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Post by GravityEmblem on Jan 18, 2018 7:19:50 GMT -8
I take a leaf out of Fire Emblem's book and call it a "dastard sword".
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Post by Nuke on Jan 20, 2018 18:55:13 GMT -8
Nice, I remember playing that back in the day
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Post by Daos on Jan 20, 2018 21:37:42 GMT -8
I was actually apologizing for the bad pun, when I called a frost brand 'cool.' Anyway, onward to chapter 2! It takes about three days to arrive, and the party is immediately beset upon by a pack of ice trolls. Luckily, they aren't any real challenge (having only 2 HD each), so the party makes short work of them and then enters Dragon's Eye. As soon as they step inside, they are attacked by a group of lizardmen who seem immune to Ladonna's sleep spell for some reason (they should only have 2 HD, as well). Luckily, a Horror spell instead breaks them up a bit, so the party can handle them in smaller groups. After they are all dead, Jherek is healed up and Katya finds a vial of flaming oil on one. I give it to Ladonna, as she's still the only one with no ranged weapons, and her wand of magic missiles is nearly out. After fighting a few more (and one of their shaman casting Dispel Magic on the party, removing all of their buffs, to my annoyance), I realize the game is identifying them as 'tough lizardmen.' I guess that means they are higher level? They give out 65 XP, which suggests level 3, but then Sleep should still work on them. Well, whatever. Several more drop flaming oils. In any case, there's a small nook nearby with two chests, and inside the party finds a scroll of Protection From Normal Missiles, an Oil of Speed, fifteen Antidotes, and some +1 arrows. Hmm, fifteen antidotes? Do you think we might be facing some poisonous enemies up in here? I give the oil to Jherek and let Ryan hold the antidotes for now, and the arrows go to Lillian, of course. Moving in deeper, the party comes across some bombardier beetles. Nasty critters that have an AoE acid attack that has a chance of stunning anyone caught in it, in addition to damaging them. The party uses all of their healing surviving them, including Katya downing a potion of regeneration. Jherek is so low on HP, I have him stay back and throw axes instead. There's nobody who can take his place up front, so we're relying on Katya alone for the time being. Interesting to note, that the fluids found in bombardier beetles can be used to make flaming oil, so this explains where the lizardmen get them from. Next up, the party runs into a pair of wraith spiders. Uh-oh. They can only be hit by magical weapons. I have Katya tank and Jherek switch to his magical halberd to assist, as his throwing axes won't work. I also have Ladonna cast Haste on them, and then have the casters blast the spiders with every offensive spell they have. Luckily, they are taken down before either can do any damage. The downside to Haste is it wears you out, and everyone is fatigued afterward. But there is no time to rest, because it turns out there are sword spiders and phase spiders down here, too. The latter are particularly annoying, as they can teleport right up to you. Ladonna uses another Haste, and the last charge of her wand, and everyone else uses up all of their magical spells and Lillian runs out of arrows +1 (but still has some fire arrows, at least). But in the end, the party is victorious, but just barely. We find an elven body, though. A fellow named Erevain that we met back at the inn in Easthaven. It looks like the spiders got him. His journal lay nearby. (If you've played Baldur's Gate, you know Xan is the name of a recruitable character in that game, an elven enchanter with an Eeyore like attitude toward the world around him.) He has some arrows of acid and fire, which go to Lillian, and a magical sword that goes to Katya. It is marginally better than her current one, and it gives acid resistance, which is nice. The party rests up, and it is now Day 22, Hour 15. Fighting their way through the caverns, the party comes to a large chamber filled with lizardmen. One in particular is huge, and calls himself the Lizard King, Lispen. He is surprised to see us and demands to know what we are doing in his caves. Katya gets him talking a bit, and learns he and his people have been abducting people from Kuldahar to give to someone called Yxunomei, who he calls a 'snake queen.' They give her villagers for food, and she in turns gives them food. Suffice to say, a big battle breaks out. I reload a lot, because first Jherek keeps dying, and then Katya dies. I eventually come up with the strategy that works: *Ladonna casts Haste on everyone. *Lillian uses her flute to cast Bless on everyone. *Katya and Jherek barrel toward the lizardman king. *Everyone else shoots, slings, casts spells and throws flaming oil at any shamans on the map. *Ladonna uses Horror to keep the lizardmen from overwhelming the front-liners. The end result is victory, but we are out of combat spells, have little healing left, and everyone is fatigued when Haste wears off. Got some good loot, though, including a Shield Ring (goes to Ladonna), a scroll of Protection from Normal Missiles, a scroll of Summon Monsters I (Oooh!) a scroll of Fireball (OOOOHHH!), a scroll of Protection from Acid and a dagger called Spinesheath. Interesting, it only gives +1 to damage but +5 to hit. So basically it's made for backstabbing. I give it to Theron, although he has really yet to have an opportunity to backstab. Moving on, the party finds the caves where the villagers are being kept. The party frees them, now that the way out is clear, and earns 30,000 XP. Katya hits level 6 and Jherek reaches level 5 as a fighter. Next time, level 2 of Dragon's Eye! Current Party Levels:Ladonna (Enchanter 5) Ryan (Mage 4/Cleric 4) Theron (Illusionist 4/Thief 5) Katya (Paladin 6) Jherek (Fighter 5/Thief 5) Lillian (Bard 6)
