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SleepyShadow
2013-06-16, 09:58 AM
As a long time DM, I practically jumped at the chance when one of my players offered to run a campaign of his own. Since this is such a rare occasion, I've decided to chronicle our adventures, and hopefully provide some entertainment to any readers as well.

The Party
Richard Grammaton - Strongheart Halfling Feat Rogue 4/Fighter 1 (This is me). He dual-wields hand crossbows and occasionally makes unarmed strikes when caught in melee. Will master the art of Gun-Fu as soon as he can enchant his crossbows with Adaptive.
Gathrintak - Water Orc Barbarian 1/Bard 4. He's our only heavy hitter in melee, which may turn out to be a problem. Not surprisingly, he's a bit fragile.
Fayla - Elf Battle Sorcerer 4. The player's original character died to a random encounter on the road, and so now finds herself half a level behind.
Theadra - Shadow Template Elf Ninja 2/Wildshape Ranger 2. Professes to be an archer, and spends an inordinate amount of time hiding, even outside of combat.
Xhao Ling - Half-Nymph Human Healer 3. Typical combat pattern consists of Sanctuary, followed by healing Gathrintak.


Acid Tests and Fake Temples
The majority of our first session consisted of travel time and random encounters, one of which was a pack of Red Caps that slaughtered our wizard (who was replaced by Fayla). Our DM freely admitted he was feeling out our combat capabilities so as to adjust things later down the road.

After finally arriving in Cormyr from Baldur's Gate (and many jokes were made at Imoen's expense :smallamused: ) we finally had plot to solve! A rather distraught priest of Mystra came to us and asked us to investigate the strange temple in town. At first blush it seemed to be a temple dedicated to Mystra, but he was barred access and was chased off of the temple grounds. Naturally, we took up the job.

We headed out to investigate the temple, but we were stopped by a crying woman on the street. After managing to calm her down, she told us that her husband had been kidnapped out of their very own bookstore! We followed her back to the bookstore, and the place had indeed been tossed. After a careful investigation of the place, I found a pamphlet from the temple of Mystra, with handwritten notes indicating that the bookstore owner had been suspicious of the new temple as well, and had been conducting his own investigation into the matter.

"So what do you think happened?" Gathrintak asked, scratching his chin.

"It looks like he was taken to this fake temple," Richard replied with a sigh.

Fayla shook her head and frowned. "Things aren't looking too good for him."

"On the contrary, Fayla. There's a chance that he's still alive," Richard said as he pulled out his sunglasses, "and we are gonna find him."

YEEEEAAAAAAHH!!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YMPAH67f4o)

SleepyShadow
2013-06-21, 08:05 PM
Well ... this was the shortest campaign journal ever. We TPK'd in the second session.

Evil cleric spam summoned howlers, and the rest of the party attacked the summons. Hence, we got torn to pieces.

I am not amused :smallmad:

Amidus Drexel
2013-06-21, 08:08 PM
Well ... this was the shortest campaign journal ever. We TPK'd in the second session.

Evil cleric spam summoned howlers, and the rest of the party attacked the summons. Hence, we got torn to pieces.

I am not amused :smallmad:

Well that sucks. This looked interesting. :\

SleepyShadow
2013-06-21, 10:37 PM
I'll likely start up a campaign journal for the new campaign, assuming of course that we make it past the third session.

TheDarkSaint
2013-06-22, 02:20 PM
Wow....that was a party full of flavor and fail at the same time.

When I DM a group that looks as unoptimized as that one, I have to totally take the gauntlets off and reengineer all of my encounters. I won't need kids gloves, but I'm not really surprised you hit a TPK so soon.

However, it offers ENDLESS possibilities for roleplay. Kinda wish I was in that group.

SleepyShadow
2013-06-23, 10:24 AM
Wow....that was a party full of flavor and fail at the same time.

When I DM a group that looks as unoptimized as that one, I have to totally take the gauntlets off and reengineer all of my encounters. I won't need kids gloves, but I'm not really surprised you hit a TPK so soon.

However, it offers ENDLESS possibilities for roleplay. Kinda wish I was in that group.

A lot of our trouble just came from a group-wide derp moment.

We had slogged our way through the first level of the temple, and 90% of the second level, without stopping to rest. With bull's strength (courtesy of Fayla), Gathrintak had a 26 strength *without* raging, so what few things survived round one rarely were able to do more damage than what a single Cure Minor Wounds from Xhao could handle. Between her and Gathrintak's own healing, we were all rocking at practically full hp for the entire trek.

However, due to this long attrition on our resources, all three casters were out of spells and we didn't even notice.

Our second fatal error occurred in the final battle itself. We were facing down an evil priestess, two armed and armored zombies, and three critters I can only describe as Displacer Snakes. Same built-in miss chance as a displacer beast, but without the damage output.

So our downfall accrued somewhat like this: Theadra's player had to leave early, so we were down a member. Gathrintak only managed to hit once the entire fight due to bad dice rolls, and that was on a zombie. Miss chance on the snakes really hated Fayla. We were all dumb and didn't even start attacking the priestess until after she had summoned two Howlers and gotten Bless, and Divine Power going on herself.

So I suppose this is just one more example of a Tier One caster crushing a party of Tier 3 or lower.

Oh, and I hate howlers :smallannoyed: