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Ryan DeLano
United States
Murray
Utah
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Cast of Characters
Salarra - Played by my wife, Lisa. Wilden Shaman/Druid. Fire bad!
Jak - Played by my brother, Andy. Minotaur paladin of Bahamut, master of the goring charge.
Vask - Played by Justin. Human wizard, lightning pillar isn't just a spell, it's a way of life.
GrimLore - Played by Brandon. Longtooth Shifter Warlord/Barbarian hybrid. Me GrimLore king!
Ron'Far - Played by Eric. Goliath Monk, crane-kicking karate kid style since level 3.
Setting
The world that the campaign is set in is one I created specifically for 4E, and the "Points of Light" concept, called Trell, where essentially civilization is scattered, sparse, and surrounded by darkness. Magic, both divine and arcane, are fairly new concepts in this world, having only been rediscovered a generation or so ago. The party is starting in the southern continent of Orcus, which is cut off from the north lands by the Forbidden Wall. A huge wall that separates the continents both physically and magically, created by the Elves of the surrounding forest to keep out the overwhelming hordes of the south.
The continent of Orcus is dominated by, you guessed it, orcs, and other savage monsters of all shapes and sizes. All areas of the world are threatened by evil, but none so much as Orcus. The party being made up of mostly "monstrous" creatures fits in quite well here.
Act 1: Traversing The Tunnels
As you may recall from last session, our heroes were heading towards the "Vents", which is an area of natural fissures and caves created by escaping gas. They took an extended rest while GrimLore's servants guided their carts to the valley below. They were now also joined by Kalad, last surviving dwarf paladin from the monastery they had just left. He also took this chance to recover from the wounds he received at the hands of the orog champion.
As they neared the vents, they were able to make out a small campsite amongst the rocky outcroppings. They saw that five horses were tethered here, and decided that no matter whose horses those were, this was where they would enter the complex of tunnels below. They were able to make out tracks in the sand, and used those, as well as their athletics and dungeoneering skills to easily navigate the tunnels. Kalad was also providing some assistance, having been there before. It was a skill challenge where no failures were rolled. Well, ok, one failure from Vask, who found his knowledge of arcana and history useless here. Fortunately, that failure was erased by Salarra's success at dungeoneering.
As they descended lower into the tunnels, voices began to reach them. Orc voices.
Act 2: Crossbow With Legs, And Other Fun Monsters
Ron'far decides to use some stealth to see who is speaking, and scouts up ahead. He sees an orc sergeant, a few drudges and a bombardier. Jak decides that he will try the ol' "I'm a monster!" trick again. He walks out and begins conversing with the sergeant, claiming that they are some reserves that have been called in to help. The sergeant says "Great! Then you can lead us out of here the way you came in!" Whoops! The party didn't expect that one. GrimLore chimes in asking what their plan is, because he didn't get the memo. He rolls a 1 on his bluff, and all hell breaks loose.
The drudges explode almost instantly (minions). The sergeant is cut down to a mere 16 hp in the first round, and the bombardier only gets one grenade off before losing his mere 26 hp to a combination of attacks. Well, that was easy, and sure enough, these creatures were level 1 and 2. The party had been fighting level 5 creatures before this point, so I'm not sure what the adventure was intending here. Frankly, I think that encounter was just to waste some time.
The party quickly moves on, down a corridor. Jak is the first to go, and immediately sets off a trap. Yay, their first trap! Crossbows drop from the ceiling and begin raining death down on the party. They are also attacked by an Arbalester (which I was told by the adventure to describe as a "crossbow with legs") and a couple iron defenders. Jak engages the iron defenders, while GrimLore and Ron'Far work on blowing up the crossbows. The crossbows are by far the most lethal aspects of this encounter, so that was a wise decision.
Vask makes his presence known with an acid arrow into the arbalester, dealing significant damage. The arbalester returned fire upon both Vask and Salarra, with very poor results. The iron defenders did nothing to Jak, and were eventually destroyed by the rest of the party. The arbalester had very little life after that acid arrow, and was easily crushed.
