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Session 4
July 13, 2008
Okay, so our last session ended off with our intrepid heroes (all seven of them) had just finished fighting a gaggle of goblins in the Mines of Pain. The platform and scaffolding cleared, they searched the corpses and tried to see how deep the hollow went below them.... Evan cast light on a stone and dropped it, where it fell until they could no longer see it and now sound of impact was heard. So, it's deep. Very deep. Then they chose one of the doors (that were on opposite sides of the cavernous void). Inside they found some tunnels that looked like they were mined, swerving this way and that following the viens of iron in the rock. Gumba, using his Dwarven knowledge of things earthy, surmised that these viens of iron ore were in fact of a high quality type of iron often sought after in the creation of masterwork and magical items. Expensive stuff. At this the party briefly discussed whether the goblins had that kind of ability, to craft masterwork and magic items. Intriguing.....
Continuing on down the tunnels they find the slave pen. A battle ensues and while it is not exactly easy, it is far from difficult for our PCs. There was a dire rat and this time... not so scary or tough. This might be because they focused almost immediately on it and it couldn't stand against all the attacks they leveled on it. After pounding the goblin jailers in to goo, the PCs released the prisoners. Here they found Finnley, who was seriously wounded, and about a dozen other poor souls who the goblins had captured. Heal checks were done to administer first aid (this we did to allow them the help the people out) and Ugnar used his healing word power to help Finnley up to his feet. They rested themselves for about five minutes (a short rest to get themselves up to speed with hp and renew ye ole encounter powers) and then set off again. Oh, they told the newly freed slaves to stay there and wait for them to return to lead them out to safety.
The Mines are not too big so the PCs found that the other door in the big void with the scaffolding, was the only other way to go. Through this one, they found more mined out tunnels, these having been excavated before the other ones. After a while, they find the tunnel turns and they find a door. No sounds can be heard beyond and Saurros enters to see what's up. No surprise round or anything, we roll initiative and get to it. Why? Well, because this room has a bunch of goblins standing right there on the platform. Yes, another platform. This room is another large void in the earth (though nowhere nearly as big as the other one) and there is more scaffolding set up. Only a couple of levels are here, and below it the cavern is filled with murky water. The goblin guards engage the PCs, while on another platform is Barrabas the Goblin King! He has with him three Orcs (one 'representative' and his two minions) and two mechanical dogs.
Things got off to a quick start with the PCs moving in and the goblins engaging them immediately. Saurros took up a position to rain arrows on the enemy, while Auronn cursed and misty stepped his way into the fray. Gumba, Ziggy and Marinn charged in and held the line, while Evan cast spells from the doorway. Tactically sound process and it worked pretty well. The fire beetle proved to be fairly ineffective, the minions dropped quickly, and the Orcs put up a good fight. The drudges, being only minions went down fast (1 hp will do that to you) but they got a couple of hits in first. Meanwhile the Orc representative (an Orc Raider) proved to be a tough customer, though certainly not overly so. The Hexer tried some blinding hexes (only affecting Evan briefly, missing with the other ones on Gumba and Auronn) and his most valuable contribution was the vexing cloud to give his peeps cover while also invoking a minus 2 penalty to the fighters' attack rolls. The real tough part of the encounter seemed to be Barrabas the Goblin King (and his two Iron Defenders, a gift from Azgarrott the Fire Titan...). They started out referrring to him as the Goblin Cheif and Goblin Lieutenant, but he caused them enough grief that after about 3 rounds they were calling him the Goblin King and really looking to put an end to him as soon as possible. One way in which he earned some respect was through the use of one of the treasure parcels allotted to the fight. Rolling it into Barrabas's story, he weilded a Dwarven short sword (+1 with the lightning ability). So when he hit Gumba with that and bolts of electricity shot off the Dwarf to hit nearly the entire party -most of the action took place in a thick knot of clashing steel and falling foes- the players were not only impressed, but a bit concerned that this was going to happen again. Fortunately for them, it was only a daily power. Of course the defenders have a nice ability that allow them an attack on someone who attacks who they are guarding, so with the right positioning they were really causing the party some problems. Even better, as a Goblin Underboss Barrabas gets a defense boost when bloodied and well, when that kicked in and they were missing him AND gettting attacked for it, I think the PCs felt the pressure.