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Post by Daos on Jan 23, 2018 1:06:46 GMT -8
Moving on to level 2, the party starts rolling almost nothing but critical misses. It's kind of astounding to watch. I guess the severe fatigue from multiple Haste spells were wearing on them, so the party retreats and rests. It is now Day 23, Hour 10. I quickly learn that there are trolls on this level. Trolls are not quite as annoying as they are in real D&D. All you have to do is drop them to negative HP, so they collapse, and then deal 1 damage in either acid or fire to finish them off. Actually, if I'm lucky, I don't even have to do that much. Jherek's Disease Halberd +1 has a 10% chance of inflicting a disease on the troll with each hit. If it happens, they take 1 damage every few rounds, and that's enough to kill them. When that doesn't happen, though, I'm forced to either use up a fire spell or one of Lillian's fire or acid arrows (actually, usually more than one, because she still misses quite frequently). I don't get very far on this level before I need to rest again. The party is completely out of healing and Katya and Jherek are both in the red again. This is kind of ridiculous. Talk about your five minute days! So the party rests and now it is Day 24, Hour 5. Then the party runs into a real problem. There's this very large room that's filled with trolls and clerics of Talona. Either group alone would be a challenge in itself, but the two together is something else entirely. The clerics drop spells like Hold Person and Silence while the trolls just charge forward. Even fully healed, even fully buffed, I can't win this battle. I reload six or seven times total. My main strategy is I buff up, and have Ladonna casts Monster Summoning I. Then send in the monsters first. They do almost no damage, but the clerics waste some of their spells on them. Then I take position in a narrow hall to the north, letting the trolls bottleneck themselves. Again, this would work well except the clerics then show up to start casting hold and silence spells, both of which can cause me to lose a battle. For instance, if someone gets held, Ryan has Remove Paralysis to fix it, unless he gets Silenced first, which he often does. I wind up burning through all of my attack spells, all of the flaming oils I picked up before, and most of my ammunition. Nevertheless, both Katya and Jherek still die, but then there is only one troll left, and it's badly wounded. Ladonna winds up tanking with her Armor spell, while the others pelt it with stones and arrows until it finally goes down, then Ryan finishes it off with a Burning Hands spell. Luckily, Mother Egenia is here. She is the cleric of Ilmater who disappeared from Kuldahar. It turns out she deliberately let herself be captured by the Talonites, to ease the suffering of the villagers they had kidnapped. Egenia raises Katya and Jherek and heals everyone to 100% (for several hundred GP). Well, at least now we don't have to go all the way back to town. The party frees her and the villagers, who Egenia claims the Talonites planned to sacrifice for some kind of boon from their dark god. We earn 36,000 XP. Among the villagers, we find Sheemish, the missing son of the blacksmith, Conlan. We earn another 24,000 XP for that. We may have saved the kid's life, but the scarring from being named 'Sheemish' will last his whole life. Anyway, the party does some leveling up. All of the casters have access to 3rd level spells now, except Theron, probably because there aren't any 3rd level Illusion spells in this game. Hopefully I can find something useful for him later on. Moving on, the party encounters a ton of bombardier beetles. After fighting a few, we're forced to retreat back to Egenia and pay another few hundred GP to heal back up. Having consumed all of my spells and items, we're really running ragged now. But we find two cool weapons. A Battle Axe +2, Defender, which goes to Jherek--he now finally has a magical axe! Even better, it boosts his AC. The other is a Long Sword of Confusion +2, which goes to Katya. A chance to confuse an enemy is way better than acid resistance. We fight a few more trolls and reach the entrance to level 3. But I have to rest again just to get that far. Wow, three times in one level. It's now Day 25, Hour 11. I guess I could have backtracked to Egenia again, but I didn't want to spend the money (I've burned through half my gold already) and the party was fatigued anyway. Cure spells won't help with that. But surprisingly, Ladonna hits level 7 and now has access to level 4 spells. If only I had any to give her. Current Party Levels:Ladonna (Enchanter 7) Ryan (Mage 5/Cleric 6) Theron (Illusionist 5/Thief 6) Katya (Paladin 6) Jherek (Fighter 5/Thief 6) Lillian (Bard 7) Next time, level 3 of Dragon's Eye. Sigh...I have a feeling this is going to be a verrrry long dungeon...
