Desril
2012-03-20, 07:36 PM
Our current DM loves the Deck of Many Things, and I knew before hand that it would be introduced at some point in the campaign. We were level 6 today, about 2/3 of the way to level 7.
Our party:
Gestalted Human/Almost Vampire Hexblade 4/Crusader 2//Vampire 6 (of 8), LE, Player; me
Gestalted Werepanther (but due to plot, only looks like one, stats of human) Bard 6//Barbarian 6, TN, Player; E
Druid 5/Shifter 1 with Bear AC, Player; C, who was absent
Gestalted Ranger//Scout (who hasn't been around for about 3 sessions and wasn't here when we found it), Player; R, also absent
Gestalted Warlock//Swordsage 6, DMPC
So far, we'd fought our way through a hidden dungeon, battling through ~30 or so zombies and skeletons that exploded on death doing 2d6 negative energy damage. Thanks to a good supply of healing potions we were doing quite well. Ran into an illithid, and recognizing what it was, used our surprise round to hit it as hard as we could and eliminate it before it became a threat. Then we encounter a wizard and a succubus. The succubus summoned a vrock. That means a party of 4 level 6s (our familiar and animal companion were on guard outside) were up against a level 7 caster, CR 8 and CR 9 demon. I managed to convince the succubus it was in its favor to work with us against its master and kept it from entering the fight, and the vrock was disabled by use of Shatter to collapse the ceiling above it, pinning it for most of the fight while the rest of us dealt with the caster. It ended with a fireball to my pyrophobic character's face, but that's unimportant.
At the back of that room was a row of 7 different colored vats of alchemical liquid. Using a combination of my alchemical knowledge and the sociopathic/eat any and everything Druid's trial and error, we quickly found out that the green potion was Heal, blue was a sort of barrier, indigo was lightning breath, and purple was something that I knew was bad and that completely devoured the glass vial that I tried to get a sample with. Orange and Yellow completely eluded my understanding thanks to poor rolls. And then Red.
Red, I was told, was a "double-edged sword" in the sense that I knew it was potentially helpful and harmful. Wanting to know what it does, I suggested to the druid that it was safe, and he naturally drank it, (We had his player on phone) and he ended up losing 2 int. Permanently. He drank from it again, this time with a more visable effect. A Titan Maul (giant stick that works as a +3 Greatclub and deals 3x damage to inanimate objects) appeared in his hand and he gained 50,000 xp (well, in reality he gained just enough to be 1 xp from level 8). Due to back story plot, I recognized the effect and was able to figure out that the Red potion was a Potion of Many Things. I informed the group of this, and here are the results:
C elected to not test his luck further, and DMPC knew it was dangerous and withheld from drinking.
E had been planning to kill off his character anyway, and was in fact plotted to die during the upcoming battle, so he decided he'd drink until something killed him.
I thought about it for a while, torn between sanity and knowledge of the power that it could give me (my character's master was a character from a previous campaign which had a character that gained an absurdly powerful weapon from the deck, and I knew the story in character), and decided to take a drink too.
E's result was that he gained the deed to a small keep.
I was immediately stripped naked and lost all non-magical posessions, and while I wasn't aware of this in character, was terrified OOC due to the fact that I'd spent most of the level brewing Liquid Night potions in preparation of when the Sun stops causing migraines and starts making me die. As it was, I held onto my mechanical arm, essentially a graft but purely asthetic, my family sword, and my bag of holding. My armor was mithral full-plate and non-magical.
E drank again, as did I though in more of a "I need booze and this is good enough" way.
E's soul was ripped from his body and locked away by the most powerful in universe evil entity. I got an alignment change to Neutral Good (inadvertently curing my pyrophobia).
With my now good alignment, I decided to "help" E and try to force feed him the potion until the same effect happened in the hopes that it would "imprison" his soul back into his body from its current location, and drank again because what the hell.
E got Imprisoned, locking his body somewhere near the core of his planet, pretty much guranteeing that he'll never be revived, ever, and I got a Cloak of the Bat and, like C, just enough xp to be 1 away from level 8.
In a futile attempt to try to make up for the loss of the majority of my supplies, I drank one last time, this time joined by the DMPC.
Both of us gained a Major Magic Weapon. We rolled for both of them, though mine later got changed by DM fiat and player being very happy about it.
DMPC's roll: A +6 Vorpal Scythe of Mighty Cleaving
Mine: +2 Holy Disruptive Nunchaku.
We all decided that giving the currently nude, Good, soon to be vampire holy disruptive nunchucks was just too much, and he had me roll for another weapon.
My replacement weapon: +5 Keen Brilliant Energy Longsword
We ended the session after that due to time constraints, but we're going to try to pick up tomorrow, after some of us rethink our characters.