Overall, the party was triumphant, and killed Barrabas. With the final blow, he dropped his short sword and staggered backwards off the platform and into the water below. Thus died Barrabas the Goblin King........ The Iron Defenders were pounded into shutting down, ironically, they lasted longer than the person they were guarding, but not that much longer. All in all, it was a long battle going roughly ten rounds! Not bad. I think if we had one that long in 3.5 it would have been beyond tedious and certainly nowhere near as fun. Quick looting revealed some more treasure and the PCs collected the newly freed slaves and headed home.
Good Things
Meh Things (and basically, these are all my fault)
NEW STORY ARC - The Aftermath of the Mines of Pain...
ok, so i (xmanowarx) took the DM reins so that Rauthik could play for a bit and not always be the DM. i asked that the party be brought down to 4 members, as i felt that 7 was overkill...plus i like to role play a bit and i felt that controlling 2+ characters was a bit much. so, i told them to decide who was going to be on the adventure and they made the party as such:
Evan - Human Wizard (dumdragon)
Ziggy - Dragonborn Fighter (non registered wetpaint user)
Saurros - Elf Ranger (Draxthis)
Aekos - Tiefling Rogue (Rauthik)
ok, so as you can see there is no leader in the party. that proved to a problem right off the bat...but first things first. the adventure started about a week or so after the party had returned from the Mines of Pain with the rest of the captured caravan members, including Finnley. the people of Greenvale were excited and the whole town was buzzing with the story. right after the party returned with the first batch of rescued caravan members and went hunting for the the Mines, Aekos the Tiefling Rogue arrived in town. He had never actually been in a town that was not a pirate haven, so this dose of civilization was new to him. he took a room at the Drowsy Arbor and right away began hearing all about the captured caravan and the local heroes that went in search of the goblins who reportedly did it. Upon the heroes triumphant return to town, he met with a few of them and bought them a round of drinks in the Drowsy Arbor to congratulate them on a job well done.
Some members of the party (Auronn, Ugnar, Gumba, and Marrin) went back to the Mines to scout the area, kill or capture any goblins stragglers, and possibly set the mines up for either excavation or use as a headquarters. This left the 4 PC's who will make up the party for this leg of the adventure in Greenvale.
Dillingham came to the adventurers and told them that the Exalted Warden was planning on having a party to celebrate the heroes of Greenvale and the safe return of most of the caravan. the celebration was to be held at the Drowsy Arbor and most of the town was planning on turning up.
sure enough, there was a celebration at the Arbor. Evan, Ziggy, and Saurros were the only heroes still in town, so they were honored with medals. the Exalted Warden gave a stirring speech about how the town was blessed to have such hardy folk ready to defend it and how the people were very grateful and indebted to the heroes. anyway, the celebration eventually dwindled down to the heroes, Grindol the innkeeper, Aekos, and a few diehards drinking into the wee hours of the night. at one point, two very attractive women made their way of to Aekos and began coming on to him...mostly as a way to meet Ziggy, Evan and Saurros. Ziggy tripped all over himself tryingto talk to them, and Saurros was clearly not interested. that left Evan and Aekos to whisk the buxom lasses off their feet...until they noticed an elf and a human sitting in the corner giving them some evil looks.
just as this was occurring, Saurros saw a halfling lift Evan's money pouch (unbeknownst to Evan) and make for the door. Ziggy caught (literally) another halfling with his hand on his purse...and then the fun began. Ziggy came out swinging with his warhammer while everyone else moved around the room trying to get an angle on the halflings (and get around the few innocent townspeople still drinking)...the elf and human in the corner dropped their traveling cloaks and revealed that they were armed (one with a battle axe and the other with a longsword/shortsword combo) and charged into the fray. the PC's were pinned down by difficult terrain (tables and chairs), and were a little surprised when the two women they had just been courting jumped into it also, one swinging a club and the other a bottle of whiskey. the elf took down Ziggy (but not before he loosed a dragon breath) and the human went to work on Aekos...Saurros started sending arrows all over the common room while Evan brought his flaming sphere online and sent it all over the place. at one point a female patron took a whiskey bottle intended for Evan to the face and went down like a bag of hammers. Aekos was quickly spending his second wind as he ate a critical hit fromthe great axe. one of the buxom lasses was lit on fire by the flaming sphere, and crashed into a table starting a fire. Evan and Saurros managed to take down the elf and one of the halflings and both women, while Aekos held on for dear life against the human and the other halfling...Aekos took down the halfling and then backed out the door as everyone else concentrated fire on the human and took him down.
as the fight was nearing it's height the PC's heard a bell clanging from Greenvale (which is about a half mile from the Drowsy Arbor) and Evan realized it was the siege alarm. However, there was the small problem of Ziggy bleeding to death. everyone tried making heal checks and failed miserably, and it looked as if Zig was going down for the count until Grindol jumped out from behind the bar and managed to stop the bleeding. The heroes now turned their attention to Greenvale...
and we stopped the session. not having a leader sucks.
