Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Temple of Elemental Evil Session 9

DM Notes:
Well I am having to work on our game days so we have to put the game on hold for a bit.  Also with the new 5e Adventure and Encounters starting we will be having a group get ready to run those adventures.  This week our 2 extra DM was out of town so that meant 1 DM (me) running a MASSIVE table.  Again I hate sending people away so this week was less on RP and more on hack and slash.  Here is the group…

Chris - Oeridian Druid, Merc from Furyondy
Marshmallow - Warforged Paladin of St. Cuthbeth, Protector of Gran March
Peep Marsh - Oeridian Rogue, Spy for the Gran March
Who Hootsalot = Sylvan Druid, Guide from the Gran March
Kurana - Dragonborn Cleric kicked out of order for being drunk
Anderron - Dwarf Cleric of Mordin looking to help the Church of St. Cuthbeth in Hommlet to push back the evil
Ardeshir Roshani - Apprentice to the Circle of Eight Mordenkainen.  Looking to gain more magical power.

People from the other table:
Nazoj - Human Cleric
Thaedrad - Human Wizard
Roxanne Rose - Human Rogue

New Player
Thundrunn Thougunn - Dwarf Cleric (this was his first week)

We pick up where the last battle was just ending.  The group was able to fight though the last of the Gnolls and get organized.  That battle lasted about 15 min not no major damage from the Gnolls.  Since the casting of Thunderwave last week Lareth the Beautiful and his men knew they were there.  He used his connection to Lolth to take over the mind of some of the party and draw them to him.  The rest of the part was not sure what was happening as their fellows headed down the corridor in the dark to a new area.

I laid out a new map and placed the possessed characters about 100 ft ahead of the other and heading up a corridor into an ambush.  The possessed could try to break out at the end of each of their turns otherwise I would control them to move deeper into the room.  The rest of the party could not figure out what to do so we rolled initiative and started the final encounter.

Again with such a large group this battle took about 2 1/2 hours to complete.  We had 12 Soldiers, 2 Sergeants, 1 Lieutenant, and Lareth.  The possessed group was Thundrunn, Who, Kurana, Anderron, and Chris.  The battle started off with the possessed people walking through the dungeon toward a voice that was so beautiful.  It kept calling them and telling them to join him and his army.  At the end of each of the players turns they would get a save to break the spell.  Anderron ran forward and made it almost to the end of the hall but broke out of the spell.  The others were not lucky and continued to move down the hall.  Anderron  worked to stop the others but they just kept moving.  The rest of the party ran to catch up with the group and kept looking around for traps, but Roxanne ran fast and quickly caught up with the possessed people.

People started to slowly come too and after 2 turns only Chris and Who were possessed.  Who moved forward and around a corner but at the end of her move she shook off her possession and her vision cleared.  She found herself surrounded by 3 soldiers and a sergeant.  The sergeant attacked and called to take her down.  She was shot multiple times and taken to 1 hp.  Roxanne quickly ran in and hurt the sergeant bad with some beautiful sword work but was left in the open.  Thundrunn and Anderron quickly ran in and damaged the people and killed off the sergeant, while Peep quietly snuck into the room and to a back way to get behind the enemy.

Lareth the Beautiful appeared with his guard (Lieutenant) and looked at the heroes attacking.  He pointed at them and said 'SILENCE' and quickly all noise was removed from the area.  He then directed more of his soldiers to take down these heroes.  His lieutenant and a lot of soldier shot at everyone except for peep.  Roxanne was bloodied, Anderron was bloodied and Thundrunn was hurt.  The other started pouring into the room but the silence spell stopped all their spells and they had to get out of the spell radius in order to heal and attack.  This put a lot of the heroes into bad spots that would mean a target rich environment for the enemies.

Who fell back to heal herself while Peep stayed in the shadow trying to sneak to get to Lareth.  Kurana moved out of the silence spell and healed Roxanne while attacking a soldier and taking him down.  Ardeshir ran into the room and stopped in front of 6 enemies and cast his powerful Thunderwave.  Ardeshir's spell was so powerful that it killed 3 soldiers and pushed the Lieutenant to the wall, it did miss the one soldier standing next to him though.  Marshmallow moved forward and quickly finished off that one soldier next to Ardeshir.  Lareth healed up his Lieutenant and ran away to get away from the heroes.  Nazoj and Thudrunn moved deep into the room and took on the last Sergeant and some more soldiers.  Peep moved in and decapitated the Lieutenant (rolled a nat 20 on her primary attack and max damage on her secondary attack dealing a total of 27 damage).  She then moved back into the shadows and hid again.  Who came in and shot down another soldier and then moved to search for Lareth.  Roxanne again was taken down by the sergeant and needed to be healed by Anderron (with a healing potion).  Most of the group moved on to find Lareth while Marshmallow, Anderron took on the sergeant.  All their attacks laid out the Sergeant and left only Lareth left.

