. But choosing these random douchebag hobgoblins to stay over a fellow PC? They're not even paying him for such treachery! No sir, this is flat-out spite, and this swordsage is gonna have none of that.

Me: {He says that you two must leave the room while the ritual occurs.}

Unfortunately, the DM says this lie requires a Bluff. I roll a 1, and with my Bluff modifier that equals... 0. The hobgoblins get mad and call me out. They pull out their weapons. I pull out my daggers, telling them to back off or else I'm gonna stab them silly. Teddy is shocked. Well, you probably know what the hobgoblins are gonna do. The leader shouts for me to be disarmed. The other hobgoblin moves forward and tries to swing at me, but I slide two fiery daggers into his kidneys and he drops. I again tell the hobgoblins to drop their damn weapons and stop being such *******s. Teddy keeps telling me to stop and tries to diffuse the situation by healing the downed hobgoblin, while the other one takes an attack of opportunity on him for doing so. The leader won't back down because, you know, douchebag. I throw him at the wall when he attacks me again. Teddy yells for guards and contemplates attacking me, inquiring with the DM whether it would be okay to kill an evil party member. As soon as a giant enters the room, I drop my daggers. I haven't forgotten the last fight I had with a giant, after all.

Grish Is Back, Back Again:
The giant quickly stops the fight and keeps things stable until Lax himself arrives onto the scene. He's not happy. With some fancy diplomacy, Teddy lies and says that I started the fighting, and asks for me to be escorted out. Since talking isn't my expertise, I simply call him a liar and leave the room (eavesdropping, of course). When everything is sorted out, an irritated Lax leaves and the ritual begins in earnest. Everything works out and the ceremony completes with Grish's soul returning to the body. With our overarching quest complete, we level up! Whee!

Dan, Sweet, and the rest of the hobgoblins show up shortly after and all the hobgoblins host a large celebration for the return of Grish and Sandal's body, since they're all worshippers of Pelor and Sandal was their greatest champion. Grish makes a rousing speech, promising to unite the hobgoblins and destroy the elven vampires that taint the land. Though the prince is busy consulting with his closest associates, we manage to have a word with him. We catch him up on everything that we've done since we last spoke and warned him about the wizard who "helped" us resurrect him, along with the Book of the Dead that he now holds. Grish acknowledges the wizard as a threat and wishes to hire us -- not pay us for resurrecting him or thank us, read: hobgoblin -- to lead some of his soldiers and bring the wizard to justice. I'm a little wary of this "plan," of course, since this same wizard almost killed me with a single lightning bolt, but Grish gives us a response akin to "lol idc."

The conversation with Grish was cut short due to distractions:
Grish: I'd like you to go to the wizard with some of my men --
Dan: So, how much are you paying us?
Grish: -- and bring him to justice. He may be a serious --
Dan: What are you going to give us for the journey? I want phat lewt!
Grish: -- threat to us. Then we will --
Dan: DOYOUHAVEPOTIONS?!?!
Grish: ... I think we're done.

When the celebrations wrap up, Grish gets ready to head out with his followers and gather the rest of his people in the cities. Grish asks to take some of Sandal's gear with him so he's more credible/influential with his people. Teddy hands some of the stuff over, but is allowed to keep the magical shield and sword (and the Heart? I forgot). We part ways. The session ends here.

Closing Thoughts:
The debate rages on whether my character is evil. The DM said that the only way to know for sure is with a Detect Evil spell. With that in mind, I'll be sure to pick up a lead sheet (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0202.html) at the mines before we head out.

I think it's really cool to see how much we've progressed in power already. At level one, hobgoblins were powerful foes that we were afraid to confront. They were superathletes and organized, making minced meat out of everyone else in the arena. By level two we felt confident enough to fight them, but it was never easy. By level three I can drop one in a single attack if I'm lucky. This is a drastic change in power. We're by no means superheroes, but we're definitely LOTR-worthy badasses.

Teddy tried convincing Dan to become a Paladin for the next level, but I highly doubt it'd be a good fit. I think Dan is going to take another Fighter level and pick up Improved Initiative or something. I forgot to suggest Barbarian to him. I'll do that next time. I think it'd be awesome. "You cut my perfect face! RAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!"

I'm pretty sure Teddy is taking another level in Cleric. He likes the class. He wants to shoot for Ruby Knight Vindicator though, so we'll see what happens. No idea on Fylo or Sweet yet.

I'd still love to be a Master of Nine or something that beats stuff up with fists. Again, it's that nerdcrush on Avatar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender) talking. The DM mentioned I could choose not to level up until I found a monastary that's willing to teach me the ways of the monk, but I'm pretty sure he was joking. Not that pure swordsage is bad or anything, it's actually awesome at this point. Desert Wind is easily my favorite school, it just oozes hotness. I just really want to two weapon fight with unarmed attacks is all. If I'm desperate there's always Fighter I guess.

[Dralnu]

Wow, who said clerics were boring?

Also, do your charecter as a cleric first or a crusader?

He started as a crusader1 and the rest of his levels are cleric.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I'd still love to be a Master of Nine or something that beats stuff up with fists. Again, it's that nerdcrush on Avatar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender) talking. The DM mentioned I could choose not to level up until I found a monastary that's willing to teach me the ways of the monk, but I'm pretty sure he was joking. Not that pure swordsage is bad or anything, it's actually awesome at this point. Desert Wind is easily my favorite school, it just oozes hotness. I just really want to two weapon fight with unarmed attacks is all. If I'm desperate there's always Fighter I guess.

Really lame pun.

Make sure your character gets a burn mark on one eye and eventually switches to good alignment. :smalltongue:

[Dralnu]

Really lame pun.

Make sure your character gets a burn mark on one eye and eventually switches to good alignment. :smalltongue:

They can't all be winners.

And noted. But I'll be adding really huge hair with red streaks to it. Ru-fi-oooooooooo!

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Not sure if anyone has suggested it but you should ask if you can switch to unarmed swordsage afterpicking up a level of Warblade.

[Bob the DM]

No joke, if you can find a temple nd convince them to let you in, you can learn their ways. I'd advise a quick watching of Kung Fu: the series, as since you've already seen how Hobgoblins act, you can imagine what reclusive hobgoblin monks will be like to the "hairless ones" that want to join them. Lawful evil you say? Hrmm... Well at least you might have that prt down. ;)

Edit: One quick correction for you Garth, there was a very easy way to make them treat you like royalty. Alas, you both forgot about Tzandal's body until you were mounted up and heading out. You see, Teddy shouted over his shoulder (as you two rode off), for William to remember the body that you destoned. Normally, I don't reward PC's who fail to attend, but it's too funny to think that after you two left the smooth talking William Sweet got the credit for "finding the body". :D

Don't worry, rewards will follow to those that survive the next session. ding ding ding!!!! Sweet.

[Dralnu]

Not sure if anyone has suggested it but you should ask if you can switch to unarmed swordsage afterpicking up a level of Warblade.

Why'd I pick up a level of warblade? Unarmed swordsage would've been exactly what I wanted. Lose ability to wear armor, gain monk unarmed strike progression. Wish I knew about it when I rolled the class.


No joke, if you can find a temple nd convince them to let you in, you can learn their ways. I'd advise a quick watching of Kung Fu: the series, as since you've already seen how Hobgoblins act, you can imagine what reclusive hobgoblin monks will be like to the "hairless ones" that want to join them. Lawful evil you say? Hrmm... Well at least you might have that prt down. ;)

I've got the lawful part down? Nice! Interested :smallbiggrin:


Edit: One quick correction for you Garth, there was a very easy way to make them treat you like royalty. Alas, you both forgot about Tzandal's body until you were mounted up and heading out. You see, Teddy shouted over his shoulder (as you two rode off), for William to remember the body that you destoned. Normally, I don't reward PC's who fail to attend, but it's too funny to think that after you two left the smooth talking William Sweet got the credit for "finding the body". :D

Don't worry, rewards will follow to those that survive the next session. ding ding ding!!!! Sweet.

Oooh, didn't think about that. Looking forward to the next session.

[Hazzardevil]

Teddy doesn't seem to realise that detect evil is a 1st level cleric spell, get that lead sheet quick!

[Airanath]

Teddy doesn't seem to realise that detect evil is a 1st level cleric spell, get that lead sheet quick!

Don't use a lead sheet! He might volunteer for guard!
Get lead armor instead! And be sure its a chainshirt and light, so you can sleep on it at no penalty. I realize lead is heavier than iron/steel, so get it enchanted with lightweight just to be sure.

[Girshtop]

Teddy doesn't seem to realise that detect evil is a 1st level cleric spell, get that lead sheet quick!

I actually took detect evil pretty consistently after the whole "paper rock scissors to see who gets to knock out their friend and bind his soul to an evil quest" debacle..

What I didn't realize was how smart Garth is... throwing himself heedlessly into danger so I have to use my detect evil to spontaneously cast cure magic, and thus I'll never find out. It's genius!


Don't use a lead sheet! He might volunteer for guard!
Get lead armor instead! And be sure its a chainshirt and light, so you can sleep on it at no penalty. I realize lead is heavier than iron/steel, so get it enchanted with lightweight just to be sure.

If it was a chainshirt, wouldnt every other part of his body not covered still radiate evil?

Plus, chain doesn't completely cover..there are holes in the shirt.

[Dralnu]

What I didn't realize was how smart Garth Fylo is... throwing himself heedlessly into danger so I have to use my detect evil to spontaneously cast cure magic, and thus I'll never find out. It's genius!

Fixed it for you. Fylo's in on the conspiracy, you know.

[Airanath]

Plus, chain doesn't completely cover..there are holes in the shirt.

And does a leed sheet?
That is best asked for your dm =p
I would rule lead armor blocks most detection spells, but I am also going to put in rules for lead poisoning ^^

[Hand_of_Vecna]

The are a couple good reasons for a Warblade dip.

1. Unarmed Swordsage loses it's armor proficiency but, (unless your DM rules otherwise) it's Wis to AC still functions in armor so you'll want them and Warblade gives them back to you.

2. A small separate pool of Warblade maneuvers. These will be a big help in long encounters especially with the excellent Warblade recovery mechanic.

3. If you ever get to Mo9 you have another school fueling it's for each school effects.

4. d12 HD, Full BAB, boost to Fort Save from Dipping, Int to Crit confirmation.

