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Post by Wolfgar on Sept 26, 2009 12:05:31 GMT -5
Good idea. Since zombies are undead they should not be affected by the gray dwarves ability to hide.
Have them grapple when we get into combat. Easier for them to hit and the characters can do a lot more damage.
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Post by Wolfgar on Sept 28, 2009 7:48:54 GMT -5
Another good week. I was glad to see everyone stuck in there when it got tough.
On the list of things to do next time: -wait for paralyzation and strength draining to wear off -bind wounds -check the bodies -memorize open spell slots for healing -destroy the mouths -check the bedrooms -everyone should make a check to see if they heard the illusionist say the activation word for the wand. she used it 3 or 4 times, within 10' of several people. Basil has the best chance with his good hearing and understanding of gnomish. -save the illusionist if she hasn't bled out so we can question her. otherwise we will need to speak with dead. -check for secret doors
I want to find out -where is the war horn of the ancestors? -are there other prisoners to free? -is there anything else we can do in Black Towen to hurt HDM's plans? -when are reinforcements/additional forces expected? -where is Kirsi?
I assume that the women and children durin which fled will alert other forces. I don't know how long it will take for them to arrive but we probably don't want to wait around for another day to rest and memorize.
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Post by Ginger on Sept 28, 2009 12:42:21 GMT -5
We can set out posse of dwarves to go to town on the faces with their hammers. I'm worried that the strength draining from the undead will take a while. The sulfur-stench induced strength drain will probably go away when we get far enough from the room.
Morvan can speak gnomish and has an empty 3rd level slot, so he can memorize SwD. His 2nd slot could be used for Locate Object, which has a good enough range to cover most of the complex if we use it in the middle.
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Post by Ginger on Sept 29, 2009 13:23:33 GMT -5
While checking out the profile for the dwarven thrower, I saw that Zinc's +2 throwing axe has a range of 6" also. Cool!
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Post by venger on Oct 2, 2009 11:28:16 GMT -5
Another good week. I was glad to see everyone stuck in there when it got tough. And by everyone you mean Rensslaer! : ) I couldn't just abandon you guys. I want to find out -where is the war horn of the ancestors? -are there other prisoners to free? -is there anything else we can do in Black Towen to hurt HDM's plans? -when are reinforcements/additional forces expected? -where is Kirsi? I want to know what's in the room with the doors painted on the walls that set the Find Traps to overload.
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Post by Ginger on Oct 2, 2009 13:03:56 GMT -5
I want to know what's in the room with the doors painted on the walls that set the Find Traps to overload. I already know. A trap.
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Post by venger on Oct 4, 2009 7:45:27 GMT -5
The otherwise empty room was heavily trapped, behind a locked door.
Sounds like a good place to stash something you want to keep safe. Like a magic war-horn.
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Post by Wolfgar on Oct 4, 2009 10:18:05 GMT -5
Kazan will memorize a Knock spell or two while everyone is resting. We can have the dwarves and Basil look for secret doors at the same time. There is a lot of wall space to cover in the temple and the two bedrooms.
Given that all of the other leaders have had healing potions there should be some here as well - unless they used them after the fireball. Kazan is going to stick to magic user abilities unless very dire circumstances. So most of the healing should go to Zinc and Rensslaer. An hour or two of resting and Basil should be able to shape change again.
Hopefully the shear number of dwarves will even the odds against any other group we face. We know there is at least 3 durin and a Black Watch commander running around still.
I agree that it is worth investigating the empty room with the murals. They did have 4 Black Watch on guard at all times. It would be good to capture a leader who can answer some questions about what is what.
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Post by Ginger on Oct 4, 2009 12:53:54 GMT -5
The otherwise empty room was heavily trapped, behind a locked door. Sounds like a good place to stash something you want to keep safe. Like a magic war-horn. Open the door, send the zombies through, and watch what happens. It'll be fun!
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Post by venger on Oct 4, 2009 18:08:20 GMT -5
Kazan is going to stick to magic user abilities unless very dire circumstances. So most of the healing should go to Zinc and Rensslaer. What happened to solidarity? We were both going to boycott our non-class powers to gain experience next week. : / Open the door, send the zombies through, and watch what happens. It'll be fun! Sounds like a plan.
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Post by Ginger on Oct 4, 2009 18:13:13 GMT -5
We were both going to boycott our non-class powers to gain experience next week. If Rennslaer forgoes his cleric powers, he forgoes his ability to control his zombies. Which means Zinc will no longer have to restrain his urge to annihilate them, which is fine by him.