Who, Thundrunn and Ardeshir quickly went looking for him and Ardeshir cast a dispel magic which broke the invisibility spell that Lareth had cast on himself.  Who shot Lareth and Thaedrad shot magic missiles but the Mirror Images stopped all the attacks from hitting him.  Everyone concentrated on Lareth and started to break down his defenses and hurt him.  It was Peep that almost finished everything off with her slash across his neck leaving him holding his neck as blood flowed on the floor (again rolled 2 natural 20s on her Primary and Secondary attacks causing 31 points of damage (5d6 + 5 for her total damage), this took Lareth down to 1 HP).  Thundrunn tried to cast Cause Wounds on Lareth but missed.  Lareth used his Divine Smite against Thundrunn (only character still in base contact) and critical hit him.  A portal opened up to the Spiderweave and sucked Thundrunn into the web for Lolth to play with (Lareth did 43 damage to him and he had 11 HP max).  Who shot one of her magical arrows and it pierced Lareth's eye killing him (she rolled a nat 20 too).

The party grieved for Thundrunn and quickly searched the area and the bodies.  They found a lot of notes to Lolth and about a town called Nulu.  They also found some magical items and a lot of money and gems.  Off of Lareth they found Black Ring Mail +1 and a Mace +2 with symbols of Lolth on it.  The party quickly gathered up as much as they could and started back to town knowing that the Moat House was now theirs…

DM Notes:  Well I almost killed 4 people this week and was successful once (which was just back luck for him).  A total of 6 potions of healing and every spell was used.  This was a powerful battle and one that could of gone against them without some great timed critical hits that laid out some of the most powerful threats.  I did enjoy this a lot and they all enjoyed the Moat House.  For the next couple of weeks I am going to be swamped with work so we will not be running the Temple of Elemental Evil but a different GM (the player of Ardeshir) will be running the Hoard of the Dragon Queen for the store while I am away.  I am going to be giving updates on how that is going as I get back on track.

Another thing is that with the Players Handbook now coming out and with all the changes we will be doing an overhaul of the game.  No more Warforged and with the new Variant version of Humans I will be taking out the specialties that I have for humans and add in inspiration.  I might allow people to use Tieflings but I am not sure about that yet.


Also I might take the into a home game with a smaller group so things will be smoother and more roleplaying then the last few weeks (with all the new people in the game).  Overall seeing the new documents that Wizards has released and the way they are handling magical items and treasure I can't wait to see what they add in with the DM Guide and Monster Manual.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Temple of Elemental Evil Session 8

DM Notes:  Well as we approach the release of the 5th Edition Players Handbook new people keep showing up.  With 4 more new people we had some large groups (only 2 DMs so both tables had around 10 people).  I did not want to turn anyone away so I ran the bigger group and I hope next time we can get another DM to start a new table.  Also our store received the new Encounter's packets.  Looking though it I was impressed by the folios that were included and have my DM folio sitting on my desk right now.  I am glad that Wizards sees it needs more people to step up for DM work and the DM packet contained some great bonuses if we ever get to play and not run a game.  One of the new players wanted to make his own character so I let him make it and join in when it was done.

Group:
Chris - Oeridian Druid, Merc from Furyondy
Marshmallow - Warforged Paladin of St. Cuthbeth, Protector of Gran March
Peep Marsh - Oeridian Rogue, Spy for the Gran March
Who Hootsalot = Sylvan Druid, Guide from the Gran March
Kurana - Dragonborn Cleric
Anderron - Dwarf Cleric of Mordin looking to help the Church of St. Cuthbeth in Hommlet to push back the evil
Ardeshir Roshani - Apprentice to the Circle of Eight Mordenkainen.  Looking to gain more magical power.
Heyiamnot - Dwarf Mage, Former Priest

3 new people came.  All 3 new to D&D (or had been years since they had played)
Wizard 1 - Looking for Bandits
PreGen Wizard - Wanting treasure
PreGen Fighter - Friend of PreGen Wizard, Looking for treasure

After a big fight upstairs the group went downstairs and down the hidden ladder to the crypt.  From there they slowly moved though the winding passages and started to hear what sounded like a Dragon breathing (failed listen checks and they could feel wind blowing against them in a rhythmic pattern).  The party came to a T intersection and 5 went south while the others headed north.