5. Possibly a very minor point, but as cool as unarmed is it's still nice to have weapon proficiencies if you need them. In case you have to fight something that does damage when you touch it, find yourself in a scenario where you need to throw a weapon or need reach (pick up a found item get one round of AoO then drop it as a free action).

Also there's always the possibility of finding a magic weapon so awesome that you'd feel stupid not using it (very possible with an old school DM) also this would make it so you don't lose any abilities when you switch to unarmed swordsage which would increase the verisimilitude of the change and make a reasonable DM that would disapprove of the change because of silliness your character suddenly forgetting a bunch of abilities he's had and been using the whole game.

This way your not magically learning kung-fu and forgetting how to swing a sword. You've had these skills all along and your weapons have just been a crutch you used until your confidence and skill reached a certain level.

Alternatively embrace your twf daggerness Shadowblade technique, Assasin's Stance and look into Bloodclaw Master (only for 3 levels though).

[Hiro Protagonest]

The are a couple good reasons for a Warblade dip.

1. Unarmed Swordsage loses it's armor proficiency but, (unless your DM rules otherwise) it's Wis to AC still functions in armor so you'll want them and Warblade gives them back to you.

2. A small separate pool of Warblade maneuvers. These will be a big help in long encounters especially with the excellent Warblade recovery mechanic.

3. If you ever get to Mo9 you have another school fueling it's for each school effects.

4. d12 HD, Full BAB, boost to Fort Save from Dipping, Int to Crit confirmation.

5. Possibly a very minor point, but as cool as unarmed is it's still nice to have weapon proficiencies if you need them. In case you have to fight something that does damage when you touch it, find yourself in a scenario where you need to throw a weapon or need reach (pick up a found item get one round of AoO then drop it as a free action).

Also there's always the possibility of finding a magic weapon so awesome that you'd feel stupid not using it (very possible with an old school DM) also this would make it so you don't lose any abilities when you switch to unarmed swordsage which would increase the verisimilitude of the change and make a reasonable DM that would disapprove of the change because of silliness your character suddenly forgetting a bunch of abilities he's had and been using the whole game.

This way your not magically learning kung-fu and forgetting how to swing a sword. You've had these skills all along and your weapons have just been a crutch you used until your confidence and skill reached a certain level.

Alternatively embrace your twf daggerness Shadowblade technique, Assasin's Stance and look into Bloodclaw Master (only for 3 levels though).

You add int to reflex saves, not crit confirmation. You also keep your swordsage weapon proficiencies if you go unarmed swordsage.

[Lateral]

Also, USS doesn't lose weapon proficiencies.

[Grendus]

Honestly, Master of the Nine is great, but I've always had a soft spot for the Shadow Sun Ninja. And this is from a guy who never watched Naruto, or any ninja based anime for that matter, in his life. It's just a badass class. Plus, if you can find an undead buddy, or if the DM will let you use Touch of the Shadow Sun against things like plants, it's infinite healing with one level.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

thanks for the correction I was AFB. That is really screwy anyway the whole not losing abilities you already had point still stands.

[Hiro Protagonest]

thanks for the correction I was AFB. That is really screwy anyway the whole not losing abilities you already had point still stands.

Why do you need warblade levels to get unarmed swordsage? Just multiclass your swordsage with swordsage. Then maybe take a few levels of swordsage! :smalltongue:

[Bob the DM]

Don't get too carried away. He might not be around for much longer. This might be continued by someone who finds a bloodied and torn journal and takes up the cause.

I figure if they can take on an umber hulk at level one... Level four now, that's at least 5x as powerful now, I can really hve fun. :D

[Rejakor]

Just level up and go 'i'm a unarmed swordsage now'. And if the DM objects, wave the PHB II in his face and yell RETRAINING until he retreats behind his faithful screen muttering something about vengeance.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Don't get too carried away. He might not be around for much longer. This might be continued by someone who finds a bloodied and torn journal and takes up the cause.

I figure if they can take on an umber hulk at level one... Level four now, that's at least 5x as powerful now, I can really hve fun. :D

Are you the DM?

[Dralnu]

Just level up and go 'i'm a unarmed swordsage now'. And if the DM objects, wave the PHB II in his face and yell RETRAINING until he retreats behind his faithful screen muttering something about vengeance.

Nah, would rather not antagonize my DM. Yes, BobTheDM is the DM of this campaign.

[Girshtop]

Nah, would rather not antagonize my DM.

A wise decision. No one know what he's capable of.

[Hazzardevil]

A wise decision. No one know what he's capable of.

you must be Wise to be a swordsage, remember DM's get bonuses to int as a class feature.

[Bob the DM]

Well, while the end of this last game was epic, I'm sad to say I didn't kill anyone. :( Although, to be fair, it was done by an npc for reasons of his own and that npc is being punished severly for needing to/succeeding in keeping the pcs alive. Which in turn means he will take it out on them later. YAY!

[Dralnu]

Session 8

Preface:
Everyone made it to this session. We’re level 4, but the DM has allowed me to refrain from leveling up until I can take my desired monk level and I get an hp raise as if I already took the monk level.

Visions:
The group is reunited at Lax’s mines. The hobgoblins are happy with Grish’s resurrection and Sandal’s recovered body. Grish is willing to pay for us to deal with an extremely powerful, back-stabbing wizard with the Book of the Dead. All is good, sorta. Grish is too busy to speak with us so we bum around for a few days. We go on a shopping spree with our enormous wealth (50gp each?). We buy all sorts of mundane adventuring equipment. Extra grappling hooks never hurt, right? Sweet spends his wealth to drink like there’s no tomorrow. I suspect his drinking problem is resurfacing. Teddy offers to pledge his services to Lax for a year if the stone giant agrees to give his slaves wages (lolz), or at least better living conditions. Not sure how that’ll pan out. Me, I’m getting tired of being stripped naked every other day and having to fight weaponless. I decide that the best way of overcoming this is turn my fists into the only weapons I need; I’ll call ‘em Thunder and Lightning. Now I just need a kung-fu master. I ask around, but no one knows kung-fu at the mines.

Things are going fine until night comes and, one by one, we begin having strange dreams. Dan is the first to have a vision and, for the first time in the campaign, appears to be deep in thought and concerned about something. He tells us that in his dream he saw a hobgoblin army and elven vampire army fighting in a field. Next is Fylo: in his dream, all of us are dead, along with the hobgoblin wizard that we’re supposed to off, and a vampire is taking Sandal’s Heart (the artifact) from Fylo’s dying body. Finally is mine: We’re all with the hobgoblin wizard, who is thanking for reaching a “reasonable agreement” with him, and there’s a vampire bloodied and chained in a corner. We come to the conclusion that the dreams seem to be connected in a chronological order of events. If these dreams are a prophecy then we have to tell Grish about it. There may have been more visions of prophecy, but Sweet’s ridiculous amounts of alchohol consumption lead to sweet dream-free blackouts.

(Note that my memory is a little fuzzy on each dream’s details. I likely missed out stuff from each one, but I think I got the jist of it.)

We’re summoned by Grish to meet him and other high-ranking officials. We try to convince him of our recent visions, but the hobgoblin prince wants to deal with them another time. He explains that there is a more pressing matter; the goblin tribe that was in charge of the gladiator arena that we so lovingly remember? They’ve abruptly left and are on the move. We’re not sure why, but to venture a guess, the wizard who recently acquired the Book of the Dead and was last seen rummaging through the countless corpses under the arena pits may have encouraged their displacement. Grish wants… I think it was to recruit them or something… Anyway, point is that he wants us to go in there and capture their leaders. Yeah! And no, unfortunately none of the high-ranking officials know kung-fu.

An Obvious Choice:
Grish wants the goblin tribe’s leaders captured. There are three of them. Grish and his council proposes two options: either send a small group (us and some hobgoblins) to infiltrate the tribe’s camp and kidnap them, or pay off the goblin tribe to betray their leaders, whom apparently they dislike anyway. We dig for more intel on our target, aka Sweet. Of course our bard knows all about this tribe. He even knows an estimate of their numbers: 400 warriors, 2 lieutenants of 4th or 5th level, a leader of 6th to 8th level, along with some worgs and dire wolves. Oh boy.

So, assuming we try the infiltrate + kidnap route, we have to all sneak in, find the leaders, knock them out, and sneak out with our hostages all without raising an alarm or be faced with overwhelming odds in combat. Only Fylo and I are at all sneaky in this group and the worgs would probably sniff us out anyway, so replace “sneak” in the previous sentence with “charge” and that’s our rough plan for this.

The other option involves us simply picking up the goblin leaders without the whole “overwhelming odds” thing.

As we debate with the council, Grish reveals one more tidbit of information: if we go for the kidnap route – and join his militia – we’d be given the magical equipment collected from the vampire prince that Teddy exploded and even get some higher grade mundane gear like fullplate armor. If we pay the goblins off instead, the vamp’s gear would be sold in order to pay for the bribe.

With all this in mind, we hold a vote to decide what to do. Realizing that infiltrating the camp is bound to screw up just like everything we do, except this time with a high likelihood of TPK, we unanimously agree to just pay the goblins off and keep our heads attached to our bodies.

Ha! Just kidding. We're not about to ignore sweet loot or back down from overwhelming odds! Heck no! We took on umber hulks and 100 zombies at level 1, what’s a mere entire goblin tribe then at level 4?

The only person who voted for paying them off was me, vocally arguing for it multiple times to no avail. All the better, for lo, hilarity shall ensue!

The Goblin Job:
We decide to take the vampire’s loot, enlist in the militia, and kidnap the goblin tribe’s leaders ourselves. We’re cocky, but above all we’re greedy bastards. This prince had some good stuff: a +1 nimble mithril chainmail, +1 cloak of resistance, ring of brute force, a dozen flaming and electric arrows, and I think a magical longsword as well. I take the chainmail. It counts as light armor and has no armor penalties, which means I may actually succeed on Tumble rolls for once! Woo! Fylo takes the ring, which can bulrush away opponents that will inevitably dogpile him in the near future. Sweet takes enchanted arrows for the pewpew. Either Fylo or Teddy took the cloak, I don’t remember. I think there was a sword, and if there was then Teddy took it. Finally, as official conscripts in Grish’s militia, Teddy and Dan are decked out in pricey fullplate. Lootgasm!

