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terryclothToday was the GM-switching campaign again at Tom's house, and Eric finished the second half of his adventure. Then we argued about whether or not to use 3.5, and decided that people could make lists of the things that they really hated about 3.5, and lists of the things they really liked, and see which would make a smaller house-rules list, instead of trying to 'take chapter A from 3.0, and chapter B from 3.5' which would be kind of complicated and unsatisfying. So... we'll see.
Anyway, the game itself went reasonably well. I was not the prettiest, but I got a solo kill on the boss. Druids rock!
Diego scouted up the next flight of stairs, and located another trap by setting it off, then searched two of the three doors at the top of the landing for traps, and set them off as well trying to disable them. He then enlisted Sierra's help setting off the third trap, as the second poison needle to stick in his hand had nearly killed him.
Sierra continued on her merry way, setting off many more traps. As the explosions of runes and POOFs of gas traps resonated through the surrounding countryside, most of the party huddled by the landing and waited for it all to stop.
Eventually, Sierra ran out of traps to spring, and the party started up the narrow iron spiral staircase to the top floor of the tower.
The top floor was shrouded in darkness, and full of skeletons, including an evil pair of glowing eyes that belonged to a spellcasting skeleton. The skeletons tried to keep the party bottled up on the stairs, as Burne had stood staring at them dumbly for a bit too long and let THEM charge HIM, but Albinus and Aleric scrambled up the wall near the top of the stairs, and Tachi used his dire weasel for a footstool and followed up from a little farther down.
Then the smiting began. Burne held off the weaker skeletons, with help from Tachi, while Albinus and Aleric dealt with the spellcaster. Not wanting the remainder of the party to feel left out, one of the skeletons leaped down the stairwell so that they'd have something to beat up on. It survived the longest, meleeing with Sierra, Linn, and Tachi's weasel while Felynne and Diego tried to hit it with arrows.
All in all, it wasn't a very tough fight, although quite a few spells were used up. It was Tachi's turn to set off the traps on the chest and wand case on this level, so he proceeded to do so.
Sierra: "Should we really be wasting so much time messing around with these chests? We do have a mission, and who knows when all this noise we're making is going to alert him and send him running off..."
Tachi: "Look, we know there's treasure in these chests. We don't know that we're going to get paid for the mission."
Then, to the basement, where their quarry's cleverly concealed passageway proved no match for Tachi's ability to track by scent. The crate blocking the scent trail was removed, and the party followed the weasel's nose down a corridor to a large cavern where Ricardo lay sleeping.
Tachi tried to sneak up and tanglefoot the druid in his sleep, but made a bit too much noise. He was close enough to throw by the time Ricardo awoke, though.
Ricardo was in no mood to fight, and the party was not bloodthirsty (except for Tachi, literally, and Burne, figuratively), so they parleyed. Eventually, they agreed that the mage's claim was spurious, and convinced Ricardo to accompany them to the city to retrieve the deed to the mansion from which the wizard who'd hired them had acquired the items, to verify that it was, indeed, in Ricardo's name. 'Charm Person' helped considerably in getting him to agree to that, as did the party's lack of interest in finding the items first.
So, after resting up, they set off for the two-day trip back to the city. Before they'd gone too far, they were ambushed by the wizard who'd hired them. "Kill them all," he cried, then "Give me my artifacts back, you thieves!"
The ambush hadn't been all *that* successful, and the party was able to act at about the same time as the wizard's minions. Ricardo and Tachi had the same idea, and cast a thorn-studded entangle on the minions to either side of the party. While this trapped many of the enemies, and injured the others, it backfired, in a way, as it left the party bunched up for the mage's negative energy burst.
Archery (from Aleric, Diego, and Felynne) proved futile against the flying mage, as he was very fast, with mage armor, shield, and a ring of protection, but (perhaps because of the tree cover) he wasn't hovering quite far enough off the ground to avoid Tachi's flaming sphere and thrown bolts of fire from a produce flame spell. In two rounds, the wizard was quite literally toast. Burne, Albinus and the witches (sorry, witch and bard) took care of the minions on the ground, the ones that weren't hopelessly entangled and/or dead from the brambles.
Thus ended the mission. Since no witnesses had survived the combat (with a little help from Burne and Tachi), the party decided to let Ricardo go and merely relate the wizard's treachery to their boss.
The party retreated to the logging village to rest and heal -- the negative energy burst had hurt everyone, and Burne was in bad shape from fighting the chief minion. Albinus identified some of their treasure, which was passed out to people who could use it, since it was a ways back to the city where they could sell the extra treasure and divide things up properly. Diego got a cloak of resistance, Aleric got a magic sword and shield, Albinus got a spellbook and wand, Sierra got a wand of spectral hand, which she promised to use to cast healing remotely, and Tachi got the ring of protection +2, since Burne refused it -- while it may have been useful to him, it was so much more valuable than anything else that whoever got it was sure to miss out of several rounds of treasure division to pay for it, and Burne preferred to hold out for a magic axe or magic armor, should one appear.
last session next session
In two weeks, Tom's going to run the next session of this campaign, starting with the party in the wilderness. We should be using 3.6 by then. It's a good thing I made 4th, so that I can keep my dire weasel. }:P Although a riding dog is a much better companion under 3.5 rules -- it gets enough of a boost from the '3rd level' bonuses to push it past the dire weasel in armor class and hit points, and the weasel's CON drain attack was halved and isn't very useful now.