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Post by Daos on Jan 25, 2018 0:13:46 GMT -8
The party descends into level 3, and are immediately beset upon by some undead. Oh, boy. More undead. One of them even speaks, but Katya immediately recognizes that the undead is not registering as evil, meaning it is a neutral automaton--someone else is pulling the strings and speaking through it. Whoever is doing so is thrown off by this, but claims Talona will win in the end, and Katya calls him out on it. The undead attack, and they include over a dozen cold wights. Ryan drops a fireball on them, but this only injures most of them, failing to kill any. As the fight rages on, something called a 'blast skeleton' emerges and starts barrelling right toward us. I don't know what that is, but the name is ominous enough, so I have Ryan blast it with Magic Missiles. Sure enough, it explodes, but thankfully it had not reached the party yet when it does. It dealt cold damage in its blast, but the wights were all immune; still, better them than us. Even so, the fight is tough enough that by the time it's over, we've exhausted all of our healing and the warriors are still left in single digit HP, so the party is forced to rest again. It is now Day 26, Hour 12. Imagine going from level 1 to level 7ish in less than a month. Actually, this playthrough has lasted 22 days in real time, so it's uncanny how close the two are. The party almost immediately encounters another large pack of cold wights. Again, someone speaks through an undead lieutenant. We learn that Lysan, the cleric of Auril we killed before, was being duped. The enemy isn't looking to freeze everything, just the opposite. They want to turn it into a tropical jungle of sorts. Talona is working with the snake queen, Yxunomei, that the lizardfolk mentioned before, to accomplish this. Well, I guess lizard and snakefolk would hate the frozen north. Combat is won, but we use all of our healing save for two CLW spells. I need a better way to aim Ryan's fireball spell. I keep overshooting, because I'm afraid of hitting Katya and Jherek with it, and as a result, it tends to hit only one or two enemies, at best. It doesn't take long before we're not only out of healing, but Jherek, Ryan and Katya are all down to a handful of HP. The cold wights are immune to normal weapons, so this presents a problem. Ryan has a magic mace, but no magic sling stones. Theron has 2, and I'm loathed to use them up on regular enemies. Lillian is down to about a score of regular arrows, and maybe an equal amount of magical ones if you combine the +1 arrows, fire arrows and acid arrows together. So sometimes I have to send in Ryan to melee (and to use Burning Hands), hence why he's getting pummeled. Theron I mostly rely on with Chromatic Orb spells (they are completely immune to the 'Stinking Cloud' affect the orbs have, but when they don't save, they at least take 1d12 damage). The party is forced to rest again, so now it is Day 27, Hour 14. On the bright side, Lillian leveled up. We come across one more undead lieutenant, and it continue to mocks Katya and her faith. But luckily, this one is alone save for a couple of blast skeletons. I've found that they have very few HP and usually die in one hit, so if I see one, I immediately have Lillian target it in hopes she can one-shot it before it moves into range of the party. The party reaches a circular room of some sort, and it's filled with undead, including a handful of imbued wights and a lot of poisoned zombies (which poison you if they hit, hence the name). In the center is Presio, the necromancer that has been talking with us through the undead. First, Ladonna summons some beetles and sends them in, wasting enemy spells and distracting them. I then have Ryan drop a fireball right in the center of the room and Presio counters with a Cloudkill spell which the party avoids by leaving the room and standing just outside the door. The Cloudkill doesn't harm the undead, but as it is right at the entrance, Presio has basically trapped herself inside. Lillian uses a Web to trap some of the zombies so Katya and Jherek aren't overwhelmed. Once all the undead are down, Ryan heals up the front liners and then we wait for the Cloudkill to end. Then the party re-enters the room and takes on Presio. By now she's buffed herself up with a few spells, including Mirror Image. Katya and Jherek hack away, while Lillian and Ryan throw Magic Missiles and Theron uses Chromatic Orb. I also have Ladonna try to charm her, but she passes. So she uses Horror instead, and becomes too concerned with running than fighting. She goes down pretty easily as a result and Jherek levels up. Her room is pretty well trapped, but nothing Theron can't handle. We collect her Necromancer Robes (goes to Ryan), a Hammer-Flail +2, a dagger (can't identify yet), and a magical sling called Giant Killer (+1 sling, but +4 against giants). That last one goes to Theron, so his sling +1 then goes to Ladonna. Yes, at long last, everyone now has ranged weaponry! We also find Presio's War Journal, and it looks like she is keeping tabs on multiple people. Some we know, others we've never heard of. The next area is chock full of traps, but Theron disables them all, slowly but surely. This takes us to the exit. Current Party Levels: Ladonna (Enchanter 7) Ryan (Mage 5/Cleric 6) Theron (Illusionist 5/Thief 6) Katya (Paladin 6) Jherek (Fighter 6/Thief 6) Lillian (Bard 8) Next time: Level 4 of Dragon's Eye!
