|
Post by Dead Greyhawk on Sept 21, 2008 18:40:38 GMT -5
People fall, meet strangers, kill some. Morvan falls. Undead are slain. A secret room is uncovered, full of foul batbugs.
Morvan makes 3rd level cleric. Zinc and Rensslaer make 4th level cleric.
Morvan 3773/3773 Zinc 6111 Rensslaer 7965 Kazan 5,550 Basil 7965
|
|
|
Post by Wolfgar on Sept 22, 2008 7:46:03 GMT -5
People fall, meet strangers, kill some. Morvan falls. Undead are slain. A secret room is uncovered, full of foul batbugs. Morvan makes 3rd level cleric. Zinc and Rensslaer make 4th level cleric. Morvan 3773/3773 Zinc 6111 Rensslaer 7965 Kazan 5,550 Basil 7965 Wow, you guys got a ton of experience points this week. If my calculations are correct you got more than 2600 xp a piece. Does this mean you found the treasure room?
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 22, 2008 8:15:49 GMT -5
We found a treasure room in the depths of this pit. Including all of the items we've found recently, we have a suit of magical platemail, two magical shortswords, a magical two-handed sword, 4 potions, 2 magic rings (one still worn by Kazan), and a magical battle-axe. James left at 4 and Lee left at 5, so Eddie and I were the only PCs present when we found the three big chests behind the secret doors with the stirges.
|
|
|
Post by Mr. Trommer on Sept 22, 2008 8:17:35 GMT -5
No, we left the throne room and tried to leave. Got side tracked by falling down a trap door that had a long spiral chute deep into the ground. Met and befriended a couple of starving barbarians who took us to their hidden cave so we could rest. Then went exploring. Killed a bugbear and two ran away. Then killed a couple of berzerkers. Rested again then killed some more berzerkers (followers of of Der Winky). Rested again then killed some ghouls. Don't know what happen after that.
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 22, 2008 8:26:05 GMT -5
Morvan is at -6, Basil is at -8. They've basically being carried by Kazan and Cullen, while Renn, Zinc, our two barbarian friends Lars and Jens, and Gareth do all the fighting.
|
|
|
Post by venger on Sept 22, 2008 9:01:21 GMT -5
Add a magic spear to that list as well. Named it "The Ironwood Spear."
Also we found a ton of coin of varying denominations, a couple items of jewelry and a bunch of fancy gold/silver serving items (cups, tray, pitcher)
Recap:
We searched both rooms adjoining the throne room and turned up no fabulous treasure room- some coins in a chest and the magic spear. The hobgoblins we killed had more gold on them. We fell down a pit and wound up in an octagonal room with 8 doors. Befriended the barbarians we met, rested in their hidey-hole. Morvan again used his elven sneaking ability to no great effect (some surprise missile fire) and ended up at death's door after being mauled by some bugbears. We came to his rescue, couple bugbears fled. Later encountered some crazy berserker types in the octagonal room and went back to rest again after depleting our healing spells. We have marked the 8 rooms, 1-8. 1 and 4 lead to our barbarian lair and a ghoul cave which we emptied of ghouls**, 5 leads to the berserkers, 7 and 3 loop back around in to the octagonal room - we fought some bugbears in the spiraling passage, including those we injured earlier. 8 leads to a dead-end where we found a secret door, stirges, another secret door and a fabulous treasure room. The door mechanism is tricky. If one door is open, the other closes, trapping us in the treasure room/stirge chamber. With some trial and error I'm confident we can figure our way out. I wonder if both switches activated at the same time will open the third secret door we suspect is in the room.
Door 6 and Door 5 (berserkers) are as yet unexplored.
** the fight with the ghouls was a debacle. Zinc turned three of the four and Rensslaer set for charge, impaling the fourth one spectacularly on the Ironwood Spear. The remaining ghouls cowered in the corner of the room and what should have been an easy win turned into a fight for our lives. Rensslaer approached one ghoul and attacked it with Cullen's help while Gareth dithered about with the torch. The ghoul wasn't killed and mauled Rensslaer, paralyzing him. Everyone else but Cullen just stood there, paralyzed with cowardice or indecision. Then the ghoul mauled the held Rensslaer for maximum damage before Zinc could turn it again. Finally everyone, but the paralyzed Rensslaer, joined in to attack the ghouls. Cullen ended up paralyzed for his trouble.
|
|
|
Post by venger on Sept 22, 2008 9:10:27 GMT -5
Morvan makes 3rd level cleric. Zinc and Rensslaer make 4th level cleric. Oh yeah- Thus ends the dream of dual-classing at 3rd level. If only we'd gone back to Fort Guy like I'd asked... you guys are never going to hear the end of this one. Especially if we starve to death down here.