Anyway, the game itself went reasonably well. I was not the prettiest, but I got a solo kill on the boss. Druids rock!
Diego scouted up the next flight of stairs, and located another trap by setting it off, then searched two of the three doors at the top of the landing for traps, and set them off as well trying to disable them. He then enlisted Sierra's help setting off the third trap, as the second poison needle to stick in his hand had nearly killed him.
Sierra continued on her merry way, setting off many more traps. As the explosions of runes and POOFs of gas traps resonated through the surrounding countryside, most of the party huddled by the landing and waited for it all to stop.
Eventually, Sierra ran out of traps to spring, and the party started up the narrow iron spiral staircase to the top floor of the tower.
The top floor was shrouded in darkness, and full of skeletons, including an evil pair of glowing eyes that belonged to a spellcasting skeleton. The skeletons tried to keep the party bottled up on the stairs, as Burne had stood staring at them dumbly for a bit too long and let THEM charge HIM, but Albinus and Aleric scrambled up the wall near the top of the stairs, and Tachi used his dire weasel for a footstool and followed up from a little farther down.
Then the smiting began. Burne held off the weaker skeletons, with help from Tachi, while Albinus and Aleric dealt with the spellcaster. Not wanting the remainder of the party to feel left out, one of the skeletons leaped down the stairwell so that they'd have something to beat up on. It survived the longest, meleeing with Sierra, Linn, and Tachi's weasel while Felynne and Diego tried to hit it with arrows.
All in all, it wasn't a very tough fight, although quite a few spells were used up. It was Tachi's turn to set off the traps on the chest and wand case on this level, so he proceeded to do so.
Sierra: "Should we really be wasting so much time messing around with these chests? We do have a mission, and who knows when all this noise we're making is going to alert him and send him running off..."
Tachi: "Look, we know there's treasure in these chests. We don't know that we're going to get paid for the mission."
Then, to the basement, where their quarry's cleverly concealed passageway proved no match for Tachi's ability to track by scent. The crate blocking the scent trail was removed, and the party followed the weasel's nose down a corridor to a large cavern where Ricardo lay sleeping.
Tachi tried to sneak up and tanglefoot the druid in his sleep, but made a bit too much noise. He was close enough to throw by the time Ricardo awoke, though.
Ricardo was in no mood to fight, and the party was not bloodthirsty (except for Tachi, literally, and Burne, figuratively), so they parleyed. Eventually, they agreed that the mage's claim was spurious, and convinced Ricardo to accompany them to the city to retrieve the deed to the mansion from which the wizard who'd hired them had acquired the items, to verify that it was, indeed, in Ricardo's name. 'Charm Person' helped considerably in getting him to agree to that, as did the party's lack of interest in finding the items first.
So, after resting up, they set off for the two-day trip back to the city. Before they'd gone too far, they were ambushed by the wizard who'd hired them. "Kill them all," he cried, then "Give me my artifacts back, you thieves!"
The ambush hadn't been all *that* successful, and the party was able to act at about the same time as the wizard's minions. Ricardo and Tachi had the same idea, and cast a thorn-studded entangle on the minions to either side of the party. While this trapped many of the enemies, and injured the others, it backfired, in a way, as it left the party bunched up for the mage's negative energy burst.
Archery (from Aleric, Diego, and Felynne) proved futile against the flying mage, as he was very fast, with mage armor, shield, and a ring of protection, but (perhaps because of the tree cover) he wasn't hovering quite far enough off the ground to avoid Tachi's flaming sphere and thrown bolts of fire from a produce flame spell. In two rounds, the wizard was quite literally toast. Burne, Albinus and the witches (sorry, witch and bard) took care of the minions on the ground, the ones that weren't hopelessly entangled and/or dead from the brambles.
Thus ended the mission. Since no witnesses had survived the combat (with a little help from Burne and Tachi), the party decided to let Ricardo go and merely relate the wizard's treachery to their boss.
The party retreated to the logging village to rest and heal -- the negative energy burst had hurt everyone, and Burne was in bad shape from fighting the chief minion. Albinus identified some of their treasure, which was passed out to people who could use it, since it was a ways back to the city where they could sell the extra treasure and divide things up properly. Diego got a cloak of resistance, Aleric got a magic sword and shield, Albinus got a spellbook and wand, Sierra got a wand of spectral hand, which she promised to use to cast healing remotely, and Tachi got the ring of protection +2, since Burne refused it -- while it may have been useful to him, it was so much more valuable than anything else that whoever got it was sure to miss out of several rounds of treasure division to pay for it, and Burne preferred to hold out for a magic axe or magic armor, should one appear.
last session next session
In two weeks, Tom's going to run the next session of this campaign, starting with the party in the wilderness. We should be using 3.6 by then. It's a good thing I made 4th, so that I can keep my dire weasel. }:P Although a riding dog is a much better companion under 3.5 rules -- it gets enough of a boost from the '3rd level' bonuses to push it past the dire weasel in armor class and hit points, and the weasel's CON drain attack was halved and isn't very useful now.
