Back to the Tower of the Forbidden Gods

[Ginger]

We reached civilization without any incident. Paavo was raised. Colby got trained for 5th level spells, Dan for 4th, Mary for 4th, Yussef for 2nd, Basmadoos for double specialization. Spells were learned and items were bought and sold.

We ventured to the Tower of the Forbidden Gods and planned to trudge to the top to vanquish the followers of Sif Muna. A storm kept us from going up, so we entered the temple of the Petty Deaths on the ground floor. They guys at the door were easily dispatched, and Colby used an unseen servant to open the trapped door into the temple. It wasn't enough to avoid, the Slay Living glyph, but a saving throw was successful.

Inside, we saw an organ playing mummy and a bunch of clerics and fanatics. While mopping them up, 4 ghasts, a shadowy thing, a skeleton warrior, and a high priest entered. Ghasts and priest were turned and/or webbed, but the skeleton marched straight to Colby and wailed on him. With 3 attacks next round, Colby is definitely going down before segment 1. Friedrich should be able to interpose himself during his attack and keep Colby from getting attacked a 2nd time.

[Ginger]

Happy Birthday, Apprentice, er, Venger... er, Eddie!

We're playing on Sunday. Any thoughts about what to do? Other than the unpleasantness with the skeleton knight, I think we'll march through this cave without much trouble. Onwards to Sif Muna!

[Wolfgar]

The skeleton knight will take some team work especially with Trommer held. Dan is planning to try a remove paralysis on him. Paavo and Mamnoon will join Friedrich attacking the skeleton knight. It is going to do a lot of damage if we can't take it down quickly. The head priest is caught in the web for now. So we can deal with him as needed. How many clerical spells are there that only require a verbal component. I only saw Command and Holy/Unholy Word in the PHB. Hopefully he is not 16th level.

I still want to try an earth elemental against She Who is Many.

[Ginger]

If memory serves, Trommer was in the same round both held by a cleric and frozen with fear, thus requiring 2 spells to get back into fighting shape. Can anyone remember how many rounds it's been since the mummy fear? I think it lasts d4 or d4+1 rounds, and so might be still viable.

Colby is almost always willing to wreak havoc with crazy spells. He is very amenable to making an earth elemental test the structural integrity of She Who is Many's complex.

[Ginger]

Colby still has the flaming glove, which is superfluous now that he has the gloves of missile snaring. Does Yussef want it?

[Wolfgar]

Sounds cool. Thanks.

[Ginger]

Dariel left our service before we first encountered Her Young, right? Do you think he'd be comfortable fighting these not particularly human creatures? Or maybe just helping us teleport around their base to avoid chokepoints?

[Wolfgar]

I don't know what to do about Her Young. I don't think we can beat them head to head and I don't think we can sneak around them. Paavo, as you know, is not the kind of paladin to recklessly attack someone just because they have a different alignment. We have an all important quest to stop the demon seed. The current quest in order to have use of the Holy Avenger will not be the end of everything if we abandon it. So unless someone can come up with a great idea for getting past Her Young, then I say we are done with the Forbidden Gods. We return to Antioch and give Fizzi his sword back.

[Ginger]

If we kill the magic user in Sif Muna's temple and get his spell book, it should have Dimension Door in it. That'll do a lot to let Colby avoid Her Young and sneak in and out.

[Friedrich]

Friedrich has a potion of etherealness if Colby wants to use it.

Or we could just come in and fight these guys straight up. MT can haste Friedrich giving him 4 attacks/round. We could buff everybody up before the fight w/ prayer, fly and bless and whatever else we can think of. MT just hit level 8 giving her an extra 3rd and 4th level spell. How confident are you guys that we could steal their relic and get away (and I mean FAR away) before they notice its gone?

If it's a choice between fighting them when we're buffed and ready to go vs when they wake us up in the middle of the night out in the desert, we might as well do at the time of our choosing, not theirs.


A couple ideas

• With a smart plan of attack, (meaning we all focus on ONE guy at a time) this sounds doable.
  