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 22, 2008 10:04:01 GMT -5
We've pondered waiting down here so Renn can self-train and then dual class, but we don't have enough food. We have 11 weeks of rations and 9 people to eat them. The barbarians had no food at all, and are almost starving. The bugbears are also very malnourished. The berserk barbarians looked a little thin, but are hale enough to likely have a stable food source.
|
|
|
Post by Dell on Sept 22, 2008 10:28:44 GMT -5
Thus ends the dream of dual-classing at 3rd level. After you train, change alignments. Then change back. That might do the trick.
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 22, 2008 11:01:24 GMT -5
Since dual-classing from 4th or 5th level would be a more tedious process, I think Lendor would want you to do it.
|
|
|
Post by venger on Sept 22, 2008 11:17:24 GMT -5
After you train, change alignments. Then change back. That might do the trick. As satisfying as it would be... probably a bad idea. Since dual-classing from 4th or 5th level would be a more tedious process, I think Lendor would want you to do it. Now you're thinking! Good call.
|
|
|
Post by Wolfgar on Sept 22, 2008 12:16:14 GMT -5
From the recap and the talk about rations it is not clear if we are trapped down here or just haven't explored everything yet.
Can we climb back up the pit?
Where did the bugbears flee to?
What's behind door number 2?
Are doors magical (i.e. teleport) or is there a lot of sloping passages that connect them together (like the octagonal rooms in LBM)?
Can you post a map?
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 22, 2008 12:45:31 GMT -5
We are stuck in two senses, neither of them permanent. First, the room we are currently in has no apparent exits. The door we went into is one way. I'm confident that we can find our way out of this room if we search more thoroughly. Second, we are stuck down here because we can't climb back up the hole we fell down and don't know where to go. The hole is engineered to be unclimbable. I'm confident that if we keep exploring we'll be able to find our way out eventually.
The bugbears fled out of sight when we first encountered them. When we ran into them again, we killed the injured ones and the uninjured ones, and left no survivors.
We've explored 5 of the 8 doors in the central octagonal room. Zinc discreetly carved numbers into them, so we're sure that we're not getting tricked by two identical octagonal rooms with doors. 2 of them are connected by a passage with a ghoul room and a hiding place where we've set up camp. 2 of them are connected by a long twisty passage where we killed 6 bugbears. Door 5 is where the berserk barbarians came out of. We have not gone down that door. The door we are currently down led to a dead-end, which we searched and found a secret door. That door lead to stirges and treasure. There is also a third secret door here which we cannot open.
Nothing here is magical, it's just a windy, sloping cave.
To recap, there are 8 main doors. We've thoroughly explored half of them. We know there are berserk barbarians (who serve King Derwinkie, King of the Underworld) behind one of them. We have no idea what is behind two of them, and we are currently exploring one of them.
|
|
|
Post by venger on Sept 22, 2008 14:01:19 GMT -5
I guess Door 2 is also unexplored. Here's a crude map done from memory: The colors didn't come out so well, but hopefully you can differentiate them. Colors do not form intersections, they are separate passages that slope above or below one another.
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 22, 2008 15:45:19 GMT -5
Eddie comes through, again. We fought 3 bugbears at the intersection near the barbarian lair, and they fled. We caught up with them in the other tunnels and killed them all.
|
|
|
Post by Wolfgar on Sept 23, 2008 11:29:26 GMT -5
We found a treasure room in the depths of this pit. Including all of the items we've found recently, we have a suit of magical platemail, two magical shortswords, a magical two-handed sword, 4 potions, 2 magic rings (one still worn by Kazan), and a magical battle-axe. James left at 4 and Lee left at 5, so Eddie and I were the only PCs present when we found the three big chests behind the secret doors with the stirges. So I was thinking about the rule we made about magical longswords. In retrospect I am not sure I understand why we created that rule. Is it because we don't use speed factor and so there is no reason to use another sword type? Anyway it seems to me that given the physics of the campaign people would gravitate to the most powerful weapon and as a result the likelihood of having a magical version would also go up. Does this seem odd to anyone else?
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 23, 2008 12:46:42 GMT -5
There are really two reasons for it: increasing variety and game balance.
Longswords are just flat-out the best melee weapon for a fighter to specialize in. The damage is much better than any other one handed weapon, and you cannot double-specialize in the two-handed weapons which do more damage. The rule is designed to make more flail specialists, axe specialists, and broadsword specialists.