THE CRUNCH:
HIRED MERCS IN THE DROWSY ARBOR:
1 human berserker
1 elf scout
2 human rabble
2 halfling thieves
Players present:*
- Auronn - Half Elf Warlock (played by xmanowarx)
- Ugnar - Minotaur Cleric of Kord/Pelor (also played by xmanowarx)
- Gumba - Dwarf Fighter (played by dumdragon)
- Evan - Human Wizard (also played by dumdragon)
- Saurros - Elven Ranger (played by Draxthis)
- Marinn - Dragonborn Warlord (also played by Draxthis)
- Ziggy - Dragonborn Fighters (played by Draxthis' brother)
*This session marks the end of our first story arc where I was the DM. It also marks the start of our second story arc where I get to be a PC and xManowarx is the DM (that his user name on this site, not his real name).
Okay, so our last session ended off with our intrepid heroes (all seven of them) had just finished fighting a gaggle of goblins in the Mines of Pain. The platform and scaffolding cleared, they searched the corpses and tried to see how deep the hollow went below them.... Evan cast light on a stone and dropped it, where it fell until they could no longer see it and now sound of impact was heard. So, it's deep. Very deep. Then they chose one of the doors (that were on opposite sides of the cavernous void). Inside they found some tunnels that looked like they were mined, swerving this way and that following the viens of iron in the rock. Gumba, using his Dwarven knowledge of things earthy, surmised that these viens of iron ore were in fact of a high quality type of iron often sought after in the creation of masterwork and magical items. Expensive stuff. At this the party briefly discussed whether the goblins had that kind of ability, to craft masterwork and magic items. Intriguing.....
Continuing on down the tunnels they find the slave pen. A battle ensues and while it is not exactly easy, it is far from difficult for our PCs. There was a dire rat and this time... not so scary or tough. This might be because they focused almost immediately on it and it couldn't stand against all the attacks they leveled on it. After pounding the goblin jailers in to goo, the PCs released the prisoners. Here they found Finnley, who was seriously wounded, and about a dozen other poor souls who the goblins had captured. Heal checks were done to administer first aid (this we did to allow them the help the people out) and Ugnar used his healing word power to help Finnley up to his feet. They rested themselves for about five minutes (a short rest to get themselves up to speed with hp and renew ye ole encounter powers) and then set off again. Oh, they told the newly freed slaves to stay there and wait for them to return to lead them out to safety.
The Mines are not too big so the PCs found that the other door in the big void with the scaffolding, was the only other way to go. Through this one, they found more mined out tunnels, these having been excavated before the other ones. After a while, they find the tunnel turns and they find a door. No sounds can be heard beyond and Saurros enters to see what's up. No surprise round or anything, we roll initiative and get to it. Why? Well, because this room has a bunch of goblins standing right there on the platform. Yes, another platform. This room is another large void in the earth (though nowhere nearly as big as the other one) and there is more scaffolding set up. Only a couple of levels are here, and below it the cavern is filled with murky water. The goblin guards engage the PCs, while on another platform is Barrabas the Goblin King! He has with him three Orcs (one 'representative' and his two minions) and two mechanical dogs.
Things got off to a quick start with the PCs moving in and the goblins engaging them immediately. Saurros took up a position to rain arrows on the enemy, while Auronn cursed and misty stepped his way into the fray. Gumba, Ziggy and Marinn charged in and held the line, while Evan cast spells from the doorway. Tactically sound process and it worked pretty well. The fire beetle proved to be fairly ineffective, the minions dropped quickly, and the Orcs put up a good fight. The drudges, being only minions went down fast (1 hp will do that to you) but they got a couple of hits in first. Meanwhile the Orc representative (an Orc Raider) proved to be a tough customer, though certainly not overly so. The Hexer tried some blinding hexes (only affecting Evan briefly, missing with the other ones on Gumba and Auronn) and his most valuable contribution was the vexing cloud to give his peeps cover while also invoking a minus 2 penalty to the fighters' attack rolls. The real tough part of the encounter seemed to be Barrabas the Goblin King (and his two Iron Defenders, a gift from Azgarrott the Fire Titan...). They started out referrring to him as the Goblin Cheif and Goblin Lieutenant, but he caused them enough grief that after about 3 rounds they were calling him the Goblin King and really looking to put an end to him as soon as possible. One way in which he earned some respect was through the use of one of the treasure parcels allotted to the fight. Rolling it into Barrabas's story, he weilded a Dwarven short sword (+1 with the lightning ability). So when he hit Gumba with that and bolts of electricity shot off the Dwarf to hit nearly the entire party -most of the action took place in a thick knot of clashing steel and falling foes- the players were not only impressed, but a bit concerned that this was going to happen again. Fortunately for them, it was only a daily power. Of course the defenders have a nice ability that allow them an attack on someone who attacks who they are guarding, so with the right positioning they were really causing the party some problems. Even better, as a Goblin Underboss Barrabas gets a defense boost when bloodied and well, when that kicked in and they were missing him AND gettting attacked for it, I think the PCs felt the pressure.