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Post by Wolfgar on Oct 5, 2009 8:15:39 GMT -5
Kazan is going to stick to magic user abilities unless very dire circumstances. So most of the healing should go to Zinc and Rensslaer. What happened to solidarity? We were both going to boycott our non-class powers to gain experience next week. : / I completely support your boycott. Rensslaer should get more healing since he is going to be a front line fighter. Good question though: what will you do with the zombies?
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Post by venger on Oct 5, 2009 13:56:48 GMT -5
I completely support your boycott. Rensslaer should get more healing since he is going to be a front line fighter. Good question though: what will you do with the zombies? Rensslaer can only soak up so much healing with his max 21 hit points. I think Jespers or Zinc will be in front of him in the marching order. Don't you worry about those zombies.
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Post by Ginger on Oct 5, 2009 14:44:38 GMT -5
Yeah, don't worry about the zombies. :)
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Post by venger on Oct 11, 2009 18:39:45 GMT -5
Jespers was charmed and knocked out Morvan and Kazan. The were-bear dude got dropped. Rensslaer put down Jespers.
Basil killed the devil.
We found two secret doors in the throne room. Everything else was illusion.
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Post by Ginger on Oct 11, 2009 20:12:08 GMT -5
Jespers was charmed and knocked out Morvan and Kazan. The were-bear dude got dropped. Rensslaer put down Jespers. Basil killed the devil. We found two secret doors in the throne room. Everything else was illusion. Were-bear? I presume this means someone knocked out Zinc? So are Morvan, Kazan, Zinc and Jespers unconscious?
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Post by venger on Oct 11, 2009 21:16:38 GMT -5
Were-bear dude is the guy from the cage that we freed.
Zinc is up.
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Post by Ginger on Oct 11, 2009 21:21:55 GMT -5
Wow. Did he fight with us or against us?
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Post by venger on Oct 11, 2009 21:32:54 GMT -5
He attacked the devil. Then took one hit and went down.
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Post by Ginger on Oct 11, 2009 21:53:13 GMT -5
I like how Dana played him coyly replying that "Some powerful northmen can transform to their totem animal spirits, and there's nothing wrong with that." And then Zinc said, "No it was just evil."
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Post by Wolfgar on Oct 12, 2009 7:33:04 GMT -5
There were two devils.
The first charmed Zinc. Kazan kept Zinc grappled while the party mobbed it. It tried charming Basil who failed his saving throw but made his 30% check. It went down the next round. The guy turned into a bear in the second round.
After we opened the doors the second devil teleported behind Morvan and Kazan. We fought it while everyone advanced. Zinc stood back and threw his axe. It hit Morvan twice taking him from 8 to 1 hit point. It then charmed Jesper who was standing between Morvan and Kazan. Rensslaer hit it hard but not enough to take it down. Jesper took out Kazan with his pre-initiative attack. Basil failed to back-stab it. It took out the bear then teleported away before Rensslaer's second attack. Then Jesper took out Morvan.
Basil advanced across the room on the devil. It failed to charm him. Jesper hit Rensslaer. The next round Jesper and Rensslaer missed their first attacks. Basil killed the devil. Rensslaer took out Jesper with his second attack.
Leaving: dead: two devils unconscious: Kazan, Morvan, Jesper, Havard, Flam and a dwarf conscious: Basil, Rensslaer, Zinc, Macolm, Flim and a dwarf
We pulled everyone into the room and closed the door. We searched for secret doors and found two. A small one in the direction of the horn and a large one going in the opposite direction. We ended there so Rensslaer wouldn't have to use his cleric abilities.
I am thinking everyone will want 8 hours of sleep.
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Post by venger on Oct 18, 2009 21:48:10 GMT -5
That went pretty well.
Where do we go from here? The elves?
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Post by Ginger on Oct 19, 2009 8:00:43 GMT -5
We head to the snow maiden's cave for a night, and we assess whether we need to walk to Kerava or take the Faerie Road. Maybe we try a detect magic or detect invisible to try to find Flim/Flam. Or we can see if the old guy who claims to be a messenger from the ancestors can do it.
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Post by Wolfgar on Oct 19, 2009 8:07:37 GMT -5
I think we have struck a major blow against Black Towen and completed our main mission of recapturing the Horn of the South. We were in a hurry to leave but before we run off there are some things to consider: - there were some high quality suits of dwarven plate mail on the first floor behind a secret door. the dwarves may want to equip themselves with that instead.
- we did not explore the smithy where they were fixing the Black Watch. if we could destroy that we would slow the rebuilding of the Black Watch army.
- there was one Black Watch captain that we never destroyed. should we track him down?
