RobinJaleh's blog listings.

And the Battle Slogs On

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:29:58 -0500

Last Saturday, the Order of the Pillow continued fighting the elementals & titans in what appears to be the grand finale battle of this module. With these guys, though, there's no such thing as a "simple fight".

When they killed the earth titan, it turned into dust & grit, then streamed into a column toward the center of the board. Ceri, who was standing in the middle of this dirt-flow, managed to grab hold of some and put it into his pocket. A few ounces of powdered titan should be worth something, right? Yah - but how do you like that miniature titan you've got in your pocket? Hmm... could this be how baby titans are made? Given time, will it grow to full size - and how much time are we talking about? Hmmm.... ideas, ideas, ideas....

Our sorcerer, the dragonborn Fraith, thought that attacking the pillars holding the titanic life forces would be a good thing - so while almost everyone else was duking it out on one part of the board, she was casting spells at the architecture. Now, some folks might think this a waste of time and talent - but those folks haven't been adventuring with the Order of the Pillow - we KNOW that "Landscape & Architecture" is much more deadly than "Dungeons & Dragons". Besides, when she cracked open the icy white marble column, it started leaking a smoke like dry ice. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Yes, it let loose the titan inside, but it appears to have destroyed the column. Still not sure she was doing the right thing, Fraith set to work against the earthy, granite column.

There are, of course, many other moments of coolness, but I'll focus on other characters next time. We are, after all, still embroiled in battle.

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The Order of the Pillow Stashes Splug & Dives into the Elemental Chaos

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:26:33 -0500

Having defeated all enemies at our previous game session, our heroes took the time to loot the bodies of King Snarr & his companions, as well as searching the room in general for useful do-hickies. Khalir found an engraved stone, rather like a keyfob, and began playing with it. He could feel power moving through it, but there was no sign of what it was doing. Evanderous, the Cleric, investigated the various machines throughout the room, and declared them all to be simmilar in design to the Divine Engine, but too new and often incomplete. They also found a 5x5x5 box with an adamantine lock. Khalir, Trixie, and Ceri worked together to pick the box's lock - only barely jiggling it open. This was the first time a lock wasn't "merely stuck" in over a year! Splug was then stripped (Yuck! Attack vs. Will! Nude goblin!) and dressed in a potato sack with "Dobby" written accross the front. (Now where'd they get that?) Splug was then stuffed into the box with a (trademarked) pillow, locked up tight, and chucked into the Plot Hole Tavern. Thanks to an impressive intimidation check, Kazu installed the box in the tavern, dressed it with a table cloth and place settings for four, without any of the patrons complaining.

Splug delt with, our heroes turned to the next problem - the drow priestess who got away. She'd disapeared into the Elemental Chaos, and she had a Divine Engine, and (most importantly) she'd insulted Khalir. Kazu ripped a hole into the outer wall, giving the heroes a way to ride a Tensir's Floating Disk up to the roof, and the transportation circle, without dealing with the pesky elevators & the inhabitants they might still stumble accross. Just before leaving, Kazu further widened the hole to let the lava river into the room, destroying everything inside.

Up on the roof, Khalir's keyfob opened a doorway into the Elemental Chaos. Traveling through, they discovered two things: 1) Lolestra the Drow was there, & 2) they needed an extended rest. Khalir wanted to go after Lolestra right away, but everyone else overrode him. While he and Ceri played "keep away" with the keyfob, Trixie plucked it out of Khalir's hand. Not paying enough attension to which pocket she slipped it into, Kazu soon had it from the magical pouch that allowed him and Trixie to share a pocket. With all that passing around, someone pushed the rune and everyone was transported back to the fire giants' roof.

Having had an extended rest, the Order of the Pillow returned to the Elemental Chaos where Lolestra was just finishing a spell. Stone beasties began climbing up out of the land, but the Order didn't care - Lolestra must die. KO'd quickly, Lolestra woke up tied & barely had a chance to finish summoning a titan to help her before her critically low hit points encouraged her to play dead. Kazu wasn't fooled by her act, and once he continued stabbing a "dead" drow, Khalir fixed the knots on the bindings. The stone beasties continued to attack, but whenever they were pushed into the Elemental Sea, they had a hard time getting out before they melted.

...And that's where we left off - to be continued in two weeks.

I found that my bad guys weren't strong enough to give the heroes a proper challenge, so I'm going to level up the badguys. This is the final epic battle of this module, and I want it to be a challenge. I may bring several levels' worth of the badguys, leveling them up periodically (maybe on a critical hit?) until we find the right balance. I've discovered that my players seem to enjoy combats where I'm a bit afraid I'm going to TPK the party unfairly - and it can be hard to dance on that razor's edge between enough & too much.

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Splug Strikes Back! (Or Tries To)

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:54:54 -0500

My Saturday D&D group is fantastic. We've been playing in this one campaign since 2008, have had very little player (or character) turnover, and everyone seems to be having a great time. Since my latest pregnancy though, my games have dropped to twice/month and I've felt that we're starting to get a bit hum-drum. "Why are we here again?" Especially since we're at the top of Paragon tier, I felt that it was high time we started tieing up some of the loose ends we left dangling in previous modules. These loose ends are, for the most part, the badguys who got away.

