Sewers again

[Ginger]

Well we have a new strategy: Get into terrible trouble and use the ring of wishes to save the day. Can we use the ring to wish for more wishes?

[Dead Greyhawk]

A brief summary:

Things went slowly, and then badly. The big, bad guys kept showing up. Otto's head was caved in. The Hand of Glory was used. Diego was rent apart. Winthrop was reduced to struggling to use his wands and not pass out while doing so. Maximilian's unconscious form was spiraling into the sky. Dell fell back on his delusion of the wishing ring. A flock of Hollyphants appeared to save the day, restoring the Company to health and chasing off the evil creatures, even the ones fighting on Raven's side. The Keoish army is decimated, and no pursuit can be launched. The Company retires to Longspear; the orcish/giantish retreats up into the Little Hills.

[Dell]

arrowguy said:

Well we have a new strategy: Get into terrible trouble and use the ring of wishes to save the day.

Not that it helped Diego, who was ripped into multiple pieces by a demon. Admittedly, there was probably a less drastic solution to the problem, but I didn't think of it.

And you can't wish for more wishes... but you can wish for the location of another ring of wishes. Or the location of a spellbook that has "Wish" in it. Or where to find a genie, or some other wish-granting entity.

[Wolfgar]

What is the Hand of Glory? Were the Hollyphants specifically summoned or was it just a lucky wish? Were we able to recover any magic items off of the guys we killed?

[Ginger]

It was a gross corpse hand that the 15th level cleric held to the sky to summon a demon. None of our spells got through its magic resistance. Dell wished that the company and its allies would be restored to fighting strength. The DM's initial thought was for the wish to rewind time to just before dawn. We then discussed whether rewinding time was less jarring to the fabric of the universe than just healing our wounds. He suddenly had the inspiration during the argument. It seems like we have the field when the bad guys fled, so we should be able to gather the bodies. It's less clear whether we'll be able to search the tents, but I think yes.

[Wolfgar]

Wow, quite a lot happened after I left. I am glad to hear it resolved reasonably well.

Of course now we have to decide what to do with the other two wishes.

[Dell]

otto said:

Of course now we have to decide what to do with the other two wishes.

I'm telling you, the ring is bogus. It's just a coincidence that the freaky elephant things showed up when they did. You did ask the one for a boon, if I recall. So Dell will hang on to his fake ring. You know, for fun.

[Ginger]

Another thing you might want to know is that all of our fighting was heavily outweighed by a simple die-roll after the battle. There was a list of possible outcomes ranging from "City falls, all perish" to "Enemy routed" Each high level caster (cloud giant, etc.) killed modified the roll. Our roll of 4 was modified to 11, which was the highest possible non-victory outcome.

[Wolfgar]

That makes sense since we didn't really factor into most of the fighting though we did effectively distract/kill many of their high level leaders.

So how are we going to hold the city now that the army has been decimated? Or is the Company going to go on the offensive and try to take out more of the leaders while the enemy is in disarray?

[Ginger]

I presume we'll get an after-action report on the message board from the DM.
Things for us to do:
We can also interrogate all of the non-priests with speak with dead.
Look at the maps and such from the tents.
Take stock of the loot and identify magical items.
Max, Adrienne and Pfifwin will need training.
Get a high-priest to raise Diego.

[Mr. Trommer]

If I remember correctly these priests won't have souls to be interrogated.

[Ginger]

That's why we should interrogate all of the non-priests.

[Dead Greyhawk]

arrowguy said:

Another thing you might want to know is that all of our fighting was heavily outweighed by a simple die-roll after the battle. There was a list of possible outcomes ranging from "City falls, all perish" to "Enemy routed" Each high level caster (cloud giant, etc.) killed modified the roll. Our roll of 4 was modified to 11, which was the highest possible non-victory outcome.

Bah.

Result of the battle without Company's actions: "City falls. All perish.
Result of the battle with Company's actions: "Keoish Army defeated"

I'll pull back the screen for a moment. Here's the full table reflecting the initial weighting against Sir Highrider's last ditch plan (roll 1d20):

Roll	Outcome
1-6	City falls. All perish.
7-10	Keoish Army defeated. City falls. Survivors flee south and east.
11-12	Keoish Army defeated.
13-18	Enemy army defeated. Keoish Army weakened. No pursuit possible.
19-20	Enemy army defeated. Keoish Army pursues.
21-22	Enemy army routed.
23+	Strategic victory achieved.

Sir Highrider's plan, misjudged as it was, still had a 50% chance of holding the city of Longspear, a 40% chance of success, and a 10% chance of outright victory. It also had a 30% chance of losing everything, and a 20% chance of suffering the loss of the city.

Ok, the Company's actions increased the die roll by 1 for each priest over level 6 slain (3 possible, 2 slain), 1 for each of the mages slain (1 possible, 1 slain), 2 for accepting the help of the devil-worshipping priest, and 2 for slaying the summoned demon. I had more mages, some cloud giants, and some cloud demons prepared as well (increased the die roll by 1 for each of them as well), but that was a bit of over-preparation on my part.

So, with the Company's help, total defeat was entirely avoided and both routing the enemy and achieving a strategic victory became possible.

BTW, the Hollyphants resurrected Diego without loss of CON, in an odd coincidence meeting the requirements of Dell's wish.

[Wolfgar]

If only Raven was in charge... Then we would have gotten another 1 for the luck stone.

Did Pfiffwin happen to backstab one of the clerics to death? It would probably be too much if his first kill actually saved the city. Of course he is going to exagerate his role regardless.

[Ginger]

I'm not sure if those guys in the tent were clerics. Either way, they weren't over level 6.

[Dell]

Any chance of getting a count on the magic goodies recovered? And do we have to go back through the catacombs/sewers to get back, or can we just go overland?

[Wolfgar]

It would be nice to go back and get the flail snail shell. It would make for a pretty nice shield. Just make sure you point at away from your allies once it starts scintillating.

And didn't Winthrop want some parts we didn't have time to collect: spriggins, demons, volts, slimes of various sorts.

[Dell]

otto said:

And didn't Winthrop want some parts we didn't have time to collect: spriggins, demons, volts, slimes of various sorts.

I didn't get to be rich and successful by crawling through sewers and doing what Winthrop wanted to do. Well, not all the time, anyway.

[Ginger]

admin said:

The miniberg-raft is sailed past a torrential waterfall and to dry corridor, using a grapnel as an anchor. There, Hugh uses his Knot potion to bring Dell back to life. Dell coughs greatly and immediately checks his possessions.

That answers that.

We were confused at the end of the game about how many wishes we've used. We speculated that we'd wished Dell back to life here, but we didn't.

[Dell]

So it looks like there have only been two wishes used. I guess Winthrop isn't the only one who gets confused.

[Ginger]

dell said:

So it looks like there have only been two wishes used. I guess Winthrop isn't the only one who gets confused.

Riiiiiight.

[Mr. Trommer]

Well then if Foebiter is handed to me in one piece (then tedsted) then I will train you for free.

[Dell]

winthrop said:

Well then if Foebiter is handed to me in one piece (then tedsted) then I will train you for free.

I'm telling you, you've gotta do the wish yourself. I refuse to wish for something so... so common as a magical sword.

[Mr. Trommer]

The wrong thinking. You should be thinking of it as a way to get some very expensive training for free. That makes it your wish.