Temporal
2012-09-18, 04:21 PM
Hello again Playground. You might remember me from this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=241018) where I complained my party Rogue was the odd man out both in terms of effectiveness and in terms of enjoying the campaign.
Well I took the advice given by several posters in that thread and then continued the campaign... and that problem worked itself out. Read on to learn how.
Our adventure begins with the intrepid PCs in search of a large underground library, said to contain all manner of mundane and magical knowledge. However it was hidden somewhere in a massive dungeon complex and as I have ruled that Scrying is stopped by the same things Detect spells are anything underground is safe from the "Scry and Fry" tactic. If you are wondering, this was the Wizard player's idea, not mine.
The place seemed entirely deserted. 1 hour later and not a single thing on either side of the screen had taken any damage. No monsters, no traps... this made the kobold rogue impatient, and made him insist that the party split up to speed up the process or at least let him go ahead. The party was naturally opposed to anything that involved him wandering off on his own but after much insistence the party let him go, seemingly just to shut him up.
So kobold Rogue wanders off one way, Fighter, Beguiler, Wizard, and Druid the other... they try not to go too far away from him, but at the same time not so close that he realizes his group doesn't trust him going off alone... as if the 15 minute argument didn't get that point across... :smallsigh:
As you've probably gathered, this place is not actually deserted. It just seems that way because it's only almost deserted and when you put only a few creatures in a very large space you can go a while without seeing signs of life (present company excluded).
This soon changed when the Rogue noticed the dust seemed to abruptly stop, and a particular section of the corridors and caverns seemed extraordinarily well kept. There are many things he could have done at this point, such as go and find the others, using sound to relocate each other, wait there... he pressed on. This was mistake one.
One of those things was a rather... unusual sage. He had already found the library and was using it to bolster his already immense knowledge about... nearly everything. He was also a literal incarnation of evil, who acquired both his knowledge and his power by stealing it from his victims, even going so far as to steal their very souls...
And, according to him, there was a sapient mind approaching his knowledge base.
Shortly thereafter, the diminutive wanderer had an exceptionally deadly stalker. Turns out that while invisible, the kobold simply could not notice that over a quarter ton of fury, wrath, and death was shadowing his footsteps.
For his part, the creature seemed very amused by the kobold's antics, and while he had taken the right turns several times in a row to get that close he ended up wandering off on some wrong path and going further away from the library.
After several minutes of this, in which I gave the player plenty of time to satisfy their wanderlust and get back to the group and gave the character plenty of time to detect that he wasn't alone neither of those things happened.
And so the invisibility, and the relative silence broke with a word. It sounded something like...
"Gdfklsdf'gkaiwiw'fjksjkskffnfhprpr!"
And was shortly followed by another.
"Alwmkrktrkip'dfkfkfkf'sss'fkdfkoeieomggkdsk!"
And so our pint sized protagonist found himself stuck to the floor, unable to lift a leg while an unnatural fire slowly burned away at him. Even with his poor HP total, 2d6 damage a round was not going to kill him any time soon.
Had he yelled for help, made lots of noise, did anything really the party would likely be able to get to him. What did he do? Turned, saw the vaguely lupine shadow demon thing phasing in and out of reality behind him and... fired his non magical crossbow at it.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_fadsoOeU83s/TCFP8lnCk0I/AAAAAAAADHg/zzUln0w72Vw/s1600/headdesk.jpg
At that point his attacker just sat down and watched, not even bothering to attack again. Since Reversed Inertial Surge only lasts one round, or two with Extend he kept that up but otherwise seemed content for a meal of slow roasted Kobold.
The Rogue had four more chances to do something smart... and fired off some more crossbow bolts instead. So what can you do? Kobold loses consciousness, fires keep burning (as the Reversed Energy Negation was also Extended) and the kobold soon dies and subsequently has his soul eaten.
Back to the rest of the party... they searched around a bit longer before also finding the better maintained area, and unlike their fallen friend realized what it might mean.
At this point the Wizard cast Locate Object to find "bookshelves". Good way to tell if any are anywhere within 800 feet... and there was!
A short while later the Beguiler suddenly stopped. He detected the demon... at the same time it detected him. This gave the group a little time to prepare, but only a little.
No one thought much of it at first. The exchange went something like this (flavor text largely removed):
Wizard: "Pfft, a Greater Barghest. No problem."
Fighter: "I charge it like a woman on a shopping spree! I hit AC 33 for 45, now for the Dungeoncrash..."