Anyone else have any stories of how the Deck broke (or made awesome) other campaigns? We may be horribly overpowered now, and with the only casualty being a character that was about to be killed off, but at the very least, the day was hilarious.
Our party:
Gestalted Human/Almost Vampire Hexblade 4/Crusader 2//Vampire 6 (of 8), LE, Player; me
Gestalted Werepanther (but due to plot, only looks like one, stats of human) Bard 6//Barbarian 6, TN, Player; E
Druid 5/Shifter 1 with Bear AC, Player; C, who was absent
Gestalted Ranger//Scout (who hasn't been around for about 3 sessions and wasn't here when we found it), Player; R, also absent
Gestalted Warlock//Swordsage 6, DMPC
So far, we'd fought our way through a hidden dungeon, battling through ~30 or so zombies and skeletons that exploded on death doing 2d6 negative energy damage. Thanks to a good supply of healing potions we were doing quite well. Ran into an illithid, and recognizing what it was, used our surprise round to hit it as hard as we could and eliminate it before it became a threat. Then we encounter a wizard and a succubus. The succubus summoned a vrock. That means a party of 4 level 6s (our familiar and animal companion were on guard outside) were up against a level 7 caster, CR 8 and CR 9 demon. I managed to convince the succubus it was in its favor to work with us against its master and kept it from entering the fight, and the vrock was disabled by use of Shatter to collapse the ceiling above it, pinning it for most of the fight while the rest of us dealt with the caster. It ended with a fireball to my pyrophobic character's face, but that's unimportant.
At the back of that room was a row of 7 different colored vats of alchemical liquid. Using a combination of my alchemical knowledge and the sociopathic/eat any and everything Druid's trial and error, we quickly found out that the green potion was Heal, blue was a sort of barrier, indigo was lightning breath, and purple was something that I knew was bad and that completely devoured the glass vial that I tried to get a sample with. Orange and Yellow completely eluded my understanding thanks to poor rolls. And then Red.
Red, I was told, was a "double-edged sword" in the sense that I knew it was potentially helpful and harmful. Wanting to know what it does, I suggested to the druid that it was safe, and he naturally drank it, (We had his player on phone) and he ended up losing 2 int. Permanently. He drank from it again, this time with a more visable effect. A Titan Maul (giant stick that works as a +3 Greatclub and deals 3x damage to inanimate objects) appeared in his hand and he gained 50,000 xp (well, in reality he gained just enough to be 1 xp from level 8). Due to back story plot, I recognized the effect and was able to figure out that the Red potion was a Potion of Many Things. I informed the group of this, and here are the results:
C elected to not test his luck further, and DMPC knew it was dangerous and withheld from drinking.
E had been planning to kill off his character anyway, and was in fact plotted to die during the upcoming battle, so he decided he'd drink until something killed him.
I thought about it for a while, torn between sanity and knowledge of the power that it could give me (my character's master was a character from a previous campaign which had a character that gained an absurdly powerful weapon from the deck, and I knew the story in character), and decided to take a drink too.
E's result was that he gained the deed to a small keep.
I was immediately stripped naked and lost all non-magical posessions, and while I wasn't aware of this in character, was terrified OOC due to the fact that I'd spent most of the level brewing Liquid Night potions in preparation of when the Sun stops causing migraines and starts making me die. As it was, I held onto my mechanical arm, essentially a graft but purely asthetic, my family sword, and my bag of holding. My armor was mithral full-plate and non-magical.
E drank again, as did I though in more of a "I need booze and this is good enough" way.
E's soul was ripped from his body and locked away by the most powerful in universe evil entity. I got an alignment change to Neutral Good (inadvertently curing my pyrophobia).
With my now good alignment, I decided to "help" E and try to force feed him the potion until the same effect happened in the hopes that it would "imprison" his soul back into his body from its current location, and drank again because what the hell.
E got Imprisoned, locking his body somewhere near the core of his planet, pretty much guranteeing that he'll never be revived, ever, and I got a Cloak of the Bat and, like C, just enough xp to be 1 away from level 8.
In a futile attempt to try to make up for the loss of the majority of my supplies, I drank one last time, this time joined by the DMPC.
Both of us gained a Major Magic Weapon. We rolled for both of them, though mine later got changed by DM fiat and player being very happy about it.
DMPC's roll: A +6 Vorpal Scythe of Mighty Cleaving
Mine: +2 Holy Disruptive Nunchaku.
We all decided that giving the currently nude, Good, soon to be vampire holy disruptive nunchucks was just too much, and he had me roll for another weapon.
My replacement weapon: +5 Keen Brilliant Energy Longsword
We ended the session after that due to time constraints, but we're going to try to pick up tomorrow, after some of us rethink our characters.
Anyone else have any stories of how the Deck broke (or made awesome) other campaigns? We may be horribly overpowered now, and with the only casualty being a character that was about to be killed off, but at the very least, the day was hilarious.