The Death of a Superhero

[Dell]

He was our leader, but more than that, he was... our friend. The mighty Raven has fallen, the latest victim of the Dreadwood. Or, you could say he's the latest victim of a magically enlarged bear. Either way.

The instant that I heard that we were facing a druid gone bad, I knew that we should turn, run away, and never come into the Dreadwood again. I mean, look at the name - DREADwood. Obviously not a place that we should be going. I mean, giant bears? You must be crazy.

But now that we're here, and Raven is gone, the mantle of leadership once again rests upon my shoulders. Were it entirely up to me, I'd have us do something safer, like slay a dragon. But Raven's death demands vengeance.

Here's what we do - retreat to the secret Nerull temple. There, we rest and recover our strength - then we go back into the forest, and kick this druid's ass.

I think we can take him out, if we're smart and lucky and he's very, very stupid. Assuming that he doesn't cast any spells at all, then we only have to worry about a guy with around 60 hit points in leather armor. Also, he can turn into an animal three times a day - probably to turn into a bird and fly away when we've KICKED HIS ASS too much.

Now that we know we're not facing a passel of bandits or gnolls or something, we can totally take this guy out. Let's do it for Raven.

I have a plan already. I imagine that Cedrus won't like it, but Winthrop will love it. That's right, we're dropping napalm on the Dreadwood.

[Mr. Trommer]

Ooo a forest fire...hee hee hee. It's the only way to be sure to burn ll the mistletoe.

[Dell]

winthrop said:

Ooo a forest fire...hee hee hee. It's the only way to be sure to burn ll the mistletoe.

There are many reasons that I'm planning on setting the forest to the torch. Enraging the local druid is only one reason. For another, burning a clearing would prevent us from being entangled by Entangle. Burning the trees also keeps him from using them to teleport away from us.

Most importantly, having a big smoking fire keeps us from being eaten alive by an Insect Plague. And we can use the bonfire to burn the druid's corpse when we're done fighting!

[Wolfgar]

Are you planning on spending a couple of weeks resting until Winthrop can do magic again? Or are you actually going to memorize fireball? It may be more prudent to high tail it back to Seaton where Raven can get raised and everyone else can recuperate. Of course then the druid is going to have time recruit another army of bears and boars. I am sure Cedrus will be happy to just have divination spells.

[cedrus]

Uhm, I don't think the issue is Cedrus, per se. I think the bigger problem is that if Cedrus were to participate in torching the forest, Ehlonna might permanently deprive him of all his spells. So somehow you'd have to make a convincing argument that Ehlonna will benefit from an attack on the Dreadwood itself.

There might actually _be_ a convincing argument. The question is, can you verbalize it without antagonizing Ehlonna? The party, as I remember it, sometimes tends to backfire (I don't want to exaggerate or anything) when they try to explain to somebody why the horrible course of action they're about to pursue is in the best interest of everyone involved.

Cedrus does feel bad about Raven, however. That might count for something. Raven's conversion to Ehlonna's worship when he gets raised from the dead might help, too.

In fact, the conversion of the entire company to Ehlonna's worship might do wonders, don't you think?

[Wolfgar]

A little background for Scott. The whole reason we went into the Dreadwood was that Cedrus could not get non-divination spells when he prayed. Eventually he determined it was because of trouble in the Dreadwood that Ehlonna wanted him (us) to correct. We figure it is this uber-druid that is causing the distrurbance in the forest but taking him out seems to be beyond us. So I was suggesting we just let bygones be bygones and Cedrus will learn to live with divination spells. At least until we are big and bad enough to take this guy out.

[cedrus]

Ah, ok. That makes more sense. Still, I can't imagine Ehlonna would want to sacrifice the whole forest rather than simply excise the source of the trouble (the druid). But yeah, if this guy took out Raven, maybe revenge should be a long term goal.

[Dell]

We can totally take this clown out, now that we know what we're up against. We just have to be prepared, and take the fight to him.

If we follow my "scorched earth" plan, we'll eliminate the danger of entangle and insect swarm. Entangle is super deadly - even if you make your save, it acts as a slow spell. Scrying us is only a 2nd level spell for him, so as long as he's got nut oil, he can watch us, follow us, and wake us up in the middle of the night by dropping 13d8 bolts of lightning on us. As it says in the PHB:

If druids observe any creature destroying their charges, the druids are unlikely to risk their lives to prevent the destruction. Rather, it is probable that the druids will seek retribution and revenge at a later date as opportunity presents itself.

We head back to the temple, lick our wounds, and come out swinging. He'll be able to absorb 132 points of fire damage, and 132 points of lightning damage, so it's unlikely that we'll be able to use what has now been named "The Winthrop Manuever" to take him out. We need to get a fighter to him, and mow his ass down manually.

In two days (well, a day and a half) we should be able to get everyone back up to full, right? And then we go forth and kick evil's ass, and take it's stuff (I'm hoping that evil has stuff - preferably non-flammable stuff) and use said stuff to bring back our good buddy Raven.