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Post by Daos on Jan 29, 2018 22:59:41 GMT -8
The party descends into level 4 of Dragon's Eye and finds...a cleric of Eldath, goddess of peace? Well, that's unexpected! Jherek greets the priest, who explains that they set up shop here after having some kind of vision from their goddess, but now they are sort of trapped because of all the lizardmen and such. And because they are pacifists, they cannot fight their way out. Well, I see no reason to question their story. Seems logical to me. The party checks out the library, which isn't very interesting--containing a text on tending ivy and another on pottery. The librarian says there are more books in the back, but they are for Eldathyn only, so asks we not go back there. But he does sell us some nice scrolls: Blur (goes to Theron), Lightning Bolt and Flame Arrow (both go to Ryan). Sweet! These Eldathyn are alright, if you ask me. They even have a healer who lets us rest up. That's a huge help. No item shop anywhere, though...I could really use some more arrows and bullets right about now. Well, I guess it makes sense that Eldathyn wouldn't sell weapons. Wait...but they do sell scrolls of Lightning Bolt and Flame Arrow? Something...isn't right. Katya, what do your paladin eyes see? Give us sight beyond sight! Uh-oh... Katya calls out the so called clerics of Eldath, seeing the darkness in their hearts. Realizing they are exposed, they reveal that they are in fact followers of Sseth. And all those locked doors they wanted us to stay out of were filled with lizardmen, trolls and yuan-ti! A large battle breaks out. Ryan is able to keep the party from being rushed with a well placed Stinking Cloud by the entrance. The clerics all use poisoned weapons, but Ryan is carrying plenty of antidotes. Eventually the party wins, there are some level-ups, and we find a bit of loot among the bodies. Then the party retreats to the previous floor to rest up before returning. At this point I hit a pretty serious wrinkle. It turns out that somewhere on this floor is a 'High Summoner' who continually summons groups of lizardmen or trolls or yuan-ti. They never stop, until they are dead. Thus, creating an infinite amount of foes. So what happens is that by the time I fight through wave after wave of enemy to reach the summoner, I'm completely spent and have to retreat and rest...which causes the cycle to start all over. But I discover that the enemies cannot open doors, at all. All of the doors on this floor opened automatically when the attack started, but if I close them, I can keep enemies confined to certain areas, so they aren't constantly attacking me. But...if I reload the game or leave the floor to rest, the doors all open again automatically. And I cannot rest on this floor at all, because it's still full of enemies. So what I do is I quickly move everyone in the party but Theron into a room and close the door behind them, keeping them safe from enemies. Then I have Theron drink an invisibility potion (originally I was just going to have him use stealth, but stealth cancels if you try opening or closing a door, so...). I then send invisible Theron to close every door in the dungeon, keeping a finite group of enemies contained in each area. I also have him close the door to the room that the High Summoner is in. This seems to be the only way to keep him from summoning more monsters other than kill him. Invisible Theron rejoins the others, and then they fight their way to the high summoner, closing doors behind them and only battling when they have to. Eventually we reach the high summoner and kill him, but Theron dies in the battle. So I pick up his gear and head all the way back to floor 2 so Mother Egenia can raise him (except now she charges a whopping 2200 GP for it). Then the party rests and heads back up to floor 4. The summoner being dead means no more waves of monsters. We just have to kill whatever is left on this floor and can call it a day. It is now Day 31, Hour 1. The party returns to the fourth floor, but it turns out most of the hard work is done. There is only one room left with enemies, a bunch of yuan-ti feasting on dead villagers. We find a room nearby where four adventurers are held captive, and they quickly join in to help us fight. As a result, the last battle is pretty easy. Afterward, the adventurers thanks us and agree to stay on this floor to watch over us when we rest. We find some nice loot, including a mace that goes to Ryan called Selune's Promise. It's pretty nice, except for that 2% chance per hit of causing morale failure. Still, the odds are low and I usually have Ryan rely on his sling anyway, but at this point we are almost entirely out of ammunition. Current Party Levels: Ladonna (Enchanter 7) Ryan (Mage 6/Cleric 6) Theron (Illusionist 6/Thief 7) Katya (Paladin 7) Jherek (Fighter 6/Thief 6) Lillian (Bard 8) Next time: Level 5 of Dragon's Eye!