Everyone else seemed content to sit back and let him one shot it while cheering him on.
DM: You miss.
Everyone: ...
Everyone: Wait, what?
DM: Miss.
Jeff (beguiler player): Because of the Blink, right?
DM: No.
Players: ...
Wizard: Tough cookie huh? Defend against this! I cast Glitterdust.
DM: Saves.
What followed was a rather long and epic fight. The Greater Barghest Truenamer absolutely refused to be pinned down and was hard to hit to begin with, and the party broke out all the stops to corner this creature that ran around, up, over, and through the floor, walls, and ceiling, all while dodging attacks and projectiles like an Agent, harassing the party all the while by disabling their ability to move, fly, or see and maneuver while in turn having a number of answers to the same being done to him.
Even the Rogue player, who wasn't even taking part in this battle and who was notorious for zoning out whenever anything that did not directly concern his character paid rapt attention the entire time and for once, everyone was a big happy group, united in their desire to slay evil and look cool doing it.
10 rounds and many close calls, telepathically orchestrated plans by the Beguiler, and a few good wall slams and their attacker had had enough and decided to abandon his library and Dimension Door himself on out of there.
Even though they didn't kill it, I don't think I've ever seen a happier gaming group. It was not to last though as eventually it occurred to the Rogue player to ask the question that really shouldn't be said...
"So... what happens to my guy?"
After a round of sighs all around, I explained to him that since his soul was eaten being brought back again was completely impossible, and so he'd have to make a new character.
He of course got very upset, but I stuck to my guns. He eventually stormed out in a huff.
I figured that was the end of it, and while it wasn't the best end at least my other four players are enjoying themselves.
The next day I get a call... from the Rogue player. He had thought about it, realized he really wanted fights to be awesome like that one was and really wanted to take part in those fights. And somehow... possibly through one or more of my other players talking to him he had changed his mind and realized that to have that, where there's plenty of awesome on both sides he needs to start with his own character and try a lot harder to make and play a good one.
And so next week he came to our table with an illusion based Cleric but with a broad array of other abilities and... He hasn't complained at all. Neither has anyone else. In fact the game couldn't be better.
TL;DR: Rogue player with a reputation for doing dumb things does even more dumb things and is finally killed off for good, loses his temper, but level headed prevail and the day is saved by... Truenamers?
Well I took the advice given by several posters in that thread and then continued the campaign... and that problem worked itself out. Read on to learn how.
Our adventure begins with the intrepid PCs in search of a large underground library, said to contain all manner of mundane and magical knowledge. However it was hidden somewhere in a massive dungeon complex and as I have ruled that Scrying is stopped by the same things Detect spells are anything underground is safe from the "Scry and Fry" tactic. If you are wondering, this was the Wizard player's idea, not mine.
The place seemed entirely deserted. 1 hour later and not a single thing on either side of the screen had taken any damage. No monsters, no traps... this made the kobold rogue impatient, and made him insist that the party split up to speed up the process or at least let him go ahead. The party was naturally opposed to anything that involved him wandering off on his own but after much insistence the party let him go, seemingly just to shut him up.
So kobold Rogue wanders off one way, Fighter, Beguiler, Wizard, and Druid the other... they try not to go too far away from him, but at the same time not so close that he realizes his group doesn't trust him going off alone... as if the 15 minute argument didn't get that point across... :smallsigh:
As you've probably gathered, this place is not actually deserted. It just seems that way because it's only almost deserted and when you put only a few creatures in a very large space you can go a while without seeing signs of life (present company excluded).
This soon changed when the Rogue noticed the dust seemed to abruptly stop, and a particular section of the corridors and caverns seemed extraordinarily well kept. There are many things he could have done at this point, such as go and find the others, using sound to relocate each other, wait there... he pressed on. This was mistake one.
One of those things was a rather... unusual sage. He had already found the library and was using it to bolster his already immense knowledge about... nearly everything. He was also a literal incarnation of evil, who acquired both his knowledge and his power by stealing it from his victims, even going so far as to steal their very souls...
And, according to him, there was a sapient mind approaching his knowledge base.
Shortly thereafter, the diminutive wanderer had an exceptionally deadly stalker. Turns out that while invisible, the kobold simply could not notice that over a quarter ton of fury, wrath, and death was shadowing his footsteps.
For his part, the creature seemed very amused by the kobold's antics, and while he had taken the right turns several times in a row to get that close he ended up wandering off on some wrong path and going further away from the library.
