Fasaad's Best Day Ever
Aug. 22nd, 2010 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
subplotkudzuA long overdue follow up to my last post, here's how the PCs rocked in June after the May debacle.
Having passed through the gates protecting the peninsula from the dinosaur-infested core of the Isle of Dread Fassad and co made a short distance before one of their guides was isolated enough for small local carnivores to ambush him - Jay's Shiar Varshabor pretty much one-shot ended the threat by unleashing a 4th level Ice Storm spell (it has been a long time since my PCs were high enough level to toss around 4th level spells). They then reached a known landmark, the tar pits, were their path was blocked by a lunching Ankylosaur, which Fasaad was able to use her Ranger skills to keep it calm and they decided to stop for lunch nearby until it left. After a brief side trek west southwest involving obsidian collection (the guides were hoping to get some), magma flows and the spectacle of a renegade efreet tearing cracks in the earth (this is the same efreet who is at the root of the plot, whom they wisely avoided) they turned north to White Plume Mountain.
The heavy footfalls of an approaching T-Rex warned the party to take cover, but everyone's Hide was lower than the dino's spot, so it unleashed its patented yell and then charged after the fleeing guides. The NPC (quickly dubbed 'lunch' by the Players) fulfilled its narrative role perfectly, being grabbed and swallowed whole to show the players how the T Rex attacked. Seeing the beast was still hungry Fasaad sprinted past it, firing an arrow back at it to keep its attention and ran for the tar pits, making use of narrow gaps between trees, branches and root structure to repeatedly escape its jaws. With a final leap onto a branch so that she could leap away and lure it into the sucking mire Fasaad mistimed thing and was snatched by the monster's huge jaws.
As if Karen hadn't been display enough savvy so far, here was where she leveled up as a player. The moment I described the jaws closing she stated, "I need my daggers." It's so easy to picture the heroic Fasaad tossing her beloved bow outside of the T-Rex's jaws as the teeth descend and snatching her daggers from belt and boot as the beast swings its head back and constriction yanks her into its gullet. This was when Jay revealed what sort of savvy you get from normally being limited to 2nd level spells or so, as he cast Enlarge on Fasaad. A quick check of the rules did indicate that he didn't need line of sight, just that she be in range and he know where she was. Suddenly the 5'6" Captain was well over 8' tall - outside of the T Rex's listed swallow range - and armed with short swords rather than daggers. As the befuddled dino began to choke to death, it's tiny arms incapable of the Hiemlich maneuver, Jay yells "we're using the swallow whole ruse and the drowning rules - quick someone grapple it!" his theory being that they could win just by crushing it under the full weight of the rulebooks.
In any event Fasaad makes her attacks to cut free, three attacks due to her two weapon style. Attack 1: 20, follow up for possible Crit, 1. ("That's OK," Dave assures her, "better that then wasting the next real attack roll with the 1") Attack 2: 20, follow up for possible crit, 18. Double normal damage. Attack 3: 18. Total damage? 3d6+6 for the primary hand attacks and another 1d6+1 for the secondary hand attacks comes to 19. "Did you remember the additional +2 damage per hit from the Bull's Strength I cast on you earlier?" Jason asks? Why no! Add another 7 damage! Quick check of the monster manual for damage needed to cut free from a T-Rex's gullet? 25. Made it with room to spare.
Now, picture if you will the surviving native guides, who just saw Fasaad get eaten. The monster starts to choke, flail about and pitch into the tar pit. Before it falls a V is cut out of the monster's throat and Fasaad kicks her way free, standing half again a mortal man's height, and leaps away from the spasming beast to land on the shore. She picks up her bow, points and declares calmly "north." They now think she's a god.
Their path takes them past a circle of standing stones - tomb markers for the dead priests of the ancient, lost cities of the island, which is guarded by a Rogue Eidolon, an animated stone statue contained the maddened shard of evil divinity. Varshabor, after being soaked by the monsters 'spit blood' attack, decides that they must destroy it, but in the brief encounter flubs a Willpower save and affiliated by permanent Confusion, giving him brief moments of lucidity between aimless wanderings and violent outbursts.
Dave's urban jewel thief Zaheem spots that a tomb is open and ducks into it for a brief look see, but the tomb is too deep for him to do much other than note it for later.
Varshabor is knocked out and restrained - the party is blessed that he had his sword in his hand so his instinctive lashing outs are with steel rather than spell. He is bound and carried some distance away to a spot of relative safety, but alas the only person with the magical might to cure him is, well, him. With his sylph familiar as an intermediary they are able to remove his gag at the right times for him to try lesser cures before he sends his Sylph into the elemental plains to procure a Limited Wish or Greater Restoration spell (this sort of genie negotiation being how Shiar's access higher level magics). Dave's Comment: "I don't know what he's doing but those are some high level spell names he's tossing around!" The Sylph returns while Varshabor is maddened, but can only hold the spell for a minute before she must give it to him or it is lost. 10 rolls for the Confusion spell commence, with a roll of 1 meaning a full minute's worth of effect, hence destroying the Limited Wish, 2-9 being short term, 6 second effects and a 10 being 6 seconds of full lucidity. 7, 4, 3, 5, 9, 9, 4, 5, 2…10! At the last instant Varshabor's airy familiar shoves the spell into his mind, and the articulation of it takes the form of a Djinn flowing from his mouth, which then turns and tears out a shard of insane divinity from the Shiar's brain, crushing it into a nothingness before fading away.