Overall, the party was triumphant, and killed Barrabas. With the final blow, he dropped his short sword and staggered backwards off the platform and into the water below. Thus died Barrabas the Goblin King........ The Iron Defenders were pounded into shutting down, ironically, they lasted longer than the person they were guarding, but not that much longer. All in all, it was a long battle going roughly ten rounds! Not bad. I think if we had one that long in 3.5 it would have been beyond tedious and certainly nowhere near as fun. Quick looting revealed some more treasure and the PCs collected the newly freed slaves and headed home.
Good Things
- Again, multi-level terrain. Okay, so yeah, the battle stayed only on the one platform, but seriously, it's just cool to have out on the table. And it gave a space for Barrabas to fall after being dropped by the players.
- Once again... combat is fast and fun. A nearly 10 round battle was enjoyable all the way through and didn't get tedious. There was constantly new things to be done and different ways one can affect the battle field (what with all the shifting that happens when people hit, don't hit, drop enemies, etc.). Wonderful stuff.
- Okay, this one is tooting my own horn, but it's not an ego thing (see below)... The adventure/story line. The players had a great time, as did I, and that's what counts. One player even told me during the week that I did a great job. Nice.
- The Monster Manual. As pointed out to me in a message from Bishopkoko: The MM is set up so nicely that you can't help but look like a good DM. The variations on the monsters are great and really make DMing easier. Used to be you had to add class levels and reasons why one particular goblin is tougher than his buddies or had a special ability (and "just to make you guys miserable" is not the excuse your players are looking for). Now, I just say "this one is some sort of shaman" (Hexer and the powers are built in with out trying to work class levels) and "these two are jacked for goblins and look wild and crazy" (skullcleavers with out having to add barbarian class levels and figuring out raging/non raging stats). And the players accept and love it. I mean, I know this stuff wasn't impossible before, but seriously you can now flip to a monster and have all the variation you need in seconds and it adds more depth to the fight than just goblins. Think about it. When was the last time you played four sessions and fought basically only goblins and had a good time? Exactly. I just proved it is now possible.
Meh Things (and basically, these are all my fault)
- Skill challenges.... cause I didn't use them. I'm sure they are great, but I suck as a DM cause I didn't use any. So, I robbed my players of some fun (and they still liked the adventure...don't know if that speaks good of me or bad of them....). My next run will have to have skill challenges. Looking back there were spots where I could have added them but fell back on thinking from previous editions and didn't take the plunge. My fault on this.
- Flavor.... or lack there of. Okay, each class has flavor text, just a line or two, with each power. USE IT. With out the flavor text combat can get a little mechanical, but the powers are so well crafted that you almost can't help but to use some flavor to describe the results. My advice to anyone reading this? Use the flavor as a baseline for redescribing what takes place, even if you feel like you are repeating yourself every other round. Also, use the PC power flavor text to create some for the monster powers. I kind of let this slide a lot after the first session and I realize that I (once again) robbed my players of some of the fun that is to be had. Again, my bad and I'll just have to try harder in the future.
4e Crunch
Slave Pens2 Skullcleavers, 2 sharpshooters, 6 cutters, 1 dire rat. Total XP = 800 (125 per PC)Barrabas
1 Goblin Underboss (Barrabas) with a magic shortsword 2 Iron Defenders 1 Dire Rat 1 Orc Raider 2 Orc Drudges 1 Goblin Hexer 6 Goblin Cutters 1 Goblin Skullcleaver (did I forget to mention that he came in behind Evan cause I'm mean like that? I think so..) Total XP = 1438 (205 per PC)So, with that I (finally) conclude my session report and hand over the DMing to XManowarX. I learned a lot and really had a good time. However, now I get to be a player for a little while, whilst I plan my next adventure.