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Post by Daos on Feb 1, 2018 1:30:30 GMT -8
The party descends into level 5 of Dragon's Eye and immediately encounters...a small human girl. She spouts some cryptic stuff that makes no sense, then vanishes. She does this several more times as we fight waves of more yuan-ti and yuan-ti elite. We make it to a room filled with locked and trapped chest. Theron takes care of the traps and Jherek the locks. The party gets some potions, scrolls, gold and gems. And also a bastard sword +1. But by this point, we're entirely spent again. So the party returns to the fourth floor and rests under the watch of those adventurers we saved. It is now Day 31, Hour 21. Returning to the fifth floor, we continue onward and come across a room that's filled to the brim with yuan-ti. We're able to bottle-neck the warriors in the doorway, thanks to a web spell from Lillian. Unfortunately, there are half a dozen elite archers in the room, and they refuse to come out. If I send someone in, they will aggro and all fire their bows, but they do not give chase. So this proves rather difficult. If I send the party in, they get turned into pin cushions. Eventually, I find a strategy that works, after multiple reloads. Lillian casts Protection from Normal Missiles on Katya, and I send her in, along with some summoned monsters. They all aggro and shoot at her and the monsters. She runs to the nearest one and starts hacking away. As she does so, I send in the spellcasters and just spam every attack spell I have to help her out--Magic Missile, Chromatic Orb, Flame Arrow, whatever. This still takes several attempts, but eventually all of the yuan-ti are killed. Searching the room, there is some nice loot. There are lots of magical arrows, which is great, because Lillian has been out of ammunition for awhile now (I've had her either use her bard song or just cast spells). Unfortunately, we are dangerous low on sling bullets. I have enough left over to give Katya, Ladonna, Ryan and Theron all 10 each, and that's it. (I have to be careful, because if you tell a character to use a ranged weapon and they run out of ammo, they then immediately draw a melee weapon, or just use their fist if they don't have one equipped, and charge at the enemy instead.) I also find 8 Potions of Extra Healing, which is very nice. And a magical bow called the Messenger of Sseth. It's +2 hit/+1 dmg, and has a higher ROF. I try giving it to Lillian, but she can't equip it! At first, I'm confused, because it doesn't specify bards can't use it. But then I realize the problem. You need a STR of 12, and Lillian has a STR of 11. D'oh! One point off! Well, guess I'll be casting Strength on Lillian instead of Katya for awhile. Because this bow is too good not to use. However, the battle has completely left the party out of spells and low on HP, so we retreat--again--to the fourth floor to rest up. The NPC adventuring party is not where I left them when I arrive, and I panic for a bit at this, but it turns out they just regrouped in a different spot. It is now Day 33, Hour 1. Returning to where we left off, we find a torture chamber after fighting some more yuan-ti and histachii. I'm glad to see the latter, because Sleep works on them, so Ladonna actually gets some use out of the spell. We also find scrolls of Dimension Door and Ghost Armor, but I am not sure who should get those spells yet. Ghost Armor is an improved version of Armor, but it only lasts a few rounds, making it considerably less useful in my opinion. Dimension Door is basically a really short range teleport, and I'm not certain how that would be all that useful to any of the party. Anyway, the party finds a hidden switch near a bookcase that opens up a secret room. Inside are three more yuan-ti, one of them being the High Torturer. He mistakes us for 'patients' at first, due to his bad eyesight, but then realizes we're intruders and attacks. After beating him and his two minions, we get a Throwing Axe +2 that immediately goes to Jherek. He now has infinite ranged weaponry, because it always returns to his hand after he throws it. We also find a cursed ring that amplifies damage if you put it on, presumably for torture purposes. Luckily Lillian identified it before anyone put it on. The next room is filled with more yuan-ti, including priests and archers. This one takes a couple of tries and pretty much all of our spells, including a Haste, to get done. Consequently...yep, you guessed it. Back to level 4 to rest. Whee! It is now Day 33, Hour 20. This is our life now. The worst part is the only real loot they dropped was a suit of studded leather +2. I gave it to Lillian to replace her leather armor +1. Moving on to the next room and we run into the High Baptist, a yuan-ti priest, and a group of histachii. It's not really clear, but I think he's making more of them? Possibly from the poor kidnapped villagers. We make short work of them. The histachii are vulnerable to Sleep, so Ladonna keeps them from swarming us and Lillian blasts the priest with magic missiles to interrupt his spells. The next series of rooms has multiple yuan-ti, including priests. Taking them down wears down all my spells and healing, because of course it does. We do get some good loot, though, to make up for it. And a couple of levels--namely, Ryan hits level 7 as a cleric, which means he can now cast Cure Serious Wounds once a day. As for the loot, we got the Baleful Mail. It's way better than the chain mail +1 Jherek has on, and while it does lower your CHA...who cares? I never use Jherek for conversing with NPCs anyway. I also get the Red Knight's Shield, which goes to Katya. It's basically a shield +3. I then give her old shield to Jherek. What this all means is, that after Lillian casts Cat's Grace on Jherek, both he and Katya have an AC of -5. Surely that will help in keeping their HP high for longer intervals, right? I hope. We return to the fourth floor, rest, and head back. It is Day 34, Hour 16. We finally reach the ending of Dragon's Eye, and find the little girl again, surrounded by yuan-ti. She claims she is Yxunomei, but she likes to take this form in our world because people are squeamish about attacking children. She claims she is fighting a war with some enemy over...philosophy, I guess? Actually, it sort of sounds like she's talking about the Blood War, or something similar to it, spilling into our own world. But long story short, she refuses to turn over the Heartstone Gem. So...a fight breaks out. Yxunomei turns into her true form, which looks like a Marilith of some kind (if you aren't familiar, it's a demon snakewoman with multiple arms). Thanks to Ladonna's Haste spell, and everyone blasting or summoning as much as they can, we eventually whittle the enemy down and find victory. Katya takes the Heartstone Gem from Yxunomei's corpse. Lillian collects all the magical arrows lying around. Theron disarms the traps and Jherek unlocks the chests. We get quite a bit of money, and a new helmet for Jherek that lowers his CHA another 2 points, but again, that's hardly his specialty anyway. We also get a lot of gold and 46,000 XP! We did it! We finished Dragon's Eye! Current Party Levels: Ladonna (Enchanter 7) Ryan (Mage 7/Cleric 7) Theron (Illusionist 7/Thief 7) Katya (Paladin 7) Jherek (Fighter 6/Thief 6) Lillian (Bard 9) Next time: Back to Kuldahar!