SOUTH PARTY:
Who, PreGen Wizard, PreGen Fighter, Chris, Wizard 1
They followed the smell of water and ended up in a room with a natural spring in it.  They also noticed some treasure around the pool of water and decided to go for it.  The PreGen Fighter walked up and reached down to grab what looked like a scroll tube and failed, causing him to fall face first into the water.

This woke up a Huge Crayfish in the water and the Crayfish went to attack the Fighter.  With a mighty snap of one of his claws the fighter was taken down to 2 hp.  Next the wizard ran over and tied up a rope and tossed it into the water so the Fighter could climb out.  Chris ran straight for the Crayfish and slipped on some rocks.  He fell into the water and was also prone next to the Crayfish.  Who took out her bow and launched an arrow straight at the Crayfish.  The arrow was true and it pierced the Crayfish's eye sending ichor everywhere (max damage on the dice).  The fighter tried to climb up the rope but failed twice (needed anything but and 1 and rolled 1 twice on a d20).  Chris tried to stand up but failed but he did heal up the fighter.  The Crayfish attacked again and missed Chris but hit the fighter again taking him down to 1 hp.  The wizard tossed some magic missiles at the Crayfish blooding him and hurting him badly.

Wizard 1 was hearing the noise and quickly ran down the hall and saw the Giant Crayfish.  He also launched a volley of Magic Missiles killing the Crayfish which sank into the depths of the pool.  The group finally got the fighter out of the watered and patched up and also got Chris out of the water.  The group tried to get some of the money but kept knocking it into the pool (it was too slippery).  They heard some fighting north of them so they ran north looking to see what was happening, passing Heyiamnot who was running away in fear.  The wizard did make one last grab and caught hold of a scroll tube before it felling into the water.  In the tube was a scroll with 3 spells.  This will be useful soon I think…

NORTH PARTY
Marshmallow, Peep, Kurana, Anderron, Ardeshir, Heyiamnot

This party found a side passage and a door.  They quickly figured out that there was no lock on the door and opened it.  Anderron ran into the room and saw it was full of 17 gnolls, he quickly turned tail and ran even after they asked him a question.  Heyiamnot heard the question and they were asking who they were and what they were doing.  Heyiamnot responded to them and the leader of the Gnolls came forward and they talked about who they were and that they were not happy with the leader of the moathouse.  For the price of 180 gold they would be willing to leave and let the group deal with the leader of the moathouse.  All while this was going on Marshmallow moved into the room to be able to defend everyone and Anderron also formed a battleline to protect the others.

Ardeshir was getting bored and when Heyiamnot said if they paid the Gnolls would leave, Ardeshir decided he did not want to give money to them.  He cast light on the Gnoll leader lighting him up like a lamp.  The Gnoll took this for an attack and charged Ardeshir.  Anderron took a swipe at the Gnoll but missed and the Gnoll missed Ardeshir.  This started a major fight, The Gnolls drew weapons and moved forward trapping Marshmallow.  Anderron ran back into the hallway with Heyiamnot leaving Marshmallow and Ardeshir to deal with all 17 gnolls.

Marshmallow was a wall saving Ardeshir from many attacks and able to protect them both.  She took 12 attacks and only suffered minor damage.  Peep moved forward and double crit the gnoll leader (crit with both weapons).  She decapitated the gnoll and quickly moved back into the shadows.  Kurana and Anderron burnt 2 gnolls with sacred flame and Ardeshir moved up to unleash his powerful attack.  With a stomp on the ground his thunderwave exploded killing 4 gnoll and hurting 2 others.  The Gnolls kept pouring into the area adding more attacks to all the heroes.  2 gnoll archers found cracks in Marshmallow's armor and she went down (got 2 crits on her).  Ardeshir followed after with some powerful attacks taking him down.  Anderron and Peep also took some damage as the gnolls were slowly being killed off.

At this time the others from the south started joining in and using up healing potions to get the injured back up and fighting.  We had to call it a night but in the end only 8 gnolls were left but Kurana and Marshmallow were down on the ground bloody.  What will happen next…


DM Note: Thunderwave.  Great spell but one drawback.  Any creature w/300ft will hear the thunderwave.  This means that anyone that is near this area knows that they are here.  This might cause a problem for the group as they are hurting and running out of spells and healing.