This is when the party realizes they're surrounded by spearmen from the village at the base of White Plume Mountain. Now, this was intended as a diplomatic skill test for the PCs, and after seeing this the terrified spearman have no desire to tangle with the party, so Fasaad makes a quick Bluff roll to explain away their presence and get into their good graces. She has a +9 Bluff from years of pretending to be a man, but the die roll is a 3. No good, and the guards are now more tense. So Khalil, her cohort and the party Bard, makes a diplomacy roll with his +12 and ends with a total of…13. Seeing the guards on the brink of terror Vashabor tries to intimidate them with his +8 Intimidate, but the total is an 11. "Allah want us to fight them," Fassad declares, ending the stalemate before the guards can do the same, disarming and heavily wounding the lead spearman. Dave's thief is a few paces behind, his expert swordplay reducing one of the spearmen to near death in a single exchange. Both Khalil and Varshabor unleash sleep spells accounting for four more of the natives, and Kristen's acrobatic wizard's apprentice Mansur vaults over both Fasaad and her opponent before knocking the man's legs out from under him. In much less time than it takes to tell it is over. Khalil leans over Fasaad and Mansur's fallen foe and pleasantly says "I'm going to save your friend's life now, and then we'll start this over."
There was more from here: Fasaad travelling into the swamps from which "no man has ever returned" to solicit aid from the mysterious Thingizzard; Mansur and Varshabor holding off Thingizzards blood-drinking air element servant and saving their native guides; Zaheem learning that another party of adventurers (some of those summoned by the efreet to beef up the mountain's defenses) left behind their boat at the end of a nearby river, and their concubine in the village to tell him of this making her escape from the island - with a stop at the open tomb to Indiana Jones his way past traps (including a collapsing room trap triggered by touching a small idol, natch) and steal vast riches (some 37,000 GP in platinum ingots and gemstones) as a means of writing him out of the game (since this is Dave's last month before their move). All of this resulted in an immensely satisfying fantasy of the sort that D&D excels in.
Having passed through the gates protecting the peninsula from the dinosaur-infested core of the Isle of Dread Fassad and co made a short distance before one of their guides was isolated enough for small local carnivores to ambush him - Jay's Shiar Varshabor pretty much one-shot ended the threat by unleashing a 4th level Ice Storm spell (it has been a long time since my PCs were high enough level to toss around 4th level spells). They then reached a known landmark, the tar pits, were their path was blocked by a lunching Ankylosaur, which Fasaad was able to use her Ranger skills to keep it calm and they decided to stop for lunch nearby until it left. After a brief side trek west southwest involving obsidian collection (the guides were hoping to get some), magma flows and the spectacle of a renegade efreet tearing cracks in the earth (this is the same efreet who is at the root of the plot, whom they wisely avoided) they turned north to White Plume Mountain.
The heavy footfalls of an approaching T-Rex warned the party to take cover, but everyone's Hide was lower than the dino's spot, so it unleashed its patented yell and then charged after the fleeing guides. The NPC (quickly dubbed 'lunch' by the Players) fulfilled its narrative role perfectly, being grabbed and swallowed whole to show the players how the T Rex attacked. Seeing the beast was still hungry Fasaad sprinted past it, firing an arrow back at it to keep its attention and ran for the tar pits, making use of narrow gaps between trees, branches and root structure to repeatedly escape its jaws. With a final leap onto a branch so that she could leap away and lure it into the sucking mire Fasaad mistimed thing and was snatched by the monster's huge jaws.
As if Karen hadn't been display enough savvy so far, here was where she leveled up as a player. The moment I described the jaws closing she stated, "I need my daggers." It's so easy to picture the heroic Fasaad tossing her beloved bow outside of the T-Rex's jaws as the teeth descend and snatching her daggers from belt and boot as the beast swings its head back and constriction yanks her into its gullet. This was when Jay revealed what sort of savvy you get from normally being limited to 2nd level spells or so, as he cast Enlarge on Fasaad. A quick check of the rules did indicate that he didn't need line of sight, just that she be in range and he know where she was. Suddenly the 5'6" Captain was well over 8' tall - outside of the T Rex's listed swallow range - and armed with short swords rather than daggers. As the befuddled dino began to choke to death, it's tiny arms incapable of the Hiemlich maneuver, Jay yells "we're using the swallow whole ruse and the drowning rules - quick someone grapple it!" his theory being that they could win just by crushing it under the full weight of the rulebooks.