- the witch who charmed Zinc escaped.
- Kirsi escaped.
- we never checked the lair of the cloaker.
- we never checked for magic in the witch's secret chamber.
- there was a fragile map in the chamber we stowed Kimball's body showing troop movements in the previous campaign. We could try mending it or copying the contents onto a new map.
- we never freed the cave cows.
Is it worth going back for any of these? Personally I think we have done enough. I think the immediate destination is the snow maiden's cave. Once there we should be able to fully heal before heading back to Yngvar. It is not clear if we have Flam with us but maybe the messenger of the Ancestors we freed can lead us on the fairy road. We should also ask the snow maiden if there is a closer point of entry to the fairy road. Aren't we due a reward from Ratatosk? Was he going to find Cullen? Maybe this other messenger will also reward us. Like raising Kimball. We need to go through all of the treasure we recovered. See how much gold we have - some people will need to self train soon. Have Basil try another round of legend lore. We need to examine the books and the scrolls. I would like to check for traps on any of these items. There could be explosive ruins or worse on them. I think some judicious use of dispel magic might be in order. It should not hurt scrolls or spell books but may disarm what is there. We need to figure out who should be carrying what items. Some stuff has been loaned to freed prisoners which is fine so long as they continue to travel with us but there will need to be a discussion as to what they are allowed to keep when all is said and done. We should see if there is anything we can do to enlist the aid of the dwarves in opposing HDM. Maybe Theodrin has pull.
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Post by Ginger on Oct 19, 2009 10:09:52 GMT -5
I think the dwarven plate might be a good idea. I think we can leave the rest well enough alone. Ratatosk did promise us a boon, but his boon might have been getting the elves to send Flim and Flam with us. I believe F and F were going to help us get Cullen if they returned alive with us.
I'm hesitant to spend more than a day at the Snow Maiden's cave, since there's a huge army coming any day now, and we should put a lot of distance between us and them. That and she's really creepy.
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Post by Wolfgar on Oct 20, 2009 15:24:35 GMT -5
Other than wanting Basil because of his 18 Charisma, I didn't think there was anything wrong with her.
It would be good to be fully healed and fully memorized before going. Right now Basil, Zinc, Rensslaer, Morvan, Kazan, Jesper and Havard are each at least 20 hit points from full. I don't know the status of Macolm, the dwarves or the old man but I don't think they should need much. We can ignore Basil since he can transform and he is weeks away from healing the damage from the sword of wounding. So lets say we have to heal roughly 150 hp using just 1st and 2nd level spells. That is roughly 25 spells. With four hours of sleep and four hours of memorization we can get 10 spells from Zinc, 10 from Morvan, 3 from Macolm and 3 from Basil. Then we will need another 4 hours of sleep and 4 hours of memorization. If Zinc is to level he will need 8 hours of sleep. And then there is getting back 3rd and 4th level spells. We are looking at a minimum of 16 hours once we return to the cave and preferably 24 to 36 hours.
So I agree we shouldn't spend days there but at least one day to get us back into better fighting shape with time to discuss the next steps.
Maybe the Snow Maiden or the Messenger of the Ancestors can bestow healing as well.
We should attempt to obscure our passage back to the cave if possible to slow down any pursuit.
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Post by Wolfgar on Oct 21, 2009 15:12:56 GMT -5
Another thing to do if we go back for the dwarven plate is to check the witch's secret room for any spell ink. Morvan and Kazan have a new spell they can discover as a result of reaching 6th level. I don't know when else we are going to get spell ink to write them down.
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Post by Ginger on Oct 21, 2009 16:13:27 GMT -5
Another thing to do if we go back for the dwarven plate is to check the witch's secret room for any spell ink. Morvan and Kazan have a new spell they can discover as a result of reaching 6th level. I don't know when else we are going to get spell ink to write them down. Yes, definitely a good idea. Obviously we have a ton of books with unknown spells, but I'd recommend you or Morvan think about getting Monster Summoning I. We could definitely use more meat shields!
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Post by Wolfgar on Oct 22, 2009 9:19:01 GMT -5
Monster summoning seems gray to dark on the magic scale. I don't think Kazan would readily use it as a LG character. I think anything that binds a creature against its will is inherently evil. A mount spell is probably as far as he is willing to go - you aren't summoning the creature to send it to its death. Also there is a chance of summoning devils and demons - there is no way Kazan would feel right about commanding such creatures. Morvan can of course make his own decision.
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Post by Ginger on Oct 22, 2009 13:43:03 GMT -5
Monsters don't have wills, their evil!! Has Kazan ever cast charm?
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