My plan, such as it is, involves bonfires, mass invisibility, and other things which I am not at liberty to reveal at this time.

[Wolfgar]

Of the ten people in the party
-Raven is dead
-Diego, Pavel and Winthrop went negative
-Dell, Al, Cedrus, Max, Hugh and Jasper are wounded.

Considering Al is the only left who does any damage I don't like our chances. The best strategy might be a mass hold person assault by the three clerics. Maybe you can hold him before he holds you. Just make sure you spread out so he can't get everyone at once with the counter attack.

[Ginger]

[glow=red,2,300]Voice from beyond the grave...[/glow]

To fill in another gap in the narrative for Scott-
We knew something bad was in the Dreadwood, so we just walked in a straight line. We eventually came across a corpse, who looked to be a druid. You interrogated him, and found out that his master (11th level druid) had gone bad. Moments later, we were surrounded and ambushed. Our spells were chosen for stockade assault, not forest creature combat, so the battle was very tough. Winthrop, Pavel and Diego were in deep negative hit points. Raven was hit by a critically damaging bear claw for 15, bringing him to zero, and the bite brought him to -14.

But that's in the past. The Party should now:

• Return to Seton, drop off Raven at the Temple of Pelor, and get an estimate on his raising. Since they like us so much, maybe it'll be a little less than the standard 6000 GP. Alert the proper authorities that the Druid has gone mad. Have them send word to Lord Morgan. Maybe he'll hire us again, since I'm sure evil druids lower his tax revenue.
  
• Go to Saltmarsh. Perhaps Elowyna will venture out with us to heal the forest, or to suggest other friends of nature who could aid us. While there, we should be able to put Raven's +2 bastard sword and maybe a few potions in hawk, to raise funds.
  
• Return to Seton, raise Raven, and gather our allies to help us invade the forest.
  
• If we're very adventurous, we can head back to our Inn and talk with the one-armed druid who guards our forest. He's at least 11th level. He should be very interested in restoring the balance to that forest.
  

As far as anti-druid tactics, here are some things to remember. For all we know, the Initiate of the 9th Circle who has gone bad, has also lured an Initiate of the 8th Circle to his way, and maybe more.

On the plus side, we should further identify the arrow of slaying. If it does slay humans, or bipeds, or something, I can take out an 11th level druid in one shot.

[Ginger]

otto said:

Of the ten people in the party
-Raven is dead
-Diego, Pavel and Winthrop went negative
-Dell, Al, Cedrus, Max, Hugh and Jasper are wounded.

Considering Al is the only left who does any damage I don't like our chances. The best strategy might be a mass hold person assault by the three clerics. Maybe you can hold him before he holds you. Just make sure you spread out so he can't get everyone at once with the counter attack.

Cedrus and Max can swap out their 3rd level spells for Death's Door, which will make eliminate the after-effects of going into negatives. In 90 minutes, everyone will be functional, but Raven. :'(

[Dead Greyhawk]

Al doesn't believe that anyone in Seaton can raise the dead. Only in Longspear have priests of sufficient power been found. It's five to seven days from where you are to Longspear. He recalls being told by Garvin that the Company dilly-dallied over getting him raised before, so he doesn't see the rush.

Al also agrees that underground, deep underground, is very safe against lightning bolts pulled from the sky. Al does recall that meteors fall from the sky as well.

Al also points out that it took Liato a long time to find any animals to travel with. Killing 8 hogs, a black bear and 3 brown bears has to put a dent into any druid's pet arsenal. Plus all those silly needle-things.

Diego, Pavel, and Winthrop can be revived from their current state by Max and Cedrus casting Death's Door. Cedrus has one third level spell currently left (he cast Prayer and Speak with Dead earlier) and four second level spells.

Since the druid's things attacked the Company, they must have been somewhat close. Jasper can continue to talk to some of the animals and Winthrop and Dell can both polymorph and look around to find the druid.

Al would say there are two competing issues here: speed and power. Retreating to, for example, the temple, healing and resting to attack the following night, full up with spells, lion, and meteors would have the benefit of preventing the druid from getting more pets quickly, but the drawback of lacking Raven and his bow and any other people that could be brought along. Retreating to Longspear, pawning Raven's magical equipment, getting Raven raised, rallying troops, and returning to the Dreadwood in about a month brings more power against the druid, but allows him to prepare for it, restocking pets and whatnot.
Either is a viable plan, Al just doesn't like running; gimpy leg and all.

[Dell]

admin said:

Al doesn't believe that anyone in Seaton can raise the dead. Only in Longspear have priests of sufficient power been found. It's five to seven days from where you are to Longspear.

Which gives us at least two days to kick this guy's ass. The key is, we need to bring the fight to him, not the other way around. This means we'll be doing some recon to look for the guy. I say now that we know what we're looking for, we can take this guy down. He's not likely to have more pets - he can use a spell to summon more animals, but they probably won't be as dangerous as the ones that we had to deal with, since they'd be a random assortment.