• We could summon (and haste/buff) some fodder too. They don't have to do damage, they just have to keep our big hitters from taking it.
  
• These guys seem to have magic resistance (I wasn't there when we met them the first time). That's fine we've got tanks to smash them and spell casters to buff those tanks along with clerics ready to heal.
  
• If they focus on one of our big guns our clerics can do the same with healing.
  

Remember Friedrich vs the time elemental (actually 2-5/round)? Without Dan healing him, Friedrich would have died. Lets fight smart and we can win.

@venger: lets say we get slowed and MT uses a haste to counter the effects; would we still have to save for SS? There is a thread on DF here that I started in Dec '11 on this topic.

[Mr. Trommer]

I think Colby should accept Sif Muna's offer. When will there ever be a chance again that a mage gets direct benefits from worshipping a god of magic. Just consider the potential access to spells. He would also benefit by being one of the few worshippers. It has the potential to be a fun element in the campaign.

"Sif Muna the Loreminder is a contemplative but powerful deity, served by those who seek magical knowledge. Sif Muna appreciates the casting of spells as often as possible."

[Ginger]

I do kinda like the idea of murdering all of Sif Muna's worshipers so I could raise my standing. However, I think I'll pass.

[Friedrich]

All right, so it seems that nobody here wants to fight She Who Is Many's soldiers. We could use some divination spells to scout out the area...but no takers, huh?

Anywho, there's a thread on DF that is kind of interesting, IMO, about bringing in characters from another campaign to a new one. FWIW, this screams of Mary Sue to me. I can't even imagine trying to play Friedrich in a game w/o Scott, Josh, Eddie, Dan, Lee and Garreth there. (Dana too). Nobody else saw him try to suck poison out of Trommer's toe (after he begged me to) or go fight a dragon/hydra underwater or any other host of things.

The character wouldn't be the same without the people there who watched him develop from session 1 through the years. I could see playing him with this same group in the same world in a new campaign (ie TPK minus Friedrich) but that's about it.

www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=61031

[Mr. Trommer]

Would a cure disease spell rid an infected host of "her young"?

[Wolfgar]

I think cure disease only works on microscopic parasites. I think these are more like parasites from the Conspiracy episode of ST-TNG. If only we had phasers.

Also their physiology has been completely changed. They are now filled with an acidic substance. I don't think cure disease could revert the effect. But what do I know. Did we check, do they have MR? Do we still have the protection from acid scroll?

[Wolfgar]

Apr 29, 2013 10:15:28 GMT -5 Ginger said:

If we kill the magic user in Sif Muna's temple and get his spell book, it should have Dimension Door in it. That'll do a lot to let Colby avoid Her Young and sneak in and out.

The spell books might be here, they might be in the camp. Or they may not need them because of their worship of Sif Muna.

[Ginger]

I doubt that Her Young would follow us out if we did manage to sneak in and steal from their altar, because they're all connected via a telepathic link to She Who Is Many, and so they probably can't go too far.

Excellent point re: Sif Muna and spell books. Oh well.

[Friedrich]

Sif Muna
We tried to sack the temple of Sif Muna but decided that going after a 16th(??) level wizard in his lair was more trouble than it was worth. We unloaded on a projected image while the the real mage was getting ready to unleash arcane hell on us. Trommer saved us from what may have been several deaths by blocking a chain lightning spell with the anti-magic shield and using the dark stones to black out the area from scrying. Once he realized that he was wasting spells there was a lull in the fighting. We contemplated going into the temple but seeing webs, mist and probably lots of traps we decided against going down there. We already had the relic from Sif Muna's shrine so we left.


The Three Evils:Kali
After Sif Muna the session was mostly a 4-5 hour running battle broken in to two main blocks. Lot's more golem smashing this week too = lots of XP. We went into the assassin's lair which Venger hinted to us would be a great challenge. We mopped the place up without too much trouble although we still have to finish the second (and presumably last) block of the fight, things seem well in hand. We did lose some magic items to a fire ball or two but otherwise things went pretty well. A couple reasons for our success:

• Good rolls, in particular killing the golems before they could slow us (Venger may have forgotten to use that power in one or more instances)
  
• MT is now a force to be reckoned with.
  
