Assassination, pt 2
Apr. 25th, 2005 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothWe had another session of Tom's D+D game (getting back on schedule), but it was short and scattered, and ended early after Tom passed around his PSP, which was much more distracting than even a half-dozen screaming kids...
I was worried that I'd be out of it during the game, because I was nearly falling asleep on the road on the way over -- I'd been woken up multiple times during the night by the need to run to the bathroom. x.x It turned out that I was conscious for the whole thing, just sort of apathetic.
So, the entire party and the small army they'd taken along with them were hanging out in rope tricks, intending to wait a few hours for the alarm to die down before continuing their attack.
Unfortunately, the gnolls' trackers and remaining magic user were able to localize the spot where the party must have disappeared, and cast a detect magic, which quickly spotted one of the rope tricks -- so the party was forced into action ahead of schedule. Still, the leader that they were trying to assassinate was right there, without *too* many guards, so it was a decent opportunity.
Zanzibar handed off his wand of web to Samuel, who'd otherwise have nothing to do as all his spells had been cast, then led off with a fireball from his staff, which scared most of the lesser gnolls into scattering. The soldiers surrounded the gnoll mage and killed her while Morgan went toe-to-toe with the chieftan and a couple braver gnolls stayed to fight.
The chieftan would have surely won if it had been a one-on-one encounter, but it wasn't -- and eventually, he tried to run away as well, but failed and was shot in the back in and killed.
[This is what really pisses me off about how Tom runs the monsters -- he sabotages all the encounters by having them run away when, individually, they're in danger of death, even when it's completely futile. The chief could have dropped Morgan by taking another round of attacks, and if all his followers had stayed to fight, the entire party wouldn't have been able to focus on the chief in the first place!]
Now, there were still a lot of gnolls around, and even with their leaders dead they weren't about to let the party go just yet. The elevator's chain was greased to make it difficult to pull up [Erik complained that that should never have worked, since it was a chain -- last week I remember them being ropes, but even a greasy chain is harder to keep your grip on than an ungreased chain], so the remaining soldiers were put to work doing that while Samuel blocked off all corridors with webs... until he ran out of webs. Rhiannon (shielded by her faith, and her full plate armor) made herself a target to draw the remaining enemy fire, and they were able to escape into the tunnels, dragging along the corpse of the chieftain (because they wanted to loot it).
They headed back to Silverhawk's castle to rest, and the next day sent an ultimatum to the gnolls -- stop raiding the road, and release all your slaves, or we'll come and assassinate your *new* leaders. This eventually led to a parley between the gnolls and Silverhawk and a truce of sorts, which was what the dragon had wanted. It was only after the truce was agreed to that the party realized they'd forgotten to steal the gnolls' treasure. D'oh!
But Silverhawk was as good as his word, and took the 'kidnapped' princess back to see her father with him, so that they could get everything out in the open and no more would-be assassins would be sent into the woods after him. And the father grudgingly agreed that the party had fulfilled their contract, and paid them what he'd agreed to.
Of course, that'd have to wait until they got back to Wheloon. On the way, they were accosted by some sort of weird undead that took a little girl hostage and demanded Rhiannon's mace, which he referred to as 'the key', as the price of her life. The party refused to negotiate -- Zanzibar shattered his dagger so that he couldn't instantly slit her throat, and the rest of the party...
...utterly failed in all their various attempts to get the girl away from him (grappling, tripping, and so on), so on his next round he pulled out his sword and killed her. Oops. He didn't outlive her by much, at least, although that was little consolation to the despondant mother.
But none of the party really cared, because she was just a kid, and they're a dime a dozen. They headed back to Wheloon to rearm and resupply and get paid, quickly forgetting that there was apparently a powerful and angry necromancer after them.
last session | next session
I was worried that I'd be out of it during the game, because I was nearly falling asleep on the road on the way over -- I'd been woken up multiple times during the night by the need to run to the bathroom. x.x It turned out that I was conscious for the whole thing, just sort of apathetic.
So, the entire party and the small army they'd taken along with them were hanging out in rope tricks, intending to wait a few hours for the alarm to die down before continuing their attack.
Unfortunately, the gnolls' trackers and remaining magic user were able to localize the spot where the party must have disappeared, and cast a detect magic, which quickly spotted one of the rope tricks -- so the party was forced into action ahead of schedule. Still, the leader that they were trying to assassinate was right there, without *too* many guards, so it was a decent opportunity.
Zanzibar handed off his wand of web to Samuel, who'd otherwise have nothing to do as all his spells had been cast, then led off with a fireball from his staff, which scared most of the lesser gnolls into scattering. The soldiers surrounded the gnoll mage and killed her while Morgan went toe-to-toe with the chieftan and a couple braver gnolls stayed to fight.
The chieftan would have surely won if it had been a one-on-one encounter, but it wasn't -- and eventually, he tried to run away as well, but failed and was shot in the back in and killed.
[This is what really pisses me off about how Tom runs the monsters -- he sabotages all the encounters by having them run away when, individually, they're in danger of death, even when it's completely futile. The chief could have dropped Morgan by taking another round of attacks, and if all his followers had stayed to fight, the entire party wouldn't have been able to focus on the chief in the first place!]
Now, there were still a lot of gnolls around, and even with their leaders dead they weren't about to let the party go just yet. The elevator's chain was greased to make it difficult to pull up [Erik complained that that should never have worked, since it was a chain -- last week I remember them being ropes, but even a greasy chain is harder to keep your grip on than an ungreased chain], so the remaining soldiers were put to work doing that while Samuel blocked off all corridors with webs... until he ran out of webs. Rhiannon (shielded by her faith, and her full plate armor) made herself a target to draw the remaining enemy fire, and they were able to escape into the tunnels, dragging along the corpse of the chieftain (because they wanted to loot it).
They headed back to Silverhawk's castle to rest, and the next day sent an ultimatum to the gnolls -- stop raiding the road, and release all your slaves, or we'll come and assassinate your *new* leaders. This eventually led to a parley between the gnolls and Silverhawk and a truce of sorts, which was what the dragon had wanted. It was only after the truce was agreed to that the party realized they'd forgotten to steal the gnolls' treasure. D'oh!
But Silverhawk was as good as his word, and took the 'kidnapped' princess back to see her father with him, so that they could get everything out in the open and no more would-be assassins would be sent into the woods after him. And the father grudgingly agreed that the party had fulfilled their contract, and paid them what he'd agreed to.
Of course, that'd have to wait until they got back to Wheloon. On the way, they were accosted by some sort of weird undead that took a little girl hostage and demanded Rhiannon's mace, which he referred to as 'the key', as the price of her life. The party refused to negotiate -- Zanzibar shattered his dagger so that he couldn't instantly slit her throat, and the rest of the party...
...utterly failed in all their various attempts to get the girl away from him (grappling, tripping, and so on), so on his next round he pulled out his sword and killed her. Oops. He didn't outlive her by much, at least, although that was little consolation to the despondant mother.
But none of the party really cared, because she was just a kid, and they're a dime a dozen. They headed back to Wheloon to rearm and resupply and get paid, quickly forgetting that there was apparently a powerful and angry necromancer after them.
last session | next session