With the loot distributed, we sit down and discuss our plan to kidnap the goblin leaders. Sweet leads talks with council members and secures stealthy hobgoblin warriors to aid us in our mission. We also acquire horses and 22 gallons of oil (seriously) for explosion purposes and equip ourselves with saps for the whole "kidnap ALIVE" thing. Fun fact: a sap does as much damage as a shortsword!

After double checking our supplies and sharpening our grappling hooks, we’re off! Just before we ride, I get permission to send a letter to my old teacher of the sublime way, Master Fu, asking him if he can direct me to someone who can teach me kung fu.

After a day’s travel, we reach the goblin tribe’s camp at night. The settlement looks temporary. They’re still on the move for a more permanent location. Some scouting reveals that the worgs and dire wolves are not with the tribe currently and the leaders are likely to be found in the biggest looking tent at the center of the camp. We got our horses, 22 gallons of oil, and a bunch of disposable hobgoblins. It’s go time.

How We Roll
The horses are tied up a safe distance away from the camp with a hobgoblin watching them and 2 gallons of oil. Two more hobgoblins are instructed to move the remaining 20 gallons of oil to the far end of the camp and set up a nice big explosion. We wait for the signal.

KABOOM!

A fiery inferno rocks the far end of the camp. It seems these hobgoblins are no slouches when it comes to lighting stuff up, and they do so with military precision. The air is filled with goblin screams. Now it's our turn. We charge in, along with the remaining 5 hobgoblins, bolting straight for the big tent in the middle.

We move in from the north* and spot a big goblin standing outside the eastern side of the tent, viewing the explosion. His stereotypical chieftan attire indicates he's one of the people we're here to nab. We immediately go for him, and with some luck, me, Fylo, and Dan manage to drop the sucker before he could do squat. Meanwhile, Sweet instructs three of the hobgoblins to rush into the tent while the remaining two go around it and guard the southern exit in case anyone tries to escape. The dashing bard pokes his head through the tent's entrance to see how things are going: it seems the three hobgoblins are completely surrounded and are locked in combat with a whole bunch of goblins! Excellent, they're being the disposable distractions that they were born to be! :smallbiggrin:

(*I arbitrarily assigned a direction as north for descriptive purposes.)

Just as we knock out the chieftan, another goblin exits the eastern side of a tent. This schmuck is in stereotypical shaman gear -- leader #2! CHARGE! Dan and I rush over to him and begin the beatdown, but the little bugger just stands there and heals the damage (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0077.html)! As this is going on, Fylo, Teddy, and Sweet enter the tent to tango with the goblins that are just finishing up murdering our hobgoblin minions. So Dan and I are fighting a healing shaman, while everyone else went into the tent to fight. Sound familiar?

Things start going downhill from here. Way, way downhill. The goblins inside the tent aren't the vanilla losers found in the monster manual. They've got class levels. Some of them even have names! The biggest threat of them all is this crazy dude who is flipping around while disappearing and reappearing behind people to stab them in the kidneys. During the chaos, the ninja ended up stabbing both Sweet and Teddy. The wounds didn't just hurt though -- they both feel ill and terribly weak as a potent poison begins coursing through their veins. The poor old bard's immune system was already battered from years of alcoholism, and this poison makes him so weak that he falls under the weight of his equipment! Sweet is down, only one hobgoblin remains, Fylo has been knocked out, revived, and knocked out again, and revived again. All is not well inside the tent.

But at least Dan and I are kicking ass against this healer outside the tent! He's too busy keeping himself alive to do anything else! Bwahaha! Look, he's casting another spell, what a lose -- whoa, what happened to the lights?

...

Crap. The ******* blinded me.

The healer starts running eastward. Dan and I give chase. I can't manage to land a hit, but with Hatchling's Flame, I don't need to! I let loose a cone of fire from my shortsword and smugly await more screams of agony from this annoying gobbo. Unfortunately, I instead hear the screams of goblin women and children. Oopsie.. I guess I took a wrong turn somewhere. At this point I start screaming for help.

RUUUUUUUN!
Sweet's strength is almost entirely drained. Teddy and Fylo are injured. I'm blind and lost. Dan is chasing a healer who keeps outhealing his damage. We think it's time to leave.

Dan gives up chasing the healer and starts running back to the big tent, picking me up along the way by bashing his way through goblin warriors that were surrounding me. Sweet is carried by the remaining hobgoblin and they flee from the tent. Teddy picks up the unconscious chieftan and our group is reunited as we start making a mad dash for our horses. Unfortunately though, our "mad dash" is more like a "panting jog" as our heavy loads prevent us from moving quickly. All the while, the goblin tribe has been adequately mobilized and are cautiously converging, completely surrounding us.

Our path eventually is blocked by more armed goblins than we can count. Okay, whatever, they're still goblins. We try to smash our way through all of them. It... doesn't work out. The goblins are officially pissed and look like they're about to swarm us, when Sweet, still semi-paralyzed and being carried by a hobgoblin, tries diplomacy against the angry and very hostile goblin tribe.

Sweet: We have your chieftan! Let us pass or we will kill him! We have defeated your greatest warriors, attacking us would be foolish!

With some pretty sweet rolls, our Stephen Hawking-strength stat bard has caused a standstill. There's a pause. They don't attack us. Maybe they're formulating an answer. Maybe we can get out of this ali --

Fylo: SCREW THIS! I shoot Scorching Ray at the toughest looking goblin.
DM: Your ray horribly burns a very muscular goblin, who screams in pain and shouts for you all to be killed. The dozens of goblins begin throwing spears at you.

Yeah, or that.

TPK
We're showered by spears. We all take heavy hits. Fylo drops, again, and Sweet is almost down too. Teddy wants to valiantly sacrifice himself as a distraction to escape and dives into a mob of goblins, reviving the sorcerer in the process with his crusader powers, but we're fully surrounded by hundreds of goblins so there's no "escape."

We're boned, but I'm stubborn and don't want to die. There's about 30 or so goblins blocking our path to our horses. I begin to carry Sweet on my back, which doubles both as a kind gesture to my ally and a convenient method of drastically lowering the surface area where sharp spears can strike me from behind. This frees up our remaining hobgoblin lackey, whom I instruct to act as my "seeing eye" hobgoblin, guiding me in the proper direction. Then Fylo and I unleash some double whammy cones of fire, Hatchling's Flame and Burning Hands, literally BURNING a path through the goblins. We're still taking hits while doing this, but eventually we break through the containment!

We rush to our horses with angry goblins at our backs, still hucking spears, but now the three hobgoblins that didn't enter the camp come to our aid and give us some covering fire. We send the remaining two barrels of oil rolling down towards our pursuers, Sweet manages to find the strength to shoot a fire arrow to light them up as they roll, and we ride off with an explosion* at our backs! Woo!

TPK? No. But very close. We end here, half-dead, riding back to Lax's mines with the unconscious chieftan as our hostage.

(*Okay, not an explosion, just lots of fire.)

Closing Thoughts:
Sometimes a DM has to try hard not to TPK a stupid group. This was one of those times.

When wrapping up, he said, "When choosing between loot or avoiding a crazy mission, most groups would go for the loot. So I was hoping that maybe if I make the mission so absurdly suicidal, you'd actually want to avoid it." Nay, good sir! Not even balors will keep us away from the shinies! :smalltongue:

While my character was opposed to the mission, I as the player am happy we went for it. Avoiding danger is boring. Overwhelming odds = fun!

[El Dorado]

That was awesome. You even kinda succeeded!

[Machinekng]

Nice.

When I saw the heading, TPK, I was sure you guys were done for.

I guess you get to keep your loot, even though I don't think you made Grish happy (or found a kung-fu master) :smallsigh:.

[Palanan]

I've read through this installment twice tonight and loved it. I was laughing so loudly people heard me outside the house.

Also, you developed some good tension in the narrative there. When things started going south, and the halfling went down for the second or third time, I was genuinely starting to get worried--until I remembered your DM's post from a couple of nights ago. Even so, I'm amazed that anyone survived all the mighty chucking of spears.

This is classic, and plain great fun. I commend your DM for everything about this setup, and even more so for resisting what must have been some mighty temptation with the TPK. I can't wait to see how the questioning goes. :smallbiggrin:

[Bob the DM]

This just goes to show that no one is always right when dice are involved. I spent about 5 minutes trying to convice Teddy and Dan not to take full plate for a smash and grab. Now, while I may have eased up a little at the end with the amount of javlins thrown at them or letting them break through the encirclement, but it was Teddy drawing the goblins off by provoking AoO that let the group find a weak spot and burn their way through and Dan coming in and saving Teddy so he could escape too, despite the staggering amount of dice I was rolling trying bring one of the groups tanks. And a 15 foot cone of fire dealing 10ish damage followed up by a 30 foot cone of fire doing 2d6 damage just scares the crap out of 5hp goblin warriors. As they were running back to the horses, I let the dice decide who lived and died. But, alas, despite 25 javlins each, the magic armour/full plate/large sheilds (ie. the stuff I thought would get them killed) was just too much ac for the regular MM goblins to hit. Good on the pc's for staying true to themselves and taking the most expensive equipment possible instead of the best suited for the mission. It definately payed off.

[Hazzardevil]

This just goes to show that no one is always right when dice are involved. I spent about 5 minutes trying to convice Teddy and Dan not to take full plate for a smash and grab. Now, while I may have eased up a little at the end with the amount of javlins thrown at them or letting them break through the encirclement, but it was Teddy drawing the goblins off by provoking AoO that let the group find a weak spot and burn their way through and Dan coming in and saving Teddy so he could escape too, despite the staggering amount of dice I was rolling trying bring one of the groups tanks. And a 15 foot cone of fire dealing 10ish damage followed up by a 30 foot cone of fire doing 2d6 damage just scares the crap out of 5hp goblin warriors. As they were running back to the horses, I let the dice decide who lived and died. But, alas, despite 25 javlins each, the magic armour/full plate/large sheilds (ie. the stuff I thought would get them killed) was just too much ac for the regular MM goblins to hit. Good on the pc's for staying true to themselves and taking the most expensive equipment possible instead of the best suited for the mission. It definately payed off.

Bob, you run awesome campaigns.