In any event Fasaad makes her attacks to cut free, three attacks due to her two weapon style. Attack 1: 20, follow up for possible Crit, 1. ("That's OK," Dave assures her, "better that then wasting the next real attack roll with the 1") Attack 2: 20, follow up for possible crit, 18. Double normal damage. Attack 3: 18. Total damage? 3d6+6 for the primary hand attacks and another 1d6+1 for the secondary hand attacks comes to 19. "Did you remember the additional +2 damage per hit from the Bull's Strength I cast on you earlier?" Jason asks? Why no! Add another 7 damage! Quick check of the monster manual for damage needed to cut free from a T-Rex's gullet? 25. Made it with room to spare.
Now, picture if you will the surviving native guides, who just saw Fasaad get eaten. The monster starts to choke, flail about and pitch into the tar pit. Before it falls a V is cut out of the monster's throat and Fasaad kicks her way free, standing half again a mortal man's height, and leaps away from the spasming beast to land on the shore. She picks up her bow, points and declares calmly "north." They now think she's a god.
Their path takes them past a circle of standing stones - tomb markers for the dead priests of the ancient, lost cities of the island, which is guarded by a Rogue Eidolon, an animated stone statue contained the maddened shard of evil divinity. Varshabor, after being soaked by the monsters 'spit blood' attack, decides that they must destroy it, but in the brief encounter flubs a Willpower save and affiliated by permanent Confusion, giving him brief moments of lucidity between aimless wanderings and violent outbursts.
Dave's urban jewel thief Zaheem spots that a tomb is open and ducks into it for a brief look see, but the tomb is too deep for him to do much other than note it for later.
Varshabor is knocked out and restrained - the party is blessed that he had his sword in his hand so his instinctive lashing outs are with steel rather than spell. He is bound and carried some distance away to a spot of relative safety, but alas the only person with the magical might to cure him is, well, him. With his sylph familiar as an intermediary they are able to remove his gag at the right times for him to try lesser cures before he sends his Sylph into the elemental plains to procure a Limited Wish or Greater Restoration spell (this sort of genie negotiation being how Shiar's access higher level magics). Dave's Comment: "I don't know what he's doing but those are some high level spell names he's tossing around!" The Sylph returns while Varshabor is maddened, but can only hold the spell for a minute before she must give it to him or it is lost. 10 rolls for the Confusion spell commence, with a roll of 1 meaning a full minute's worth of effect, hence destroying the Limited Wish, 2-9 being short term, 6 second effects and a 10 being 6 seconds of full lucidity. 7, 4, 3, 5, 9, 9, 4, 5, 2…10! At the last instant Varshabor's airy familiar shoves the spell into his mind, and the articulation of it takes the form of a Djinn flowing from his mouth, which then turns and tears out a shard of insane divinity from the Shiar's brain, crushing it into a nothingness before fading away.
This is when the party realizes they're surrounded by spearmen from the village at the base of White Plume Mountain. Now, this was intended as a diplomatic skill test for the PCs, and after seeing this the terrified spearman have no desire to tangle with the party, so Fasaad makes a quick Bluff roll to explain away their presence and get into their good graces. She has a +9 Bluff from years of pretending to be a man, but the die roll is a 3. No good, and the guards are now more tense. So Khalil, her cohort and the party Bard, makes a diplomacy roll with his +12 and ends with a total of…13. Seeing the guards on the brink of terror Vashabor tries to intimidate them with his +8 Intimidate, but the total is an 11. "Allah want us to fight them," Fassad declares, ending the stalemate before the guards can do the same, disarming and heavily wounding the lead spearman. Dave's thief is a few paces behind, his expert swordplay reducing one of the spearmen to near death in a single exchange. Both Khalil and Varshabor unleash sleep spells accounting for four more of the natives, and Kristen's acrobatic wizard's apprentice Mansur vaults over both Fasaad and her opponent before knocking the man's legs out from under him. In much less time than it takes to tell it is over. Khalil leans over Fasaad and Mansur's fallen foe and pleasantly says "I'm going to save your friend's life now, and then we'll start this over."
There was more from here: Fasaad travelling into the swamps from which "no man has ever returned" to solicit aid from the mysterious Thingizzard; Mansur and Varshabor holding off Thingizzards blood-drinking air element servant and saving their native guides; Zaheem learning that another party of adventurers (some of those summoned by the efreet to beef up the mountain's defenses) left behind their boat at the end of a nearby river, and their concubine in the village to tell him of this making her escape from the island - with a stop at the open tomb to Indiana Jones his way past traps (including a collapsing room trap triggered by touching a small idol, natch) and steal vast riches (some 37,000 GP in platinum ingots and gemstones) as a means of writing him out of the game (since this is Dave's last month before their move). All of this resulted in an immensely satisfying fantasy of the sort that D&D excels in.
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Date: 2010-08-23 10:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-23 06:52 pm (UTC)