Besides, summoned creatures can't attack Dell.

The key to winning the fight is to get the drop on this guy, and then make sure he never casts a spell. That means the second we see him, we drop stinking clouds, holds, slows, silences, and whatever else we can find on him. Then once he's incapacitated, we arrest him and take him to the proper authorities.

I'm just kidding, we're going to cut his f**king head off and play kickball with it. No, wait. We'll save his head, so Raven can cut it off when we bring him back to life.

As far as his possible backup - you have to be a 12th level druid before you roll with a posse. Also, judging from the corpse we found, this guy didn't find too many allies in the druidic community. Worst case scenario, he summons a fire elemental for us to fight. And we've beaten elementals before - this is totally doable.

It'd be easier if we could track him... then again, we don't need to track him - we can just track his animal friends. He's bound to live either with them or near them. How hard could it be to track a dozen boars and bears?

[Ginger]

And then Cedrus will speak with his corpse, and we'll ask him insulting questions.

[Dell]

Okay. So the plan is to go in and kill this guy before he has a chance to collect more bears, right?

Also, it might be best to do it at night, when we have access to my ring's powers. With dancing lights, we can make it look like multiple groups of people are moving through the forest - that could be useful.

[Wolfgar]

I don't know if Pavel can use Foebreaker. But I like the idea of having him follow the party invisibly and then dimension dooring right behind the druid. I think the combination of his backstabbing, assassinating and Foebreaker's double damage against evil might be enough to take care of him. Everyone else just acts as distraction, flushing the druid from his hiding place like a pack of dogs. I don't remember how many people can dimension door with Foebreaker but maybe it is Winthrop and Pavel who do the sneak attack.

[Dell]

Pavel can't use Foebreaker, due to alignment conflict. Foebreaker is good, Pavel is supposedly neutral. Also, the druid is neutral, so the double damage vs. evil wouldn't work on him. We can still turn Pavel invisible, though.

In fact, we can all be invisible. Winthrop can summon up some monsters, and have them charge ahead like cannon fodder, making lots of noise. We follow behind, invisibly. I can use Dancing Lights to help us see, and also to keep track of where we are. Once the druid shows himself, we pummel him repeatedly.

Insect Plague is the only thing that worries me, which is why we need to bring some fire with us.

[Wolfgar]

I don't think Insect Plague is much of a worry. It covers a lot of area but the spell caster is affected as much anyone else if he casts it around himself. It is like casting a stinking cloud. Normally it is going to be cast some distance from the spell caster. If that is the case then Winthrop and whoever else can dimension door out of it and attack him from behind again. Everyone else can run out of it, losing a round or two at most.

I just don't know if a night assault is the thing to do. Moving through a forest invisible at night is going to be impossible if you don't have infravsion. If you are holding a torch or light stone and turn invisible then the source also turns invisible.

[Mr. Trommer]

Will Gust of Wind disperse an Insect Plague? I have that available. You also saw how effective the Wand of Enemy Detection work last time.

[Dell]

winthrop said:

Will Gust of Wind disperse an Insect Plague? I have that available. You also saw how effective the Wand of Enemy Detection work last time.

Actually, Fireball clears out the bugs for a little while - go with that. Stick with your strengths.

[Wolfgar]

I think Gust of Wind (and the wind fan) produce too narrow a gust of wind. Insect Plague is only dispersed by strong winds that covers the entire area of the swarm. And fireball only works for one round.

Gust of Wind
www.coryj.net/CoreRule/corerule.php?page=PHB/DD01906.htm

Insect Plague
www.coryj.net/CoreRule/corerule.php?page=PHB/DD02239.htm

[Dell]

otto said:

I think Gust of Wind (and the wind fan) produce too narrow a gust of wind. Insect Plague is only dispersed by strong winds that covers the entire area of the swarm. And fireball only works for one round.

Different ruleset. In 1st edition, Fireball works for one turn, or ten rounds. Also, Wind Wall would block them, but it wouldn't have an area large enough to block the whole swarm. Besides, if we get the drop on him, he won't have time to cast it anyway, since it takes a turn to cast. And if he did have a turn to prepare, he'd probably go for Call Lightning 13d8 is a lot of damage. He's got plenty of other spells that scare me, too. The fire elemental is still a possibility, though.

[Ginger]

In my Player's Handbook, it shows that Fireball is instantaneous. How could it last for one turn?

[Dell]

arrowguy said:

In my Player's Handbook, it shows that Fireball is instantaneous. How could it last for one turn?

Because in the description of Insect Plague, it says:

Heavy smoke will drive off insects within its bounds. Fire will also drive insects away; a wall of fire in a ring shape will keep the insect plague outside its confines, but a fire ball will simply clear insects from its blast area for 1 turn. Lightning and cold/ice act likewise.