I also have a few questions.

1. How did you run the 100 men free-for-all and the 100 zombie fights?

2. How did you decide on how to stat out the goblin leaders.

[Bob the DM]

Bob, you run awesome campaigns.

I also have a few questions.

1. How did you run the 100 men free-for-all and the 100 zombie fights?

2. How did you decide on how to stat out the goblin leaders.

1. I use dice to represent all my pcs and npcs. The PC's pick a die and place it on the battlemap and I do the same with npcs (generic white d6s are the best for the "standard npcs"), and I use the numbers on the top to show everyone who's armed similarly. ie: the 3 d6s with 1 showing are hobgoblins with longbows, 2's are shortswords, 3's are longswords and shields and the single red die is the one barking orders. I also have many varied coloured die, so the 3 big boys in the last battle (shaman, chieftain, ninja), all had different colours plus the white dice arranged with the appropriate numbers showing told everyone where the bad npcs were as well as which ones had 2 handaxes/sword and board and the red ones were the pc's allies. The way you don't get the distraction of miniatures who don't nessissarily have the correct armour/robes or weapons and still can get the entire combat picture at a glance. I also have oversized dice for large creatures and larger ones for huge creatures as well.
b) the zombie fight was the easiest. I have about 50-70 dice that I've accumulated over the years and I just laid them out over the large battlemap provided in the DMG. As the front zombies died I moved their dice back. With the zombies it was easiest to assume, since they started far away and their generic, slow zombies, that the pc's go first (even to just assume that they all delayed until they acted as a group), and them moved the horde. Since the zombies are mindless they simply advanced until they reached the group and attacked.
1. a) The initial 100 man fight was really just to see which 4 npcs would survived to aid the pc's in their 3 matches and let the players "get to know their characters" in a life/death crisis. It was all done without any battlemap and just via description. That was easiest, since at level 1 and with so many different groups of npcs who were all working against each other, just being able to describe the general flow of the situation was much easier and didn't interfere with the pcs (ie: not take up a disproportionate amount of time). I wanted to actually have what the pcs did to have a real effect on who would survive so I picked one of the preset npc groups and placed them near each of the pcs. I rolled first a d100 for a rough guess at the first round casualties, then d20s until they were down to about 20 left standing. As the pc's fought a few named npcs who could have survived, died with last words like "my name... was bob" and then with 10-15 left, the pc's had to pick who they attacked and thus were left with 1 ogre fighter, 1 dwarf barbarian, 1 hobgoblin fighter and someone else who escapes my memory right now. That way not only was it useful to me, but no one felt like it was a waste of time. Right from the get go, their choices had the largest possible impact on them.

2. For the goblin leaders I just looked under "goblin" in the Monster Manuel and under "orgnization". That gave me the numbers of the size of the tribe and the level range of the leaders. I decided that since this used to be the wealthiest tribe I didn't have to worry about the leaders affording gear, so I just gave them gear appropriate to their level. I have a fantastic encounter planned for next session (which was planned many weeks ago), but I needed to see if the creatures I'm planning on using will TPK the group so fast it will be anti-climactic, so I made sure to "test" the group by giving the Goblins the low end of the level range, yet still higher than the pcs. I also "geared up" the 3 level 3 sergents to get a good idea on how tough it will be to hit the pcs and how tough it will be for the pcs to make contact. With the levels picked, I turned to the DMG sample npc class charts and just took those statlines are rearanged the numbers (with the goblin +/-) to suit the npcs (ninja high dex/wis, cleric high wis/str, etc...), and added 1 to a single score as they were all level 4+. I took the hp numbers from there +/- for con changes, and then just gave all of them gear. Since the tribe has been recently displaced and order sketchy, the cleric took spells that would insure compliance like blindness/deafness, and debuffs, as well as cures and buffs incase the tribe turned one their leaders, which they would have if they were paid to do so. I was also able to play around with feats like shield specialization/shield ward for the sgts, weapon focus, finess and the like to get their numbers and then I went all out on the 3 'named' npcs. The cheiftain had the coolest feats with things like weapon focus glaive, sickening blow and short haft, etc..., but on his first AoO, as Dan hansomely charged in, I rolled a 1 and a swore really loudly, so I couldn't even cheat the roll just to have my fun!!! The Cheiftain went down after moving once and calling for 'Grob' which was the name of the ninja, but all the pc's somehow though he was calling for a hill giant. I guess they just know my style. :). I didn't want to make the group feel like I tailored the encounter to them, so I made sure to go straight out of the Monster Manuel for the level ranges, but I also didn't want this fight to feel like the climax, so I let the leader just be level 6, with a level 5 cleric and a level 4 ninja.
The big climax will be really cool, especially since the bad guys will be up at the "level 1's vs Umber Hulk" level and for that one I'll have some npcs (like the hobgoblins the pcs had last time), made out on character sheets in case some pc's die early on so they will still be able to participate and affect the all important outcome dispite/inspite of sudden, catastrophic, permanent health failure.

Should be fun, I can't wait to read about it. :D

[Hazzardevil]

1. I use dice to represent all my pcs and npcs.

Thanks, I wasn't expecting such large answers, I';; probably try to run something like this at some point.

[Bob the DM]

Thanks, I wasn't expecting such large answers, I';; probably try to run something like this at some point.

If you're going to use my style of the obove ideas, I should tell you a bit more about it. Your plot needs to be flexible, fluid and generally undefined, yet rock hard and look like you planned it all along. I'm very heavy into adlibing and plotting as the game goes, even sometimes as the session goes. The initial letter back in session 1 was in goblin because I hadn't thought past the Gladiator pit. The campaign became undead heavy because the crusader wanted to take cleric levels and I needed a reason for his vision. The town full of ghouls was added as the pcs travelled across the land because the inital mood of dread after the pit was waning and the cleric and his barn full of refugees appeared after the pcs started exploring the town because there needed to be a reason for the pcs to stick around and "fix" the town. The evil book of undead poped in because there needed to be an in game reason for the cleric and ghouls to be there. While the wizard's tower was passed by on their way to the southern city state it was just a future place holder. The wizard and his devil servant were were added in the morning before the session to show that there were evil people with power and the group needed to be releived of the book and added to the plot to restore the, until then, a much less remarkable hobgoblin. Once that was added, everything else to get them back to the arena fell into place and I had to step back and figure out why would all this be happening. Only then did the architects of plot get their motives and desires. Now the table is set for the big revalations as to what's really going on. That's also why the pcs never had the opportunity to travel north so they wouln't see/hear anything fixed about the region until I had figured out what was important about it. So everything was able to grow very organicaly and now the pcs are comming into the endgame and just last night I finally thought of the details about the finale and the details about how the pcs could win/lose. When I'm going for an "epic" campaing (ie: something that will reach into epic from low levels), I find I have to start with just session to session ideas and the players really become, unknowingly, the true means of developing when the world goes in the future, based on how exciting/tense/enjoyable the initial sessions are. Then an appropriate story for the group can be written and a full fleshed world can develope for future use as well.

Good luck, and make sure to post a DM journal (possibly with a link here), so we can see what happens when you use some of those ideas you liked.

[Bob the DM]

I don't think I've said this yet, but as I just reread the entire journal, wow. Forget how much fun playing the games were, I think I got just as much entertainment reading about it. It reminds me of a movie: The Arena: A Swordsage's journal. (Based on a true story). No, I picture this as a HBO TV show done in the syle of Sparticus. Only the second one, Gods of the Arena. I can't believe I forgot about the epic of Dave.
Kudos, Garth. Truely you have done us all honour. You have great potential as a dm.

[Dralnu]

Thanks Bob. I love writing up the recaps because the campaigns are so fun and the sessions are crazy. I've tried my hand at DM'ing, and I've been keeping a journal of my evil campaign (in sig) but unfortunately it's on hold indefinitely because we can't get everyone together for a session.

[Bob the DM]

I think it's amazing tht we're up to 9000+ views. I can't wait to see it hit 10.

Anywho, REPLY TO MY EMAIL and get those other bums to do it too. I want to try for a game on the 6th.

[Palanan]

...and remind them their loyal audience is waiting for more.

:smalltongue:

[marcielle]

Yeah. And nice to see Fylo is still going for 'the record'.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I think it's amazing tht we're up to 9000+ views.

It's over 9000!!! :smallcool:

[TheSweetTongue]

Can't wait for the next game, I've only managed to get myself punched in the nose five times so far...and stabbed through the chest once...for all my drinking and smarmy banter

[Sith_Happens]

Not sure if this came up during the suicide capture mission, but if you use Burning Blade with a sap, is the fire damage nonlethal?

Hope you find that kung-fu master soon. Nothing quite like a DM who thinks the RP aspects of base classes actually matter; next thing you know he's going to be enforcing multiclass penalties.:smalltongue:

[Dralnu]

Not sure if this came up during the suicide capture mission, but if you use Burning Blade with a sap, is the fire damage nonlethal?

I would think it would be lethal.


Hope you find that kung-fu master soon. Nothing quite like a DM who thinks the RP aspects of base classes actually matter; next thing you know he's going to be enforcing multiclass penalties.:smalltongue:

But I like the RP aspects of classes. It might not be your preference but it adds to my fun.

[Bob the DM]

Well the game is back on for sunday. Make sure to bug Dralnu for an update. I just finished re-stating the named npc's. And since the party always, always, always askes for everyone's name, the're all named npcs.

[Dralnu]

Well the game is back on for sunday. Make sure to bug Dralnu for an update. I just finished re-stating the named npc's. And since the party always, always, always askes for everyone's name, the're all named npcs.

You mean Dave, jerkface #1-20, vampire dude, giant guy, and Dave Jr.?

[Hazzardevil]

You mean Dave, jerkface #1-20, vampire dude, giant guy, and Dave Jr.?

I laughed at that, all DM's should have such truly inspired names.

[Airanath]

I laughed at that, all DM's should have such truly inspired names.

That seems like player naming for me =p
"What? You mean that guy name is Xyalarmak? Too hard to remember, we will just call him douchebag, because he is acting like one"

[Bob the DM]

That seems like player naming for me =p
"What? You mean that guy name is Xyalarmak? Too hard to remember, we will just call him douchebag, because he is acting like one"

We'll see how many of the npc's names get into the post game post. I'll bet the combat will be between our intrepid heroes and their allies, wizard that we hate, devil we think is trying to get us killed, the big goliath, and that jerk who killed us with rocks in the arena, facing off against Vampire jerk 1, vampire jerk 2, stupid cleric who almost killed someone, stupid cleric who killed someone, shirtless barbarians who can't die, and their allies, useless fighters and rampaging monsters.