After several minutes of this, in which I gave the player plenty of time to satisfy their wanderlust and get back to the group and gave the character plenty of time to detect that he wasn't alone neither of those things happened.
And so the invisibility, and the relative silence broke with a word. It sounded something like...
"Gdfklsdf'gkaiwiw'fjksjkskffnfhprpr!"
And was shortly followed by another.
"Alwmkrktrkip'dfkfkfkf'sss'fkdfkoeieomggkdsk!"
And so our pint sized protagonist found himself stuck to the floor, unable to lift a leg while an unnatural fire slowly burned away at him. Even with his poor HP total, 2d6 damage a round was not going to kill him any time soon.
Had he yelled for help, made lots of noise, did anything really the party would likely be able to get to him. What did he do? Turned, saw the vaguely lupine shadow demon thing phasing in and out of reality behind him and... fired his non magical crossbow at it.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_fadsoOeU83s/TCFP8lnCk0I/AAAAAAAADHg/zzUln0w72Vw/s1600/headdesk.jpg
At that point his attacker just sat down and watched, not even bothering to attack again. Since Reversed Inertial Surge only lasts one round, or two with Extend he kept that up but otherwise seemed content for a meal of slow roasted Kobold.
The Rogue had four more chances to do something smart... and fired off some more crossbow bolts instead. So what can you do? Kobold loses consciousness, fires keep burning (as the Reversed Energy Negation was also Extended) and the kobold soon dies and subsequently has his soul eaten.
Back to the rest of the party... they searched around a bit longer before also finding the better maintained area, and unlike their fallen friend realized what it might mean.
At this point the Wizard cast Locate Object to find "bookshelves". Good way to tell if any are anywhere within 800 feet... and there was!
A short while later the Beguiler suddenly stopped. He detected the demon... at the same time it detected him. This gave the group a little time to prepare, but only a little.
No one thought much of it at first. The exchange went something like this (flavor text largely removed):
Wizard: "Pfft, a Greater Barghest. No problem."
Fighter: "I charge it like a woman on a shopping spree! I hit AC 33 for 45, now for the Dungeoncrash..."
Everyone else seemed content to sit back and let him one shot it while cheering him on.
DM: You miss.
Everyone: ...
Everyone: Wait, what?
DM: Miss.
Jeff (beguiler player): Because of the Blink, right?
DM: No.
Players: ...
Wizard: Tough cookie huh? Defend against this! I cast Glitterdust.
DM: Saves.
What followed was a rather long and epic fight. The Greater Barghest Truenamer absolutely refused to be pinned down and was hard to hit to begin with, and the party broke out all the stops to corner this creature that ran around, up, over, and through the floor, walls, and ceiling, all while dodging attacks and projectiles like an Agent, harassing the party all the while by disabling their ability to move, fly, or see and maneuver while in turn having a number of answers to the same being done to him.
Even the Rogue player, who wasn't even taking part in this battle and who was notorious for zoning out whenever anything that did not directly concern his character paid rapt attention the entire time and for once, everyone was a big happy group, united in their desire to slay evil and look cool doing it.
10 rounds and many close calls, telepathically orchestrated plans by the Beguiler, and a few good wall slams and their attacker had had enough and decided to abandon his library and Dimension Door himself on out of there.
Even though they didn't kill it, I don't think I've ever seen a happier gaming group. It was not to last though as eventually it occurred to the Rogue player to ask the question that really shouldn't be said...
"So... what happens to my guy?"
After a round of sighs all around, I explained to him that since his soul was eaten being brought back again was completely impossible, and so he'd have to make a new character.
He of course got very upset, but I stuck to my guns. He eventually stormed out in a huff.
I figured that was the end of it, and while it wasn't the best end at least my other four players are enjoying themselves.
The next day I get a call... from the Rogue player. He had thought about it, realized he really wanted fights to be awesome like that one was and really wanted to take part in those fights. And somehow... possibly through one or more of my other players talking to him he had changed his mind and realized that to have that, where there's plenty of awesome on both sides he needs to start with his own character and try a lot harder to make and play a good one.
And so next week he came to our table with an illusion based Cleric but with a broad array of other abilities and... He hasn't complained at all. Neither has anyone else. In fact the game couldn't be better.
TL;DR: Rogue player with a reputation for doing dumb things does even more dumb things and is finally killed off for good, loses his temper, but level headed prevail and the day is saved by... Truenamers?