NEW STORY ARC - The Aftermath of the Mines of Pain...
ok, so i (xmanowarx) took the DM reins so that Rauthik could play for a bit and not always be the DM. i asked that the party be brought down to 4 members, as i felt that 7 was overkill...plus i like to role play a bit and i felt that controlling 2+ characters was a bit much. so, i told them to decide who was going to be on the adventure and they made the party as such:
Evan - Human Wizard (dumdragon)
Ziggy - Dragonborn Fighter (non registered wetpaint user)
Saurros - Elf Ranger (Draxthis)
Aekos - Tiefling Rogue (Rauthik)
ok, so as you can see there is no leader in the party. that proved to a problem right off the bat...but first things first. the adventure started about a week or so after the party had returned from the Mines of Pain with the rest of the captured caravan members, including Finnley. the people of Greenvale were excited and the whole town was buzzing with the story. right after the party returned with the first batch of rescued caravan members and went hunting for the the Mines, Aekos the Tiefling Rogue arrived in town. He had never actually been in a town that was not a pirate haven, so this dose of civilization was new to him. he took a room at the Drowsy Arbor and right away began hearing all about the captured caravan and the local heroes that went in search of the goblins who reportedly did it. Upon the heroes triumphant return to town, he met with a few of them and bought them a round of drinks in the Drowsy Arbor to congratulate them on a job well done.
Some members of the party (Auronn, Ugnar, Gumba, and Marrin) went back to the Mines to scout the area, kill or capture any goblins stragglers, and possibly set the mines up for either excavation or use as a headquarters. This left the 4 PC's who will make up the party for this leg of the adventure in Greenvale.
Dillingham came to the adventurers and told them that the Exalted Warden was planning on having a party to celebrate the heroes of Greenvale and the safe return of most of the caravan. the celebration was to be held at the Drowsy Arbor and most of the town was planning on turning up.
sure enough, there was a celebration at the Arbor. Evan, Ziggy, and Saurros were the only heroes still in town, so they were honored with medals. the Exalted Warden gave a stirring speech about how the town was blessed to have such hardy folk ready to defend it and how the people were very grateful and indebted to the heroes. anyway, the celebration eventually dwindled down to the heroes, Grindol the innkeeper, Aekos, and a few diehards drinking into the wee hours of the night. at one point, two very attractive women made their way of to Aekos and began coming on to him...mostly as a way to meet Ziggy, Evan and Saurros. Ziggy tripped all over himself tryingto talk to them, and Saurros was clearly not interested. that left Evan and Aekos to whisk the buxom lasses off their feet...until they noticed an elf and a human sitting in the corner giving them some evil looks.
just as this was occurring, Saurros saw a halfling lift Evan's money pouch (unbeknownst to Evan) and make for the door. Ziggy caught (literally) another halfling with his hand on his purse...and then the fun began. Ziggy came out swinging with his warhammer while everyone else moved around the room trying to get an angle on the halflings (and get around the few innocent townspeople still drinking)...the elf and human in the corner dropped their traveling cloaks and revealed that they were armed (one with a battle axe and the other with a longsword/shortsword combo) and charged into the fray. the PC's were pinned down by difficult terrain (tables and chairs), and were a little surprised when the two women they had just been courting jumped into it also, one swinging a club and the other a bottle of whiskey. the elf took down Ziggy (but not before he loosed a dragon breath) and the human went to work on Aekos...Saurros started sending arrows all over the common room while Evan brought his flaming sphere online and sent it all over the place. at one point a female patron took a whiskey bottle intended for Evan to the face and went down like a bag of hammers. Aekos was quickly spending his second wind as he ate a critical hit fromthe great axe. one of the buxom lasses was lit on fire by the flaming sphere, and crashed into a table starting a fire. Evan and Saurros managed to take down the elf and one of the halflings and both women, while Aekos held on for dear life against the human and the other halfling...Aekos took down the halfling and then backed out the door as everyone else concentrated fire on the human and took him down.
as the fight was nearing it's height the PC's heard a bell clanging from Greenvale (which is about a half mile from the Drowsy Arbor) and Evan realized it was the siege alarm. However, there was the small problem of Ziggy bleeding to death. everyone tried making heal checks and failed miserably, and it looked as if Zig was going down for the count until Grindol jumped out from behind the bar and managed to stop the bleeding. The heroes now turned their attention to Greenvale...
and we stopped the session. not having a leader sucks.
THE CRUNCH:
HIRED MERCS IN THE DROWSY ARBOR:
1 human berserker
1 elf scout
2 human rabble
2 halfling thieves
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