Fortunately with the tendancy to forget names/rename npcs with derogatory terms, I can just add anyone's name who died back into the pool. :)

Edit: oh and Dralnu, please don't forget to include the classic statement by Garth from the "last dinner". I think that was one of the funniest things I've heard yet in this campaign. Teddy was priceless as well, although he did well not to cry.. Not forgetting Dan and his handsome obession with potions and the always... intoxicated William sweet.
Not to spoil anything, but all of you cheering Fylo on to his record setting run at most attempted near deaths, he was sadly absent this sesson and couldn't be killed by the flesh golems. Not to worry thoug, the role of "disregarding plans", "drawing way too much attention", "getting the snot kicked out of him" and "accidentally saving the day early on without knowing it" was played by one of Fylo's understudies.

[Airanath]

Fortunately with the tendancy to forget names/rename npcs with derogatory terms, I can just add anyone's name who died back into the pool. :)



Aye, the wonders of DMing, can't say I don't do that myself ^^

[Sith_Happens]

We'll see how many of the npc's names get into the post game post. I'll bet the combat will be between our intrepid heroes and their allies, wizard that we hate, devil we think is trying to get us killed, the big goliath, and that jerk who killed us with rocks in the arena, facing off against Vampire jerk 1, vampire jerk 2, stupid cleric who almost killed someone, stupid cleric who killed someone, shirtless barbarians who can't die, and their allies, useless fighters and rampaging monsters.

Fortunately with the tendancy to forget names/rename npcs with derogatory terms, I can just add anyone's name who died back into the pool. :)

Edit: oh and Dralnu, please don't forget to include the classic statement by Garth from the "last dinner". I think that was one of the funniest things I've heard yet in this campaign. Teddy was priceless as well, although he did well not to cry.. Not forgetting Dan and his handsome obession with potions and the always... intoxicated William sweet.
Not to spoil anything, but all of you cheering Fylo on to his record setting run at most attempted near deaths, he was sadly absent this sesson and couldn't be killed by the flesh golems. Not to worry thoug, the role of "disregarding plans", "drawing way too much attention", "getting the snot kicked out of him" and "accidentally saving the day early on without knowing it" was played by one of Fylo's understudies.

Darn it, now I want to know who died. My guess is the kung-fu master that finally arrives to help Garth get his Monk level. You know, Mentor Occupational Hazard (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MentorOccupationalHazard) and all.

[Dralnu]

I unfortunately left my notes at Teddy's house so I haven't been able to write up the next entry yet. It should be up some time later this week.

I ended up forgetting temporary combat modifiers last sessions so I've decided to put my character sheet up electronically. It's easier to keep track of modifications that way. For those interested, here is how Garth Bolstrum (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=323544) is looking at the end of last session.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I unfortunately left my notes at Teddy's house so I haven't been able to write up the next entry yet. It should be up some time later this week.

I ended up forgetting temporary combat modifiers last sessions so I've decided to put my character sheet up electronically. It's easier to keep track of modifications that way. For those interested, here is how Garth Bolstrum (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=323544) is looking at the end of last session.

He's lawful?

[Dralnu]

Hasn't he always been? :smalltongue:

All will be explained next recap.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Hasn't he always been? :smalltongue:

All will be explained next recap.


Garth Bolstrum: Human Swordsage. Neutral, borderline evil.

I'll have to wait for the recap then. :smallconfused:

[Bob the DM]

Don't forget that IF the vampire slamed you with his "mitts", you also have in your inventory, 2 negative levels. :)

[Torvon]

25 AC at level 4 ... nerf tome of battle! ;)

seriously though: looking forwad to your next session. made some advertisement for this thread yesterday with friends it's great fun to read.

[jguy]

God: Himself made me chuckle

[Stallion]

/nitpick

Don't swordsages lose their wis bonus to AC if they equip a shield?

/nitpick

<3

[Lateral]

Wait, WIS: 16?

Naaaaaah. You're joking.

[Dralnu]

I'll have to wait for the recap then. :smallconfused:

Character development! >.>


Don't forget that IF the vampire slamed you with his "mitts", you also have in your inventory, 2 negative levels. :)

So I was going to say he only hit me once and I didn't get a save.. But then I looked up vampires, then I looked up energy drain..

Garth is at -8 and not feeling too good. Oops?


/nitpick

Don't swordsages lose their wis bonus to AC if they equip a shield?

/nitpick

<3

My bad. Removed it now. No worries, my ridiculous AC didn't matter last session anyway.


Wait, WIS: 16?

Naaaaaah. You're joking.

"So, you guys realize that bribing the goblin tribe to betray the leaders that we want is far safer than a half-assed suicide mission to kidnap them in the midst of a ~400 population tribe filled with warriors and dire wolves? You know the latter option is bound to get messed up and risk losing our lives over? Right, guys? Right..?"

Yup, wisest person in the group right here. :smalltongue:

[Greenish]

Wis doesn't necessarily represent common sense, it's also the natural cunning etc. (hence animals often have higher wis than most commoners).

Also, accept who you are. Embrace the dark side. Revel in your Evilness! :xykon:

[Bob the DM]

Yay for character developement.

Sweet is progressing nicely as an alcoholic and is learning battlefield tactics at the expense of his hobgoblin allies since the group keeps telling him to direct the npcs.

Garth is becoming ever more lawful as he continuously fulfills his agreements, prompting the truely classic line of "I accepted his bribe, therefore I will do what he asks".

Teddy is still Pelor obssessed. More so than ever.

Dan has developed a healthy/socially akward obsession with asking everyone if they have healing or any other kind of potions for him.

While Fylo continues to think (even though he was conspicuously abset last game), the attracting way to much attention at the start of a fight is a good idea. :)

As for the energy drain, it could be worse. The last act of the Vampire Paladin of Tyranny was to "lay hands" on Teddy for 30 damage before turning into gas to heal. I don't recall if he succeeded on the dc 19 will save to be dropped to - 13 hp or not... :)

Sadly the 2or3 ac difference didn't matter too much to the power attacking, scythe wielding clerics and barbarians... The still needed a 15 or 17 to hit. Thankfully, when they DID manage to land a blow... 2d4+7+power attack.

And yes, with that "let's not attack the whole goblin tribe" bit of advice, you are truely the wisest person in the group. In fact, possibly the wisest pc we've ever had. Even at level 1, 99.9 percent of the time, our players would have tried to figure out a way to kidnap the chief, his right hand man and the shaman and pocket the gold.

[Duskranger]

/nitpick

Don't swordsages lose their wis bonus to AC if they equip a shield?

/nitpick

<3

They are not proficient with it losing the bonus I did not think that would happen though. Can you quote where that is from?

The only thing stated is Swordsages get there wis to armor in light armor. Light shields are also light armor right

[Girshtop]

Yup, wisest person in the group right here. :smalltongue:

:smallconfused:

Hah.

[Dralnu]

Session 9

Wolves, It's Always Wolves:
(Quick preface: Fylo's player couldn't make it this session. Our standard procedure is in effect for this: Fylo is having seizures, unconscious, or otherwise unable to take any actions this session.)

We ride away from the goblin camp. We've barely made it out alive, have one of our three designated targets captive, and have left half the camp aflame. By our standards, this mission has been a complete success! Hopefully when Sweet turns this tale into an epic ballad he'll leave out the less flattering bits like when I got blinded and accidentally barbequed a bunch of gobbo women and children...

Unfortunately, now's not the time to begin patting ourselves on the back for a job well done. Only a couple minutes into our ride, we spot a pack of large wolves chasing after us. Goblins riding dire wolves or worgs, I don't know. Awesome. I think we're something like 0-3 with wolves so far. They have this nasty habit of showing up when we're half-dead, then guiding us to some unhappy location and pooping in our sandwiches. Frickin. Wolves. I'm half-dead and permanently blind because of a mission that I did not wish to be a part of, can you cut me some slack this time, you goddamn smug canines??

The wolves are keeping pace with us but luckily they're not fast enough to overtake us. We're keeping track of them easily because we're riding through open plains and small rolling hills. Luck soon run out though when our horses start tiring out after a couple hours of riding. Seriously, horses?? You poney princesses can't handle running at full speed for hours with a person decked in fullplate on your back?! I'll turn you ungrateful asses into glue if/when we make it back! :smallmad:

A Good Place To Have A Picnic:
Our horses are slowing down. The wolves and their riders have maneuvered themselves ahead of us, trying to push us back towards the camp. That's the last thing we want to do. We'll have to fight eventually, but we don't want to fight in the open where we can get surrounded. We spot a small patch of forest not too far away and decide to make a mad dash -- er, slow trot -- for it. The wolves are getting tired as well by this point, so we manage to get there before they catch up.

The patch of trees has an ominous vibe to it. It may be the eerie shadows the trees produce, or the lack of forest critters, or the recently hacked up body parts neatly arranged in a pile at the center. Probably the cut up bodies. We decide that this would be a lovely spot to fight our pursuers.

Now, our group clearly aren't tactical geniuses, but Sweet has heard plenty of tales about people who were. He quickly takes charge, lining us and our hobgoblin minions into an arrowhead formation and have us pull out spears readied for the oncoming worgs, while I have my seeing-eye hobgoblin instruct me when to shoot out a cone of fire. The defense works perfectly. The goblin worg riders charge our position, eat a bunch of spears, and are quickly disposed of. I must say, Sweet is turning into quite the tactician. He's learning how best to organize us into strong battle formations, and most importantly, how to make sure our hobgoblin minions are placed in the most dangerous roles so the rest of us are less likely to messily die.

After combat ends, we check out the bodies we weren't responsible for. It's the goblin cleric and ninja that we fought earlier. We have no idea how they managed to get here ahead of us or who killed them. The wounds on the bodies indicate they were inflicted by some sort of saw and Teddy detects traces of magic on the wounds and in the area. Without any more leads as to what happened, we decide to leave the "Forest Chainsaw Massacre" mystery alone and take the bodies with us as a happy turn of events.