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Post by Ezeze on Feb 1, 2018 6:24:36 GMT -8
I'm glad Katya is serving so faithfully! We definitely need to get an axe of throwing/returning for Jherek
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Post by Daos on Feb 1, 2018 13:08:16 GMT -8
It's been a godsend so far. Especially as Jherek ran out of mundane throwing axes way back on level 2 or so.
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Post by Daos on Feb 3, 2018 23:34:15 GMT -8
I can't believe the game made me walk, manually, all the way back to the level 1 entrance. That seems kind of ridiculous that there's no option to just warp back there. Ah, well. The party heads back to Kuldahar, but upon arriving a few days later, they discover the place is under attack! A small group of Neo-Orogs (basically, half-orc/half-ogrse) are attacking the villagers. After everything we've been through with undead, yuan-ti, trolls, and lizardmen...these guys are nothing. NOTHING! We're completely out of ammunition except Lillian's magical arrows, but I won't waste them here. So everyone just melees. Yes, even Ladonna. The party just surrounds each Neo-Orog and pummels them to death. The party only loses a handful of HP. Once the village is cleared, Nate tells us that the Neo-Orogs were led by a man in grey robes who went into Arundel's place. So we head there next. However, we find Arundel is just fine and glad we're okay. He asks us what happened in Dragon's Eye, and we tell him. He seems pleased, saying something about how grateful he is we took out his rival. Wait...what? Something isn't right? Katya peers into his soul and sees pure evil. This is not Arundel! The faux-druid admits it, and reveals the real Arundel is upstairs, bleeding out. All he reveals is that he was at war with Yxunomei and we've made things easier for him by taking her out. He then teleports out. The party rushes upstairs, but it is too late to save Arundel. With his dying breath, he tells us to take the Heartstone Gem to the elven outpost called the Severed Hand. A person imprisoned there, an archmage named Larrel, is possibly the only person who has the magical power necessary to use the gem. He then dies. Well, this is a lot to take in. But at least for the moment, the town is safe. The party sells all their loot and makes bank. First, we head up to the wizard's tower...and I'm pleased to say he finally got some 4th level spells in. I went ahead and picked up 'Emotion: Fear,' (Ladonna) 'Monster Summoning II,' (Ladonna) 'Mordenkainen's Force Missiles' (Ryan), 'Vitriolic Sphere' (Theron) and 'Shout' (Lillian). I also pick up some more third level spells, including 'Dire Charm' (Ladonna), 'Hold Person' (Ladonna) and 'Slow' (Theron). I also buy a Rogue's Cowl for Theron and a sling +1 for Katya. After a rest, the party heads for the Severed Hand, which is quite a distance. It takes us five days to get there. And so chapter 3 begins! As soon as we arrive, things get weird. A squirrel approaches the entrance and some kind of ghostly figure appears. The figure accuses the squirrel of being a 'treacherous dwarf' and then launches a fireball at it, before vanishing. (Don't worry, the squirrel managed to run away in time to avoid getting hit.) So, that was a thing that happened. The party buffs up before going in. I have a bad feeling about this. Sure enough, as soon as we step inside, we are beset upon by shadowed orcs and shadowed goblins. I do not know what 'shadowed' means in this context. I've never heard of them outside of this game, so I don't know if this is a Forgotten Realms thing or what. But they seem strangely translucent and do not drop any loot at all. Even the archers don't drop arrows. Now this dungeon is a bit different from all the previous ones. It's not actually possible to explore an entire level before moving on to the next. There are lots of closed off rooms that can only be accessed from different levels, so one must backtrack between them. The party fights some more shadowed goblins, but they aren't much of a threat. Not sure what level they are, but Sleep does not work on them. We find a scroll of 'Emotion: Hopelessness' which goes to Ladonna. In the next room, the party is ambushed. Shadowed orcs, including two shamans, and two shadowed ogres come at us from both directions. This is the first real challenge we've had since arriving, and both Ladonna and Lillian get killed. I reload, this time having Ladonna summon some beetles to cover our flank and lizardmen to protect the front. This allows the party to eliminate the ones that spawn on top of us first, then take care of the rest. Our reward is a magical great sword. The rest of the level is a breeze. I have Katya and Jherek take care of the fights themselves, so as to not waste the ammunition of everyone else. Minor injuries are taken, not even worth expending a CLW spell. And that's it for this level. There's one more room I can't access from this floor, but otherwise the level is clear. It's kind of a nice change of pace after all the hardships we've been through. I have a feeling it's not going to last, though. Current Party Levels: Ladonna (Enchanter 7) Ryan (Mage 7/Cleric 7) Theron (Illusionist 7/Thief 7) Katya (Paladin 7) Jherek (Fighter 6/Thief 6) Lillian (Bard 9) Next time: Severed Hand, Level 2!