The first to "escape" was Splug, who we encountered in Keep on the Shadowfell. This little goblin was sprung from jail by the heroes, got drafted into being the local guide, and quickly found himself "knowledgably" leading them into parts of the Keep that he himself had never ventured into. Attempting to rejoin his people, Splug tried to slip away when most of the heroes were fighting undead. Most of the heroes. Kazu hung back, feeling that the rest of the party had things well in hand, and so was in a position to see Splug inching toward the doorway. Kazu had never trusted Splug, "He's a GOBLIN! They're EVIL!" and no qualms over kidnapping Splug with a pillow, stuffing him into a footlocker in the neighboring room, and shoving that footlocker under a bed. Rejoining the rest of the party, he claimed that Splug had run off with the party funds, and what can you expect anyway - he's a goblin.

That was 1st level. Fast forward a couple of years to our current Paragon selves. While the heroes were dealing with places like the Thunderspire Labyrinth, Trollhaunt Warren, and the Revenge of the Giants, Splug got out and started plotting his revenge upon Kazu. Have you ever seen a level 22 goblin? Goblins just aren't supposed to live that long! This was so wrong on so many levels - but Splug's need for revenge (and my need for him to challenge Kazu - whose player knows the rules better than I do & can min-max in his sleep) has taken him to places he would never have reached on his own.

Splug burst in on the boss-fight in the fire giant section of Revenge of the Giants, spouting anti-Kazu retoric, and doing his level best to kill his nemesis. "Get back in the box!" "What box? I thought you said he ran off with our money?" "I'll get you - you son of a yellow bellied newt!" (Kazu is a dragonborn.) The secret out, and the battle winding down, Splug (barely alive) realizes that it's time to run away and go up a few more levels before fighting the good fight again. Kazu was to have none of that - with a move and a charge, he delt enough damage to kill the goblin, converting it into non-lethal damage at the last moment. Once again, Kazu is in search of a box. This time with an adamantine lock. He'll store Splug inside that box, in the Plothole Tavern (where all PCs go when their players are absent), with a troll sitting on the lid. How can I spring him from captivity with precautions like that? (Hmmm.... he's gotta eat sometime... maybe the troll takes a bathroom break at the wrong moment? I sence a game INSIDE the Plothole Tavern coming up!)

Feedback from the players was fantastic - they realy enjoyed themselves, and felt it was a fantastic looping in of story elements. Yes, a level 22 Goblin was wrong - but in a good way - it was priceless. Where to go next? Besides thwarting the rize of the Primordials in the last section of our current module? I seem to remember a tiefling whose brother we killed in the Labyrinth. What was his name? We left lots of stick-figure "Wanted" posters in our wake, so maybe it's time for him to turn back up - maybe at 24th level this time. Oooh - this'll be fun.

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Whoops! Missed that Again!

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:21:05 -0500

This post contains spoilers for Revenge of the Giants.

In preparation for last weeks resumption of our battle & campaign, I reread the encounter we were embroiled in & the encounters in areas I thought the group would be going next, and that's when I saw my first mistake. The week before, as you can see in my last blog, we spent a considerable amount of time being paranoid & waiting for the trap to spring. Well, in rereading things I discovered that they should've attact when they first saw the heroes. On the one hand, whoops, but on the other hand, most fights follow the "attack on sight" formula. A nice way to shake things up.

My next mistake was in the next encounter. As the heroes squared off against some big undead guys with threatening reach, I was fielding questions and thus missed when one of the heroes moved through my threat range. Since we hadn't even finished that player's turn, I could've rewound things and gotten my hit in... but I chose to just get 'em next time. Big mistake - the heroes had my two big badies served up on a platter before I could get many hits in. We'll finish the encounter quickly when we resume on Saturday.

Speaking of Saturday, this weekend will be our last one in the space we've been using since 2008. The Family Game Store is moving down the hall - to a larger space with our own game room. It is an exciting & stressful time, with my players earning extra XP for helping schlep things to the new space. Thing is... most of my players had already registered to do so before I offered the XP boon. That's just the sort of community we have here. I love it.

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Playing Landscape & Architecture

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:52:27 -0500

We've a running joke in our D&D group: Dungeons and Dragons aren't scary - it's the Landscape and Architecture you have to worry about! Yes, it's true - I can't roll worth spit when fielding a dragon, but my first near-TPK was with a random encounter plant found on the way home from Keep on the Shadowfell.

We're working our way through Revenge of the Giants ... (SPOILER ALERT) ... and this week we went back in time 600 years so we can loot ourselves some star metal. The set of rooms where players first appear, however, are empty - except for some statues that aren't supposed to react until a player triggered a trap. Our heroes wandered around the area, getting more and more nervous as I placed more and more statues onto the board. They were convinced that the rug (purely decorative) covered a pit trap, and that the statues would all animate and attack. To be fair, at this point there were 13 statues on the board - 4 on large bases. The dwarven barbarian started attacking statues, just in case.

It was the bodyguard, not the thief, that spotted the secret doors that lead to treasure, and the trap inside the room was easily spotted and avoided. Facing the possibility of the group never triggering the trap, I had a 15th level Exploding Scythejaw burst from the wall next to the guy who jumped accross the trapped area, and combat began. My scythejaw (thank you Monster Builder) was dragged accross the trap, taking all sorts of damage but still zapping a few heroes due to the trap's AOE. Our junior thief (who has trouble rolling well on thievery checks) took a good chunk of damage as various statues, traps & warforged chose him as a target. He had been the one to take the star metal, after all. It was a fun combat, which we will be resuming next week.

I had been worried about the lengthy delay before combat broke out, but the group's general paranoia over all things inanimate kept them engaged. I didn't even have to throw in columns, mirrors or masks - all other things the group smashes on sight whenever possible due to the threat they offer.

I'm looking forward to next week and our continued battles against (animate) inanimate objects.

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