Garth: Idea! Let's not mention that we found the bodies, just that we got all three so we look better.
Teddy: But that would be lying.
Garth: Alright. Majority vote?
Hobgoblins: We got all three by ourselves.
Garth: Majority wins!
Teddy: ...


Interrogations and Missions:
We get back to the mines. There's even more hobgoblins now and the place is gettng awfully crowded. Master Fu hasn't returned my letter yet. We meet with Grish and give him the mission report. He's happy with our results and gets us up to date with what was going on while we were gone. As usual, I'm fuzzy on the details whenever Grish talks (WHERE IS THE LOOT??), but I will try my best to recount:

- There's a war brewing. Grish's side versus the elf vampires, I think.

- Grish's sibling, or cousin, whatever, is now a vampire. I don't remember why this is a problem, but apparently it's a big deal. Grish's scouts report that they've spotted the vamp's emo goth carriage and if they can kill him they can end the entire war. Grish has sent a squadron to go dispose of him. I'm sure that will end well.

- The four martial schools in the east, the monk, warblade, crusader, and swordsage schools have long trained Grish's best soldiers but have suddenly ceased contact. The prince wants us to find out what happened and recruit them to our cause

- Oh, and the hobgoblin wizard is still a jerk and needs to die / get the book of the dead back

We also have a goblin chieftan to interrogate. I guess that's why we kidnapped him. Whatever. Grish instructs his people to heal him up, take him to an unoccupied room, and employ their standard interrogation techniques (which I volunteer to help with). Teddy is appalled by this "technique" and announces that he can get all the information that they need from the chieftan without any disembowelment (awww!!!). He specifically requests that we ALL be in the room for this though. Odd request, but sure.

Teddy uses Zone of Truth. It works perfectly. Then, looking me straight in the eye, he asks me, "Are you evil?"

I calmly reply, "Of course not." I passed my Will save. Don't forget, I still got my lead sheet with me too! :smallbiggrin:

I honestly forgot what the chieftan said during interrogation. I don't think it mattered. He was "disposed of" later.

When the interrogation business is over, we have to decide which mission to attend to first: the wizard or the monasteries? I'm of course very biased towards visiting my master and the rest of the group agrees. So we stock up and head out!

Garth's Reflections:

(Personal character blurb, not relevant to the main story, feel free to skip)

The journey to the closest school, the monk monastery, is long an uneventful. It's a good time for reflection. Early events in this journey have not bode well for me. My "kill whoever pisses me off" policy had quickly placed me in lawful good Teddy's bad book and he's had a huge grudge against me ever since. His constant antagonism has sometimes costed me. My "emotional decision making" has also earned the distrust of some of Grish's lieutenants, whom I still closely work with. Again, this hinders my personal goals.

I wasn't always this way though. Back when I was a swordsage pupil, I had to follow strict laws and customs. I didn't love them, but so long as I followed the rules, people gave me what I wanted. Sure, I'd still have outbreaks, but I was more into control back then. I also recall a story I've heard of a, ah, "misguided" halfling ranger that travelled with a goodie band of adventurers and faced a similar predicament. His solution? Work with the team, follow orders, and play by their rules. It worked.

Heading back to my old master, I've decided to give this "play by their rules" thing another shot.

Easier Than You'd Think:
The journey to the closest school, the monk monastery, is long but uneventful. We arrive at the monastery grounds and find that the entire place is covered by vines and other vegetation, as if the place has been abandoned for years, even though we know that the place had been populated no more than a couple weeks ago. Standing at the entrance is an old bugbear. We cautiously approach but he isn't hostile to us. He tells us that he is the master of this monastery. The place has been abandoned. Two weeks ago the surrounding vegetation started growing at an alarming pace and covered the area. Wild beasts rampaged through the monastery and caused much damage. Then, after the beasts left, a group of elves led by a vampire entered the monastery and started killing any survivors. The monk master, I'll call him Master Monk, managed to escape. The monastery was completely abandoned upon his return. The old bugbear has been waiting for his pupils to return ever since. We also find out that the vampire isn't your normal bloodsucker. He seems to be unharmed by sunlight. He also may or may not know kung fu. Disturbing.

We tell Master Monk why we're here and convince him to come check out the other martial schools. He runs ahead of our horses, actually slowing down so we can keep up with him. Again, uneventful journey, we go to each school and find out the exact same thing happened there, and each time we recruit the surviving master to join us and then we go back to Lax's mines.

Of Swords and Vamps:
We have another meeting with Grish and the four Masters. We agree that the elves have targeted the schools pre-emptively to make sure their services don't help Grish's side.

The masters also reveal that each school was guarding an ancestral weapon of great power, the four of the fabled "nine swords." They tell us the story behind the weapons: Way back in the day the nine martial disciplines that the schools study stayed separate from each other, each school thinking theirs was the best/only true discipline. One day, a fellow named Rensharr went to every school, mastered each one, and then founded his own monastery where each discipline would be taught together. All was good, there was harmony, blahblah. Then before he croaked he made nine swords that embodied each discipline's principles and left. Over time, these swords were scattered and lost. Four were found again and safeguarded by the four schools.

Now the elves have four of the swords and the Masters want them back. I vow to Master Fu that I will bring the swords back. He's "cautiously optimistic" but thankful.

We also think more about this mysterious day-walking vampire. No, he doesn't sparkle in the sunlight, I asked. The only rumors we collectively know of such vampires are of martial artists called Shadow Sun Ninjas, ninjas that balance the powers of light and darkness to fuel their fighting style. Legend has it that the most powerful ninjas have a chance succumbing to the darkness when pushed beyond their limit. When this happens, it's told that their souls are sent to Hell and their body turns into a day-walking vampire.

Master Fu knows of only one such unfortunate soul. The most promising swordsage pupil he knew, a man named Stallus, became a shadow sun ninja and succumbed to darkness while defending the temple from a particularly nasty attack. Not much has been known of the vampire since, though Teddy knows that Stallus had fought Sandal at least once before. It seems this day-walking vampire that's been owning up each school is this Stallus.

When the meeting wraps up, the Masters have agreed to aid Grish and hopefully re-establish their schools and get their swords back. Without any leads as to where these swords are, we decide to hit our next objective, Mr. Hobgoblin Wizard. Grish gives us some help for our mission -- Bob, the goliath warblade with the really big axe that we rescued from some elf vampire at Sandal's temple, and Edwin, the stone giant punk that killed us when we "rescued" him. Edwin awkwardly greets us. I already want him dead.

BUT BEFORE THAT! I tell Master Fu that I wish to master the nine ways as Rensharr did. I mean, if some random guy can do it and becomes eternally famous, surely I can one-up that, right? To do so, I'll need Master Monk to teach me his ways. Master Fu gives me his blessings. Master Monk agrees to teach me and help me overcome my blindness problem, "see without seeing" etc.

After a sick montage. I. Know. Kung fu!!!!! Level up in monk! :smallcool:

Revelations:
I'm antsy about this mission. We're going up against a wizard of immense power who has access to rings of Wish and has nearly killed me with a single lightning bolt, not to mention violating me by crawling into my frickin' leg. If we're going to take on such a powerful foe, we must have perfect planning. We must catch him by surprise, maybe when he's asleep. Don't let the old fart cast a single reality-warping spell, for that would spell our doom, DOOM I say!

With this in mind, we journey yet again back to the gladiator arena where everything started. We walk in, enter the pit where we parted ways with the wizard before, and start wandering. We enter a section of the arena we've never seen before and find a lavishly decorated door with a humanoid parked in front of it. It's the wizard's bearded devil servant. He greets us and asks that we follow him, as the wizard has been expecting us. Well, there goes the surprise.

We're led down some winding staircases and into a ridiculously fancy greeting room. As the DM put it, it's like a residential suite at the most expensive Las Vegas hotel. We sit down at a big dining table until the wizard shows up.

The wizard thanks us for coming and tries buttering us up, asking us to eat, drink, etc as we're awkwardly sitting there thinking what we should do. He's in an amazing mood, and he tells us why: the "visions" he planted into our minds and Grish's worked perfectly!

Wait, what?

Oh, you know the vision Grish had about being destined to die and come back and reclaim his throne? That was him. And those visions we all had about the vampires killing us all? Him again. And that vision where Pelor spoke to Teddy and called upon him to pursue a holy quest? Yeah, Teddy believed it in so much that he gained divine powers!

Oh. Snap. Teddy now has an expression on his face like you punted his puppy off a bridge.

But why, you horribly sadistic wizard? Why toy with us like that? Well, other than being your typical hobgoblin assface, this wizard also had a vision. You see, as he got old, he realized that eventually he would die. He doesn't want to die. He wants to live, but not "live" like an undead, he wants to stay alive. His vision told him that, if certain requirements were met, he'd have a chance to become immortal. So he used all his resources and decades of planning to make sure his vision comes to fruition. He's been scrying on us, and on everyone, constantly. He even made sure we didn't screw up any of our missions. You know how we coincidentally found the other two goblin leaders neatly packaged for us? It was his bearded devil (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/devil.htm) servant (note the sawtoothed glaive). He even used one of his Wishes from his ring that he picked up during his adventuring days just to make sure he was doing everything right. And everything has been working out perfectly towards this last goal. His other guests are on their way.

The elf vampires have an amulet that can give immortality. They don't care much about it because they're already immortal, but they really want the book of the dead. The wizard now has that book thanks to us. And now he's willing to work with us one more time. You see, as a proud hobgoblin, the wizard hates elves and undead and sincerely would prefer that Grish's side would win the war. So he made sure that when the transaction for the amulet was made, we'd be here for an ambush. That way, the wizard gets his amulet and we get the book and take out the elf vampire's leadership. Win-win. Otherwise he'll just make the trade of amulet for book and we get squat.

Now this kind of sucks for us. We're quiet and not sure whether we want to try and kill him or agree to his terms. It doesn't help that he throws in another interesting tidbit:

Wizard: Oh, and I bound you all to an efreet as added insurance. He'll call upon you to perform a task for him. Don't worry, he'll pay you for it.
...
...
What?

The old geezer gives us time to discuss amongst ourselves as he has a few things to deal with. Before he leaves, he gives me a vial that will cure my blindness if I drink it. I debate whether or not I should drink it.