• Holy Avenger...MR
  
• Preemptive magic missiles vs enemy spell casters and good crowd control spells (slow, confusion)
  
• smarter play (??)
  

Anyway, it was an overall good week.

[venger]

Haddiq is at 0.

Youssef is at 0.

I will post hit point totals & current spells for the rest of the party.

Friedrich has Fly, Protection from Evil 10' Radius, Detect Invisibility.

Mary has Polymorph Self, Protection from Normal Missiles, Mage Shield, ??/25.

Colby has Polymorph Self.

There are probably some Strength spells.

As best you can tell the bad guys are no longer Slowed.

If there are any other active effects I'm not remembering let me know.

Also, as a DM footnote, the range of the magic-user version of Hold Person is actually 12", so that spell could have been successfully cast. My bad for not double-checking.

May 6, 2013 13:36:23 GMT -5 Friedrich said:

We mopped the place up without too much trouble although we still have to finish the second (and presumably last) block of the fight, things seem well in hand. We did lose some magic items to a fire ball or two but otherwise things went pretty well.

I only give you 50/50 odds unless you pull out the big guns or surprise me.

[venger]

Someone else had Detect Invisibility?

[Mr. Trommer]

Trommer's options for surprises:

Symbol of Pain (-4 to hit/-2 dexterity)
Storm Giant War Horn
Acid Cloud Potion
Volatile Explosion Potion

[venger]

May 7, 2013 10:08:13 GMT -5 Mr. Trommer said:

Storm Giant War Horn

This item really only functions outdoors.

[Ginger]

Colby has a shield up, assuming it's been less than 45 rounds since we started the first combat. I think Mamnoon and Friedrich have Detect Invisibility.

If they've summoned a demon, we can always summon our angel. Colby also has the single use summoning charm that summons something powerful but not entirely clear.

[venger]

The demon is about 10' tall, combining the worst features of an ape and a boar.

[Friedrich]

That looks about right for Friedrich/MT. Her upper range of HP's is 26 not 25. She had 22 and rolled 4 on Sunday when she leveled. She took the fireball but saved. I'm pretty sure she took 11 damage from that.

Mage shield: 15/26

[Wolfgar]

Thinking back on Sif Muna, I wonder if the magic user we killed was a simulacrum. If so that is awesome. And we were way over matched.

Mamnoon does have detect invisible and Youssef has Shield up. Paavo's Strength spell was ineffective.

Dan is planning to summon Dariel next round. Is it time to use the Lesser Orison of Healing? Or should we wait until more people are down? I am worried they are going to drop another fireball on us and kill Youssef and Haddiq.

[Ginger]

Unless the Lesser Orison of Healing goes off on segment 3 or before, it won't be any help against a next round fireball. Dariel is probably a better bet.

[Wolfgar]

Paavo could move back and try to protect people with his MR. Unfortunately Haddiq and Youssef are widely separated. Trommer could drag Youssef towards Haddiq while Paavo moved. Of course it would still depend on initiative rolls. Azhbar is fast right? He could bring Haddiq towards Paavo. Paavo has a 80% MR against a 5th level caster.

I keep thinking we should have asked Fizzi for some Raise Dead scrolls. We are too far away to get anyone who dies back in time.

[venger]

May 8, 2013 14:02:16 GMT -5 Wolfgar said:

Thinking back on Sif Muna, I wonder if the magic user we killed was a simulacrum. If so that is awesome.

I'm glad that didn't go unnoticed. Desert-flavored version of the spell = sand instead of snow.

May 8, 2013 14:02:16 GMT -5 Wolfgar said:

I am worried they are going to drop another fireball on us and kill Youssef and Haddiq.

Now there's an idea...

[Friedrich]

Mary still has shield up as well. She cast that before the second fight.