Dungeons and Divers
May. 8th, 2004 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothToday we AGAIN moved the Sunday game to Saturday on Tom's request, this time to avoid Mother's Day. Eric wasn't really prepared, as a result, so we mostly walked through empty hallways, and fought some monsters that happened to be standing (or swimming, or burrowing) about.
This time, the battles lasted *three* rounds.
The ship carrying the party to the island where everyone had mysteriously disappeared arrived without further incident, and they disembarked, after first sending Ethan ahead to scout, since he was flying and the docks showed signs of damage (aka 'were smashed to splinters'). Ethan's 'touchsight' failed to detect any monsters still lurking... or in fact anything like the normal wildlife you'd expect on a forested island.
So, the party came over in boats and headed for the camp proper, which according to Alaric's notes was just over that hill. The camp was smashed up and destroyed, but again seemed deserted, so the party fanned out to check it out. And was attacked by a giant burrowing worm-creature.
Garden was swallowed by the tentacled purplish worm that burst from the ground, which Ethan recognized as a Mind Flayer larva gone horribly wrong. It had spell resistance, which was annoying, but it mostly just say there trying to eat people, and got chopped up by assorted party members and a summoned creature, finally expiring as Garden tore his way out of its stomach.
When he turned back into a person, he revealed that, no, the missing people had not been in its stomach. Besides, Alaric knew that his sister was still alive! So they'd have to look elsewhere for the answers.
With the worm dead, the party did have the chance to ransack the ruined camp, and found some notes about the underwater ruins they'd been exploring, including a description of 'the gate', the 'guardian n--', and strange creatures that had come through the gate and started mind controlling everyone. Let's see... could it be Mind Flayers? Survey says --
At any rate, the next step was to go underwater. The party was still mostly fresh, so they cast some overland flight spells and freedom of movement spells and water breathing spells, and headed down to be nibbled on by sharks.
Six humongous and deadly overgrown dire sharks attacked them, coming out of nowhere before they could react and swallowing most of the party (except for Alaric and Garden, who had the Freedom of Movement). There was one shark for each party member, and what with being ambushed and swallowed and all, they pretty much each had to handle the shark in their own way.
Ethan Ego Whipped his shark until it was comatose -- he'd been TRYING to daze it, but its will was too strong, and he had to keep blasting away until its ego had been whipped into a coma. This took a round and a half. He then dimension doored out and started summoning a swimming critter.
Dawn cast Blink, and blinked through the shark's stomach wall. This just made the shark try to eat her again, but she was blinking and it couldn't get hold.
Breya's short swords were small enough to use inside the stomach, and she cut her way out, then she and Alaric and Ethan's construct whomped on 'her' shark, and later on Dawn's and Alaric's.
Hiko... was screwed. His katana was too large to use, and his fists weren't able to tear through the stomach wall. He *did* more or less kill his shark from the inside out, though -- it got lightning-bolted as it tried to swim off with him inside, and he was cut out of the dead creature.
Alaric and Garden were never swallowed, and spent the whole time ripping pieces out of assorted sharks. Eventually, four were killed, and two got away to go rest and heal for a week, at least.
But the party was badly drained of resources, and retreated to the surface to rest and heal themselves. No more purple tentacle worms showed up to molest them, and they slept the night without incident, in Dawn's rope trick.
There were no sharks left to greet them the next day, as they headed down. This time, Hiko got Freedom of Movement too, as even when he *wasn't* inside a shark, his katana was too unwieldy to use effectively underwater.
They marched all the way across the ruin-filled bay, and found some ruins, that looked like the ones described in the archaeologists' notes. There were strange tracks inside, that looked like something with a long tail, but most of the place was empty... but then, in the basement, they found the guardian nagas, standing to either side of a vertical metal disk, set in a rune-studded ring, on a pedestal, with stairs leading up to it. Could that be the gate?
The nagas tried to charm the party, but that didn't work, because Dawn and Alaric both had protection from evil 10' radius up, having remembered the 'controlling minds' part. So they tried to fireball the party, but Dawn wasn't about to allow that, and counterspelled. Twice.
One naga had a mirror image up, the other went invisible and displaced. The displaced naga was harried by Garden, who couldn't hit it, and Ethan's summon, which could (having been given blindsight). Then its displacement was dispelled, and Breya backstabbed it -- pissing off Garden, who ended up not even getting a single hit in the entire fight.
The other naga had a mirror image up, so Hiko and Alaric tried to attack it with many weak blows to clear out the images... but they kept hitting the creature, instead. They weren't able to kill it before it opened the gate and fled through.
As the surviving naga vanished through the gate, the party stared, considering for a moment whether to chase it through... when out came --
last session | next session
-- a cliffhanger!
Moral of the story: Never play an underwater adventure when the GM is a diver. And if you do, don't also have one of the rules lawery players be a diver. There was a lot of argument going on there. 'Come on, how can an ordinary shark do 9 points of acid damage a round with its stomach? That doesn't even make any sense. And sharks don't even attack people, or at the least they spit them out once they get a taste.'
After the game, Ed and Tom and Michelle and I played Carcasonne, with the new 'third edition' rules that devalued farms somewhat. Ed and Tom and I got in a massive land war over the Farm to End All Farms (which touched most of the cities in the game) -- we were *going* to share, but Tom got the piece that let him screw the rest of us before I did, so it ended up being Tom's playground.
Then he coached Michelle, advising her on how to build the longest road and largest city, taking those away from me too. Then he screwed me several other times. I started getting a bit annoyed at this, but when I started encouraging other people to screw him back, he said I was 'going over the line' and being
*mean*.