Our morale is deflated. We came here to take care of the wizard and get the book back but this guy seems to have played us from the beginning. We're pretty sure that we can't fight him, so it's either help him again and get the book or get nothing. We reluctantly agree to help him. I drink the potion, and sure enough, my sight returns. We tell him our decision when he returns.

Garth: Since I took your bribe, I'm lawfully obligated to help you now.
(DM dies)
This lawful business is a piece of cake!

Also kudos goes to Teddy. He regained his composure after that shocking reveal about his vision and seems even more faithful for it. He tells the wizard that despite what he thinks, Pelor is playing him, not the other way around. The wizard giggles and nods.

The elf vampire leader guy is on his way. And, due to the wizard's constant scrying that eventually got detected, the vampire has magically blocked any divination attempts on him and may be coming with more guards than usual. The bearded devil announces that someone's at the door and the wizard sends him to greet them and bring them down. So it begins.

The Last Supper:
I tell the group that, no matter what this time, everyone should stick together! If one of us attacks a target, all of us attack that same one! We're gonna do it right this time! Yeeeeah!

The wizard then splits us up and places us in alcoves scattered evenly throughout the room, hiding each of us with an illusionary wall. Yeeeah..

The elf vampire leader arrives with his entourage. A really, really big entourage. At least half a dozen regular soldiers, at least two people decked out in fullplate and clerical gear, and even Prix! Unfortunately, our poor former ally has been vampified. Bringing up the rear are two large zombie things that Teddy, Sweet, and I all identify as flesh golems. We know they're constructs, immune to magic, and pack a huge wallop, but nothing else, as the DM is blocking some extra information from us. I'm reconsidering which side to attack.

The wizard tries to put his new guests at ease, asking them to sit, eat, drink, while his bearded devil servant goes to fetch the book. The vampire looks at him closely and notices something's amiss. He shouts, "IT'S A TRAP!" Crap crap. Initiatives.

The bad guys are starting to advance towards the wizard. Unfortunately, our positioning means that Sweet and I start at the enemy's sides, and if they keep moving forward then we'll be trapped behind them on the other side of our allies. I don't want that. At the same time, I can't help but notice that the villains have lined themselves up perfectly for a cone of fire. :smallamused:

I launch a Hatchling's Flame for pitiful damage, but it hits almost every single enemy, including the two flesh golems. Then I rush out of my hiding spot and move towards the rest of our allies' positions. I'm feeling pretty good about myself, but then the vampire shouts, "They're in the walls!" Oops. I guess fire coming out of a "wall" and then me popping out gave something away.

So fight continues, with Teddy, Edwin, and I on one side of the dinner table, while Dan and the goliath dude fight on the other side of the table, holding off a crazy amount of bad guys. Sweet has decided to remain inside his alcove. The lack of alchohol is wrecking him and he can't manage to get back in "the war" I guess. He quickly finds himself trapped behind enemy lines. But even in his hidey-hole, the bard proves to be a huge boon to the group. The vampire, in a polite voice, suggests that we all sit down at the table and talk this matter out. Will effect. Sweet's not gonna have any of that. The bard had readied Countersong and the clutch tune makes sure none of us fall under the vampire's sway. He follows it up with Inspire Courage, making our strikes more accurate.

Even with the vampire's spell foiled and the flesh golems moving strangely slow, we're taking a beating. I look to the wizard, our strongest ally in the battle. What reality-bending spell shall this mighty demi-god launch at our mutual opponents? Shall he smite them all with but a single spell, or empower us all with arcane magics so great that we can cleave our foes with but a swing?

He casts Mage Armor.

ARE YOU ****ING SERIOUS, OLD MAN? U ****ING PUT A GAEAS ON US AS AN AFTERTHOUGHT BUT WHEN OUR LIVES ARE ON THE LINE YOU CAST A 1ST LEVEL SPELL??? IMA KILL YOU OLD MAN!!!!!

We keep fighting. The goliath dude and Edwin are barely hanging in there, screaming for healing, but Teddy can't be everywhere at once (and honestly both of them are at Fylo levels of poor positioning). Sweet must've taken a good swig from his emergency flask because he comes out of his alcove and starts pinging away at the vampire with his magical arrows, which gets the vamp's attention, uh oh... But we still have our all-powerful wizard. Wizard! What spell shall ye cast to aid us?

He casts Globe of Invulnerablity.

WHAT THE ****!!! THE ****!!! **** YOU OLD MAN! I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON YOUR DEFENSIVE BUFFS! YOU'RE NOT EVEN IN COMBAT! YOU'RE FAR AWAY FROM THE CLOSEST MELEE FIGHTER! ILL FIX THAT WHEN I COME FOR YOU!

Dan goes down. We're chugging potions and trying our best to hold the line. The vampire has started fighting Teddy and Sweet is now kiting the flesh golems, whom move very slowly and can never catch him. Teddy's greatsword appears to be magically powerful against vampires. When he finally landed a hit on Prix, the blade seemed to suck in the creature's very essence and quickly reduced him to mist.

Wizard casts Lightning Bolt to zap a soldier that was coming too close to him. Then he summons his bearded devil to stop standing guard at the exit and protect him because, I don't know, maybe a spot of blood landed on his shoes. :smallfurious:

After more fighting, we manage to take down all the soldiers, the clerics, and both vampires, who turn into mist and start floating away. The flesh golems are still up but are too slow to hit any of us. Dan and I are down, the rest of our group can't be looking too good either. We call it here.

Closing Thoughts:
For the final fight, the DM brought two extra character sheets, Edwin and the goliath, in case any of us died because he was worried that it may be too tough. I don't think Fylo being absent helped either.

It turns out flesh golems are slowed by fire. So my Hatchling's Flame, while pitiful damage and gave away our element of surprise, ended up saving us because they did almost nothing throughout the battle. Sweet unknowingly capitalized on the situation by later kiting them with fire arrows.

DM was nice and not only let me take the Sleeping Tiger monk variant, but he let me rearrange my feats so I took Blind-Fight at 3 instead of Weapon Finesse (I didn't think I could take monk back then). I'm now set to take Master of Nine at level 8.

We all dinged, so we're level 5 now. I effectively leveled up twice this session, woo! Not sure whether I want to take my second level of monk or swordsage. Will think about it.

[Greenish]

I like the wizard's style.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Alright, so you're crimes so so far include animal cruelty, bloody murder for no reason (you start off the campaign by killing a random guy by putting rusty nails in his drink), and lying (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking).

BURN THE WIZARD! BURN HIM!!! He probably has spells for fire resistance though. And spells to prevent being taken by surprise, or stabbed, or all that. Find something that gives you an anti-magic field!

[El Dorado]

They are not proficient with it losing the bonus I did not think that would happen though. Can you quote where that is from?

The only thing stated is Swordsages get there wis to armor in light armor. Light shields are also light armor right

AC Bonus: ". . .you can add your Wisdom modifier as a bonus to Armor Class, so long as you wear light armor, are unencumbered, and do not use a shield."

[Bob the DM]

Don't worry, the head vampire is voluntarily misted. He'll be ready in 2 rounds when he's all healed up.

[Hiro Protagonest]

AC Bonus: ". . .you can add your Wisdom modifier as a bonus to Armor Class, so long as you wear light armor, are unencumbered, and do not use a shield."

Wisdom bonus is also supposed to work in no armor though. And I think it's a fine houserule if you're allowed to use shield with it.

[Dralnu]

Alright, so you're crimes so so far include animal cruelty

The wolves are doing the animal cruelty to us. And that boar was asking for it.


bloody murder for no reason

11 STR dude surrounded by hobgoblins and bugbears in prison. Didn't want to be someone's female dog animal companion.


and lying (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking).

If it's said in a zone of truth then it can't be a lie! :smallbiggrin:


BURN THE WIZARD! BURN HIM!!! He probably has spells for fire resistance though. And spells to prevent being taken by surprise, or stabbed, or all that. Find something that gives you an anti-magic field!

I think he's humiliated us enough.


Don't worry, the head vampire is voluntarily misted. He'll be ready in 2 rounds when he's all healed up.

But we still have our wizard to help us! Maybe next round he'll cast Magic Missile or use Prestidigitation to clean our blood and tears off his shoes!


I should mention that Dan is still rocking out in combat. Especially with Sweet buffing he can full power attack and usually crush someone with 20+ minimum damage, then cleave. I'm probably second with stuff like flurry of blows + burning blade when it hits. Either Teddy or Sweet are after that. Teddy's lvl 1 maneuvers are remarkably still useful in combat and his cleric powers are starting to pick up steam.

Hmm, probably going to take my next level in Swordsage. Flashing Sun, Fire Riposte, Mountain Hammer, Cloak of Deception, so many fun maneuvers to choose from!

[Hiro Protagonest]

The wolves are doing the animal cruelty to us. And that boar was asking for it.
I meant the ponies.

11 STR dude surrounded by hobgoblins and bugbears in prison. Didn't want to be someone's female dog animal companion.
1st session. Not even in the arena yet. Put some nails in a guy's drink.

Hmm, probably going to take my next level in Swordsage. Flashing Sun, Fire Riposte, Mountain Hammer, Cloak of Deception, so many fun maneuvers to choose from!

Another level of monk gets you evasion, a bonus feat, +1 IL, and +1 to all saves. Though it would be a good idea to get more maneuvers from swordsage.

[marcielle]

Just a note, I think the bonuses from setting sun and improved trip stack, meaning your trip modifier is 8+the higher of str or dex. Also, fling straight up for fall damage:smallbiggrin:

[Dralnu]

Rolling HP:
1d8+2

Garth (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=323544) is updated and ready to rock. I think September 4th may be the next session.

EDIT: Hm, guess you can't roll here.

[Palanan]

...and here I was just about to say, I like how you guys roll.

:smalltongue:

[Lateral]

Looks like you've got the rock, but you don't have the roll.

[nazgulnine]

I've gotta say, I've been reading this for a while now and I'm thoroughly entertained. Kudos to the whole team, I'm always looking forward to your next misadventure. :smallamused:

[Grendus]

I should mention that Dan is still rocking out in combat. Especially with Sweet buffing he can full power attack and usually crush someone with 20+ minimum damage, then cleave. I'm probably second with stuff like flurry of blows + burning blade when it hits. Either Teddy or Sweet are after that. Teddy's lvl 1 maneuvers are remarkably still useful in combat and his cleric powers are starting to pick up steam.