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Post by Daos on Mar 18, 2018 17:54:28 GMT -8
Been awhile, huh? I was waiting for Jherek to come back before continuing, and then a month went by and he never did, so...I'll just hammer out a short one really quick and see if I can get back into the swing of things. Last we left off we were at the Severed Hand looking for an elf prisoner named Larrel who supposedly can use the Heartstone Gem to figure out what great evil is threatening the dale. But upon arriving, we find things are kind of weird. The place is in shambles and there are shadowed goblins and orcs all over the place. The party ascends to level 2 and are immediately attacked by more shadowed goblins, including archers. They get some lucky hits in and Katya and Jherek need to heal up afterward, as a result. I'm not sure how strong these things are, but they give out 900 XP each! For reference, a normal goblin is worth about 15 XP. We pick up a scroll of 'Emotion: Courage' and give it to Ladonna. A bit further in, and we get attacked by a shadowed goblin trainer and a large pack of shadowed worgs. They swarm us, despite our best efforts, but luckily the party doesn't take too much damage. When the fight is over, we find a Jester's Bag of Holding. I give it to Ladonna and have her open it up. Inside for today is a scroll of Cure Serious Wounds. Nice! That goes to Ryan. Get into another ambush; a whole bunch of shadowed goblins and a couple of orc shamans. Lillian unleashes a web spell to keep the party from being overwhelmed. When the fight is done, the party finds a scroll of Animate Dead, which goes to Ladonna, and a Sanctified Morning Star +3 that gives a cleric two extra 1st level spell slots, so that goes to Ryan. Also, Ladonna and Jherek level up. Current Party Levels: Ladonna (Enchanter 9) Ryan (Mage 7/Cleric 7) Theron (Illusionist 7/Thief 7) Katya (Paladin 7) Jherek (Fighter 7/Thief 7) Lillian (Bard 9) Next time: Severed Hand, Level 3!
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Post by notARobot on Mar 18, 2018 18:54:03 GMT -8
How on Faerun is Jherek keeping pace experience-level-wise with Lillian and Ladonna (surpassing single-classed Katya, even!)? Given that Theron and Jherek are both multi-classed characters with one of those classes being thief, I'd expect them to stay at roughly the same level throughout the game...
...and now that I'm looking it up, around levels 8 and 9 fighters progress a bit more slowly than mages, so what gives? Is XP awarded per-character, instead of being split across the party, and Jherek's just been racking up that many more kills?
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Post by Daos on Mar 18, 2018 19:03:01 GMT -8
Ah, that was a typo on my part. Jherek is 7/7 and I've edited the post to correct it.
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Post by Daos on Mar 19, 2018 22:45:31 GMT -8
The party ascends to level 3. Ryan has plenty of blaster spells left but is out of healing, and we're all bloodied to some degree, so I might need to rest soon. So we spend the day healing up. It is now Day 45, Hour 14. After rebuffing up, the party gets caught in another ambush. A trio of shadowed goblins make tempting targets, and Jherek and Katya go in to kill them. But while they do so, a large number of shadowed orcs (including two shamans and a chieftain) and a pair of shadowed ogres appear from behind. Ladonna quickly summons a bunch of monsters to keep them busy. Katya comes running to help, leaving Jherek to deal with the goblins. Eventually we whittle them down, with only Katya and Ladonna taking any real damage (amazingly, Jherek was completely unscathed...). While Ryan heals up Katya, Ladonna uses her Jester Bag of Holding. Today's random item is...a healing potion. Nice. She downs it, but it turns out...whoops. It was cursed. She healed, but she's now also drunk. Oh, well. She'll suffer a luck penalty but gain a morale bonus until the next time we rest. Searching around, we find two magical items. A magical spear called Puny's Poker and a magical flail called Misery's Herald. Neither looks too useful for now, so we'll store them in Jherek's pack until we can sell them. We backtrack the way we came to level 2, then come up again to level 3 from a different location, closer to the center. (This sort of thing is common in this dungeon.) The party fights a bunch of skeletons. Not regular ones, though. Armored skeletons or bladed skeletons or even burning skeletons (which have an annoying habit of dropping fireballs on the party if ignored). Along the way, we find a magical shield called the Shield of the Hand. I give it to Jherek. His AC is now -8. Incredible. Both he and Katya don't get hit very often now. Sometimes the two of them will tank an entire squadron of skeletons alone and take no damage at all. Theron levels up, not only becoming a level 8 thief, but also getting his Stealth ability to 100%. I still remember when I had to push the stealth button multiple times just to get him to hide once. How far we've come. We come across a room full of dangerous undead, but I manage to outwit them by sending in Katya, having her catch aggro, then running back outside where the others are waiting. Amazingly, this works. The burning skeleton even wastes his three fireballs trying to hit her as she flees. Once the fight is done, we find a Bone Talisman that lets one cast Vampiric Touch five times. Which is...completely useless against undead. But it will probably come in handy later. I give it to Theron. The party finds a lift that takes them