It's the a similar rationale behind the "no magical bow" rule. Bow specialists are deadly. If you could get a +2 bow (imagine a +2 strength bow!), an archer would be insanely unbalancing.
Those are basically just different explanations of the same reason: longswords are too powerful and we have to nerf them.
|
|
|
Post by venger on Sept 23, 2008 12:50:14 GMT -5
I think the rule is to encourage variety in the weapons we use and decide to become proficient in.
Longswords are played out. If Lendor didn't require the use of one, I'd have gone with a broadsword, falchion or scimitar. When I get fighter proficiencies it'll be spear, one of the above swords, possibly shortsword and maybe trident or morning star.
I'm disappointed in Lendor's prohibition against polearms because I wanted to use a ranseur. Oh well.
|
|
|
Post by Wolfgar on Sept 23, 2008 17:07:07 GMT -5
It just seems odd. If I was a lord who could pay a magic user to make a magic sword why would I choose a short sword over a long sword. If I am going to pay the money I would choose to make something deadly even more so.
Short swords and broad swords are infantry weapons - they do plenty of damage to kill men-at-arms. But a knight is going spend the money on a long sword because it is a better weapon which he would need when fighting more skilled opponents.
We just seem to be penalizing people for choosing a superior weapon. Until the long sword specialist finds a +3 weapon he won't be able to hurt anything that requires a +1 weapon to hit or he will need to carry around an extra magic weapon for just such occasions.
I guess I'm just not enamored by the thought of a flail specialist.
|
|
|
Post by venger on Sept 23, 2008 18:13:50 GMT -5
According to Wikipedia: "The Longsword is a type of European sword used during the late medieval and Renaissance periods, approximately 1350 to 1550"
If you imagine that commonly found magic weapons were created long ago, in the age of antiquity, most enchanted swords would be Roman-style shortswords, Dark Age broadswords or big Viking two-handed swords.
I'm not sure how to describe the Campaign setting we're in, but it's definitely not Renaissance and maybe not late medieval. So we're lucky to even have longswords and advanced forms of plate armor.
It's not so much penalizing the person picking a longsword as rewarding the person picking a less min/maxing weapon.
|
|
|
Post by Mr. Trommer on Sept 23, 2008 21:11:32 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by venger on Sept 24, 2008 6:41:33 GMT -5
Rensslaer the yells “Magic spear missile attack!” and throws the spear at the berserk man piercing his torso and he falls backwards from the blow falling dead.
lol
Did I really say that?
|
|
|
Post by Mr. Trommer on Sept 24, 2008 7:45:29 GMT -5
No, you didn't. It felt like something you would say.
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 24, 2008 7:59:26 GMT -5
It just seems odd. If I was a lord who could pay a magic user to make a magic sword why would I choose a short sword over a long sword. If I am going to pay the money I would choose to make something deadly even more so. Short swords and broad swords are infantry weapons - they do plenty of damage to kill men-at-arms. But a knight is going spend the money on a long sword because it is a better weapon which he would need when fighting more skilled opponents. We just seem to be penalizing people for choosing a superior weapon. Until the long sword specialist finds a +3 weapon he won't be able to hurt anything that requires a +1 weapon to hit or he will need to carry around an extra magic weapon for just such occasions. I guess I'm just not enamored by the thought of a flail specialist. It's even more odd to imagine someone commissioning a magical weapon that was anything but a longsword, given how overpowering they are. It's just one of those things we have to deal with.
|
|
|
Post by Wolfgar on Sept 24, 2008 8:46:24 GMT -5
Not sure but it sounds like a gelatinous cube is cleaning up the dead bodies. I never understood how they open doors.
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 24, 2008 9:13:30 GMT -5
Not sure but it sounds like a gelatinous cube is cleaning up the dead bodies. I never understood how they open doors. Yeah, that does sound about right. All of the dust is removed as well, and the doors are slightly smoothed.
|
|
|
Post by venger on Sept 24, 2008 11:04:36 GMT -5
"Red shirts, to the front of the marching order!"
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 24, 2008 12:16:47 GMT -5
Don't forget that a gelatinous cube saved the Company of the Blue Sun from a TPK at the hands of a posessed Raven in a temple of Nerull.
|
|
|
Post by Mr. Trommer on Sept 24, 2008 13:02:35 GMT -5
I don't remember that part. Raven getting possessed was a pretty regular occurance. That's not going to happen to Basil's Brethren.
|
|
|
Post by Ginger on Sept 24, 2008 13:31:59 GMT -5
|
|