ToB is funny like that. Much like magic, lower level abilities, when chosen right, remain useful all the way into epic. Especially at level 5. It's not until you get iteratives that there's a question about whether you want to use that standard action strike or go for a full attack.

[Palanan]

Just read through your latest installment for the second time. One of your most epic sessions, and easily the most hilarious. Snappily written with high doses of sarcasm: the perfect tone for this campaign.

And I have to say, I'm beginning to share Garth's opinion of the hobgoblin wizard. Garth's inner monologue during the fight, or inner shoutalogue, had me laughing nonstop.

This must have been a marathon session, because you folks sure covered a lot of ground here. I've been in campaigns where just traveling from one monastery to another would have taken up an entire evening. And yet you folks managed to turn back a goblin assault, join a council of war, recruit four monasteries to your cause (okay, your stepcause), confront a mad wizard (okay, stare at his dining room table) and hold your own against a vampire menagerie. Even allowing for the dining room table, that's a lot accomplished.

Also, I enjoyed the digression into Garth's thoughts during the journey to the first monastery. Even though he comes across as randomly psychotic--which is amusing when you're not standing next to him--it seems there are reasons and motives here, and an actual trajectory he's following. Between Garth and Teddy, there's some interesting character development going on, in counterpoint to the latest crazy plot twists.

Looking forward to the next session; soon may it come. If Fylo's player can make it, will Fylo suddenly come charging in, or is he still back at the mines?

[Dralnu]

I'm glad you liked it!

I don't think it was one of our longer sessions but it indeed was packed with content. Inner monologues don't take up real time in sessions so you can cross that out. The journey to the monasteries and back were described as long, but in reality since nothing eventful occured on the trip it was a "blahblahblah and you've arrived," moment. In general though we're pretty quick/efficient at getting through storyline when it doesn't involve stabbing things.

If I recall correctly, Fylo has always been with us, tied to our horses with a rope, getting dragged along while remaining unconscious or whatever. We're not very accommodating towards the vertically challenged.

[Sith_Happens]

If I recall correctly, Fylo has always been with us, tied to our horses with a rope, getting dragged along while remaining unconscious or whatever. We're not very accommodating towards the vertically challenged.

Personally, I think it would be funnier and make more sense from an in-universe perspective if Fylo was back at the mines the whole time, only to be teleported in by the wizard as the one semi-useful thing he does as part of the ambush.

I notice you did in fact take Flashing Sun, in which case I'm assuming that you can in fact use it with Flurry of Blows. Desert Wind in general is looking like a good discipline choice for you, given this campaign's abundance of fights against large groups of non-fire-resistant enemies. The day that Garth Bolstrum masters the Inferno Blast shall be marked in history.:belkar:

By the way, I like the sudden inclusion in the campaign of ToB material beyond the two guys playing initiator classes. I don't know whether it's been said or decided yet which four of the Nine Blades you guys are going to be chasing after (:smallwink:), but you'd have quite a bit of fun with Desert Wind and/or Umbral Awl (two sets of personal costs might be a bit much) and Teddy is probably dying to get his hands on Faithful Avenger.

EDIT: Just remembered that Weapon Finesse and Shadow Blade both don't work with scimitars. Umbral Awl it is.

[Hazzardevil]

By the way, I like the sudden inclusion in the campaign of ToB material beyond the two guys playing initiator classes. I don't know whether it's been said or decided yet which four of the Nine Blades you guys are going to be chasing after (:smallwink:), but you'd have quite a bit of fun with Desert Wind and/or Umbral Awl (two sets of personal costs might be a bit much) and Teddy is probably dying to get his hands on Faithful Avenger.

Would Sandal have been using Faithful Avenger? I can imagine that since part of the fluff is that man good and evil aligned champions used it, and I think Sandal qualify's.
Teddy would then be pretty much a walking Sandal avatar.

[Hiro Protagonest]

The day that Garth Bolstrum masters the Inferno Blast shall be marked in history.:belkar:

Then Teddy will decide he's too dangerous and stabs him.

[Dralnu]

Personally, I think it would be funnier and make more sense from an in-universe perspective if Fylo was back at the mines the whole time, only to be teleported in by the wizard as the one semi-useful thing he does as part of the ambush.

Good idea. I'll run it by the DM.


I notice you did in fact take Flashing Sun, in which case I'm assuming that you can in fact use it with Flurry of Blows. Desert Wind in general is looking like a good discipline choice for you, given this campaign's abundance of fights against large groups of non-fire-resistant enemies. The day that Garth Bolstrum masters the Inferno Blast shall be marked in history.:belkar:

Flashing Sun works with Insightful Strike, Flurry of Blows, and Burning Blade. Fun times will be had.

Desert Wind is easily my favorite school so far. The maneuver that I'm looking forward to the most has to be Death Mark:
As your weapon strikes your foe, his body convulses as waves of flame run down your blade into his body. The fire causes him to briefly glow with a brilliant internal fire before the flames erupt from his body in a terrible explosion.
Badass.


By the way, I like the sudden inclusion in the campaign of ToB material beyond the two guys playing initiator classes. I don't know whether it's been said or decided yet which four of the Nine Blades you guys are going to be chasing after (:smallwink:), but you'd have quite a bit of fun with Desert Wind and/or Umbral Awl (two sets of personal costs might be a bit much) and Teddy is probably dying to get his hands on Faithful Avenger.

I was happily surprised too. The DM said that he started reading the book and thinks it's awesome.


Would Sandal have been using Faithful Avenger? I can imagine that since part of the fluff is that man good and evil aligned champions used it, and I think Sandal qualify's.
Teddy would then be pretty much a walking Sandal avatar.

Hmm. I don't know. I'm pretty sure that Teddy is using Sandal's sword, it's magical, and it hurt vamp Prix real bad when it hit. Would be sweet if it was though.


Then Teddy will decide he's too dangerous and stabs him.

You think he'll let Garth live that long? How optimistic of you! :smalltongue:

[Hiro Protagonest]

You think he'll let Garth live that long? How optimistic of you! :smalltongue:

You're right. Teddy should kill him before he gets a reputation as a (mostly) hero.

[Sith_Happens]

Then Teddy will decide he's too dangerous and stabs him.

That's what One With Shadow is for.:smallamused:

Personally, I think that the campaign should end with an epic duel between Garth and Teddy. Eccentric thrill-killer vs. servant of Pelor. Master of Nine vs. Ruby Knight Vindicator. Whoever emerges victorious, Sweet shall tell the tale far and wide of two mighty martial artists who, after completing their long and arduous quest, could no longer put aside their differences and sundered the land with their final struggle. It shall be a tale for the ages.http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g68/Cats_Are_Aliens/Banners/Tarquin.png

[Palanan]

Too long it has been, since the last installment.

Will there, perhaps...be moar?

[Airanath]

That's what One With Shadow is for.:smallamused:

Personally, I think that the campaign should end with an epic duel between Garth and Teddy. Eccentric thrill-killer vs. servant of Pelor. Master of Nine vs. Ruby Knight Vindicator. Whoever emerges victorious, Sweet shall tell the tale far and wide of two mighty martial artists who, after completing their long and arduous quest, could no longer put aside their differences and sundered the land with their final struggle. It shall be a tale for the ages.http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g68/Cats_Are_Aliens/Banners/Tarquin.png

And this must happen at the sound of the ultimate showdown.
Indeed, too long without a new instalement, we need moar! You guys need to game, have fun, then the tale can be told and we can have moar fun! =D

[Palanan]

It is decided. The people have spoken.



There must be MOAR!!!

[Sith_Happens]

Heal Check: Thread stabilized.

I just realized, Garth really needs him some Shadow Jaunt. Obviously it's of limited use in combat due to being a standard action, but I can think of a few situations in this campaign so far that it would have helped him get out of. Of course, Shadow Stride in a few levels is where it's at: Nothing like teleporting into the perfect position to let loose a cone of fire on the same turn.:smallamused:

(Protip: The writers/editors for ToB forgot to designate the three Shadow Hand teleportation maneuvers as (Su) abilities, which means they default to (Ex). Even without an Antimagic Field, there are almost definitely some fun ways to take advantage of this.)

[Palanan]

ToB had editors? Wow.



...in other news, has Garth swordsage'd his last? This thread has been sadly quiet, lo these past few weeks. I am despondent for want of more shenanigans.

[Airanath]

ToB had editors? Wow.



...in other news, has Garth swordsage'd his last? This thread has been sadly quiet, lo these past few weeks. I am despondent for want of more shenanigans.

ToB had some of the best editors in WoTC materials imho, it does have some pearls like the above and Iron Heart Vest, but most stuff has been properly checked.

Waiting for more on this epic tho =(

[Dralnu]

Unfortunately, we haven't had any D&D since last session's report. I'd love to play more as it's my favorite campaign ever, but we haven't managed to get another session running. Hopefully we'll continue this soon.

[Palanan]

Alas. We wait.

[Beowulf DW]

Still love reading this campaign.

[Palanan]

I have assurances it will continue.

[KerlanRayne]

Any news on this game?

[ThreeDSix]

Any news on this game?

Seconded. Thanks for bumping this thread, it's composed of awesome. :smalltongue:

[Sith_Happens]

Any news on this game?

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p298/BobaDebt/ThreadNecromancy.jpg

I'm assuming at this point that the campaign is as dead as the thread was.

[Dralnu]

We haven't had a session since my last recap. But maybe it will resume soon. I'll ask around.

[Rejakor]

^

Proof that thread necromancy is usually a good idea.

[JadePhoenix]

The writers/editors for ToB forgot to designate the three Shadow Hand teleportation maneuvers as (Su) abilities, which means they default to (Ex). Even without an Antimagic Field, there are almost definitely some fun ways to take advantage of this.)

You know, it requires line of sight and line of effect. It's more superspeed than teleport. I don't think it's supposed to be Su.

[Duskranger]

You know, it requires line of sight and line of effect. It's more superspeed than teleport. I don't think it's supposed to be Su.

That sucks, I expected it not to, so it could be used to break into other peoples houses. Thanks for this, though it saddens me.

[Morageer]

Oh come on! Such a good campaign, only to stop on such a moment