Apparently, though, I was doing better than I thought, because even losing all that I ended up winning by three points (over Michelle). Ed came in dead last. I don't know why Ed always loses at Carcassonne; he's not like the guy from college who always lost at *every* game. Maybe it's because he decided to be altruistic and helpful a couple times?
This time, the battles lasted *three* rounds.
The ship carrying the party to the island where everyone had mysteriously disappeared arrived without further incident, and they disembarked, after first sending Ethan ahead to scout, since he was flying and the docks showed signs of damage (aka 'were smashed to splinters'). Ethan's 'touchsight' failed to detect any monsters still lurking... or in fact anything like the normal wildlife you'd expect on a forested island.
So, the party came over in boats and headed for the camp proper, which according to Alaric's notes was just over that hill. The camp was smashed up and destroyed, but again seemed deserted, so the party fanned out to check it out. And was attacked by a giant burrowing worm-creature.
Garden was swallowed by the tentacled purplish worm that burst from the ground, which Ethan recognized as a Mind Flayer larva gone horribly wrong. It had spell resistance, which was annoying, but it mostly just say there trying to eat people, and got chopped up by assorted party members and a summoned creature, finally expiring as Garden tore his way out of its stomach.
When he turned back into a person, he revealed that, no, the missing people had not been in its stomach. Besides, Alaric knew that his sister was still alive! So they'd have to look elsewhere for the answers.
With the worm dead, the party did have the chance to ransack the ruined camp, and found some notes about the underwater ruins they'd been exploring, including a description of 'the gate', the 'guardian n--', and strange creatures that had come through the gate and started mind controlling everyone. Let's see... could it be Mind Flayers? Survey says --
At any rate, the next step was to go underwater. The party was still mostly fresh, so they cast some overland flight spells and freedom of movement spells and water breathing spells, and headed down to be nibbled on by sharks.
Six humongous and deadly overgrown dire sharks attacked them, coming out of nowhere before they could react and swallowing most of the party (except for Alaric and Garden, who had the Freedom of Movement). There was one shark for each party member, and what with being ambushed and swallowed and all, they pretty much each had to handle the shark in their own way.
Ethan Ego Whipped his shark until it was comatose -- he'd been TRYING to daze it, but its will was too strong, and he had to keep blasting away until its ego had been whipped into a coma. This took a round and a half. He then dimension doored out and started summoning a swimming critter.
Dawn cast Blink, and blinked through the shark's stomach wall. This just made the shark try to eat her again, but she was blinking and it couldn't get hold.
Breya's short swords were small enough to use inside the stomach, and she cut her way out, then she and Alaric and Ethan's construct whomped on 'her' shark, and later on Dawn's and Alaric's.
Hiko... was screwed. His katana was too large to use, and his fists weren't able to tear through the stomach wall. He *did* more or less kill his shark from the inside out, though -- it got lightning-bolted as it tried to swim off with him inside, and he was cut out of the dead creature.
Alaric and Garden were never swallowed, and spent the whole time ripping pieces out of assorted sharks. Eventually, four were killed, and two got away to go rest and heal for a week, at least.
But the party was badly drained of resources, and retreated to the surface to rest and heal themselves. No more purple tentacle worms showed up to molest them, and they slept the night without incident, in Dawn's rope trick.
There were no sharks left to greet them the next day, as they headed down. This time, Hiko got Freedom of Movement too, as even when he *wasn't* inside a shark, his katana was too unwieldy to use effectively underwater.
They marched all the way across the ruin-filled bay, and found some ruins, that looked like the ones described in the archaeologists' notes. There were strange tracks inside, that looked like something with a long tail, but most of the place was empty... but then, in the basement, they found the guardian nagas, standing to either side of a vertical metal disk, set in a rune-studded ring, on a pedestal, with stairs leading up to it. Could that be the gate?
The nagas tried to charm the party, but that didn't work, because Dawn and Alaric both had protection from evil 10' radius up, having remembered the 'controlling minds' part. So they tried to fireball the party, but Dawn wasn't about to allow that, and counterspelled. Twice.
One naga had a mirror image up, the other went invisible and displaced. The displaced naga was harried by Garden, who couldn't hit it, and Ethan's summon, which could (having been given blindsight). Then its displacement was dispelled, and Breya backstabbed it -- pissing off Garden, who ended up not even getting a single hit in the entire fight.
The other naga had a mirror image up, so Hiko and Alaric tried to attack it with many weak blows to clear out the images... but they kept hitting the creature, instead. They weren't able to kill it before it opened the gate and fled through.
As the surviving naga vanished through the gate, the party stared, considering for a moment whether to chase it through... when out came --
last session | next session
-- a cliffhanger!
Moral of the story: Never play an underwater adventure when the GM is a diver. And if you do, don't also have one of the rules lawery players be a diver. There was a lot of argument going on there. 'Come on, how can an ordinary shark do 9 points of acid damage a round with its stomach? That doesn't even make any sense. And sharks don't even attack people, or at the least they spit them out once they get a taste.'
After the game, Ed and Tom and Michelle and I played Carcasonne, with the new 'third edition' rules that devalued farms somewhat. Ed and Tom and I got in a massive land war over the Farm to End All Farms (which touched most of the cities in the game) -- we were *going* to share, but Tom got the piece that let him screw the rest of us before I did, so it ended up being Tom's playground.
Then he coached Michelle, advising her on how to build the longest road and largest city, taking those away from me too. Then he screwed me several other times. I started getting a bit annoyed at this, but when I started encouraging other people to screw him back, he said I was 'going over the line' and being
*mean*.
Apparently, though, I was doing better than I thought, because even losing all that I ended up winning by three points (over Michelle). Ed came in dead last. I don't know why Ed always loses at Carcassonne; he's not like the guy from college who always lost at *every* game. Maybe it's because he decided to be altruistic and helpful a couple times?