The party then proceeded to the next room, where they were confronted with several orc drudges, orc scouts, and a few fire beetles. The room itself had huge copper pipes on either side, below the catwalk which the party was on upon entering. There was a door leading out directly to the north. The drudges mobbed up on the party to prevent them from moving, while the scouts took very poorly aimed shots (curse my dice!). The fire beetles came out and lit all the drudges (and a couple party members) ablaze.
This combat took way too long. That's all there is to it. you had Jak taking on a scout, Ron'Far crane-kicking a poor scout over and over into the floor below the catwalk, Salarra and Vask taking on the fire beetles, and Grimlore taking shots at both the beetles, and the scout Jak was attacking. My rolls were terrible, as were theirs. This battle took by far the longest portion of the game that night. The only thing of interest that came of it, is that cloaked being darted up the ladder from the floor below and ran past the party and out the door. He took quite a few opportunity attacks, but they didn't stop him. They weren't able to get a good look at the creature, but I have a feeling they'll be seeing it again. They also opened the valves on the pipes below, allowing boiling water to surge through.
Act 3: Get To Da Panel!
The party was so done after that last encounter. They turned to Kalad (who, by the way, had contributed very little to anything that had gone on till that point), and asked him where the Nexus was. He pointed to the doors ahead, and the party bypassed two other rooms/encounters so they could get the hell out of there.
They entered the Nexus to see a staircase/catwalk that wrapped around the walls, leading up at least a hundred feet to a control panel and ladder. They saw tunnels in the walls all around the room, which led into darkness. They began to run up and around, as fast as they could. Each round, a few enemies would emerge from the tunnels. At first, this comprised mostly of drudges and orog militants. In later turns, however, Tusk the Orog Chieftan emerged, along with Myrissa, a Shadar-Kai warlock. This was the first time the party had seen a shadar-kai, but it won't be the last.
They decided that they could not outrun these non-minions, so they told Salarra and Kalad to get to the top and begin the activation sequence to flood this chamber. The rest stayed behind to take on these creatures. Tusk was held back by the fact that he was large, and the catwalk was only ten feet wide. His minions were blocking his path, as was Vask's lightning pillar. The pillar occupies a square, and thus Tusk could not occupy that same space.
Jak decided to try and use diplomacy on the shadar-kai, and rolled a natural 20. That, combined with his circlet of command, was a very impressive result. She saw the destruction that the part had wreaked upon the orcs and orogs and decided she would rather live. She agreed to join as long as she was free to go when this was over. Jak agreed. So, as a spellcaster, she began to run behind the party to cast her spells. The party thought she was running away for some reason, and decided to attack her anyway.
"What the Hell!?" the warlock cried. She of course began cursing the party to defend herself, and that's when they noticed a long bronze key hanging around her neck. They quickly came to the decision that they needed that, so she had to go down. Meanwhile, Tusk was now getting double-teamed by GrimLore and Jak. Fortunately for him, he had an at-will aoe attack with his weapon called skull harvest, which he used to great effect. Jak and GrimLore were hurting.....badly.
Salarra was attempting to work out the control sequence on the panel at the top, which was a skill challenge requiring several dungeoneering successes. Fortunately, between her already high skill and Kalad's bonus for helping her, she needed to roll anything but a 1. Ron'Far and Vask dropped the warlock, and vask used mage hand to grab the key. They were then able to help Jak and GrimLore take out Tusk. They quickly looted the bodies, got a few items of interest, and climbed the ladder while the room and surrounding tunnels filled with boiling water, flushing out the remaining orcs and orogs.
The exited out the hatch in the ceiling, directly into the city of Overlook. Surprised dwarves greeted them. They were given medals from the lords of high hall for saving the city from the orcish horde. They couldn't rest easy, though. They could feel that they were being watched, and they still had no idea what the key was for...
Afterthoughts
This game dragged due purely to poorly designed encounters. Level 1 and 2 creatures?! Really?! I don't know why these adventures demand than an encounter happen in every room. I really don't. The final battle against the boss was good in that there was a lot of stuff happening at once, and bad due to terrible room design. Tusk was nowhere near as effective as he should have been. The party did the best they could in my opinion, though. Thankfully, the plot of the game is beginning to emerge. I'm hoping that leads to some more exciting role-playing. Anything that keeps us from engaging in lame encounters. It makes me wish I had more time to design the adventure myself, instead of relying on Dungeon Magazine.
Till next week
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