down to the other half of the second floor. It's full of undead, too. We start burning through our healing potions staying alive. But more troubling is that Lillian has used up all of her mundane and +1 arrows. All she has left are +2 now, and I'd like to save those for an emergency. I might need to have her just use her bard song for awhile. On the bright side, though, the party finds a Short Sword of Action in some debris, which I give to Lillian to replace her mundane one. Jherek also levels up to 8 as a thief. Strangely, not only do I max out his pick pockets and open locks ability, it seems you can pump up thief skills higher than 100%! Huh, weird. We rest again, and now it's Day 46, Hour 20. Anyway, the party descends to the other half of the first floor that was previously unexplored. A ton more undead here. Unfortunately, everyone has now run out of ammunition except Ladonna, who has a handful of mundane sling stones left. Ryan and Theron are completely out. Lillian has her +2 arrows, but again, I'm saving them. So most fights are just Jherek and Katya slowly wearing them down, bit by bit. Down here we find a Crossbow of Speed, which is useless since nobody can use it. And some broken machinery parts. We backtrack up to the third floor, then head for the stairs to the fourth floor. That's it for floors 1, 2 and 3--they are completely explored now. Nowhere to go but up. You know, it's funny, but if this were a real D&D game, then Ladonna and Ryan would be able to scribe scrolls by now and Lillian could build a stronghold and attract followers. Hmm, maybe some kind of bard college? Current Party Levels:Ladonna (Enchanter 9) Ryan (Mage 7/Cleric 7) Theron (Illusionist 7/Thief 8) Katya (Paladin 7) Jherek (Fighter 7/Thief 8) Lillian (Bard 9) Next time: Severed Hand, Level 4!
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Post by Daos on Mar 21, 2018 23:27:41 GMT -8
The party ascends to the fourth level and are immediately attacked by...nothing. Huh. Well, that's a nice change of pace. The room is a circle with multiple doors on the outer wall, so we start with the nearest room. There we met Lehland, who is quite clearly a ghost. Strangely enough, the clearly dead elf doesn't seem to realize he is dead. He insists on calling the party 'SAH' like some kind of southern colonel and further insists this is not the Severed Hand, but the Hand of the Seldarine. He seems oblivious to the fact the place is in shambles, even as he tries to sell us his wares. Speaking of wares, he has a shop. I don't know how one buys and sells to a ghost, but it works. I stock up on arrows and sling stones, both mundane and magical, for the party. I sell the excess loot we don't need. And I buy a few bottles of 'Elven Healing Wine' for Jherek, as he's out of potions. We also learn there are five towers here, with four branching off the main one, known as Sehanine Tower. The other four towers are named Corellon, Sheverash, Lebelas and Solonor. All after elven gods, I think. I admit, Corellon and Sehanine are the only ones I recognize, but I assume the others are elven gods, too. As we move to the second room, we come across another spirit. This one is named Lethias and he seems to realize he is dead. He says he is, or rather was, a bladesinger. He also explains what happened here. The place was besieged by hundreds of orcs and goblins and they threatened to overrun the tower. Not wanting to let the powerful magical items inside fall into their hands, the elves came up with a desperate plan--to basically blow up the tower with as many orcs and goblins in it as possible. Lethias led the charge in leading the enemy into the tower and died, his back to the wall, in the explosions that followed. But something caused him to get back up afterward. And several others, as well. That might explain the shadowed orcs and goblins, too. Maybe reality itself was ripped from all that magic igniting at once? Lethias tells us he has not seen Larrel lately, but he was last seen in Lebelas Tower. So we should try looking there first. The next room is empty, but we find some potions and a scroll of ' Emotion: Hope' which is taught to Ladonna. The next room appears to be some kind of inn. A little girl, Sehriya, is running it. Like Lehland, she does not realize she is dead. She also seems to think her mother, the original inn owner, will return soon after she went downstairs to help in the battle. Well, free rest is free rest. Might as well use it. It is now Day 47, Hour 16. I also find a couple of potions and a scroll of Cone of Cold. Nice! I give it to Ryan, but unfortunately because he is multi-classed, it will be awhile before he can use 5th level spells. The next room looks to be some kind of meeting room, filled with ghosts that talk among themselves but ignore us. The room after that is much the same, a feasthall, but most of the ghosts ignore us. The one exception is Telanis Songbender, SINGER EXTRAORDINAIRE, who sings a couple of songs for us and seems to realize he is dead. (I was hoping he might have something for Lillian, but apparently not.) Well, enough farting around. Let's get going to Labelas Tower. Unfortunately, as soon as we climb up to the first floor... The ghostly image of Larrel mocks us, claiming he blew up the stairs to prevent our entry. We're going to have to find another way there. Crapbaskets.Current Party Levels: Ladonna (Enchanter 9) Ryan (Mage 7/Cleric 7) Theron (Illusionist 7/Thief 8) Katya (Paladin 7) Jherek (Fighter 7/Thief 8) Lillian (Bard 9) Next time: Solonar Tower!
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