Bad rift. No cookie!
Nov. 10th, 2008 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothSunday, we finished up Keep on the Shadowfell in the D+D game. Originally, we'd planned to continue on to the next adventure the same day (since we only had one more encounter and didn't expect it to take long), but people weren't ready with their level 4 characters (some people were switching between adventures) so we just called it off early. Sigh.
Bore led the way, attempting to slide down the slippery chain to dramatically confront the enemies, only to lose his grip and fall 50 feet into a pool of blood instead. OW. Alaric (or whatever the warlock was called today) decided to drop a rope and climb down safely, but slowly, while Vexx followed Bore down clumsily. Shanarea and Samuel stayed up top to snipe, but didn't see any targets... so Shanarea slid down gracefully, and Sam hung his head and wand-aiming arm over the overhand to fire magic missiles.
The opposition looked pretty sparse -- a 'deathlock wight' so named for its immobilizing rays, two linebacker skeletons (not their name, but their purpose), and one high priest of Orcus with a scary-looking rod. Oh, and there was also a Rift to the Shadowfell, and strange glowing runes.
At first, things looked like they were going well -- Bore and Vexx engaged the linebackers, while the three ranged attackers focused on the priest (Sam eventually decided to climb down the rope, but plummeted to his certain injury instead). But the priest was having none of that, and used a massive burst of dark energy to... slide his minions and himself around? Into the circle of glowing runes?
That proved to be a huge pain in the ass for the party. In the circle, they were constantly healed and almost impossible to hit. Plus, about half the circle was in reach of the black tentacles that the rift itself kept snaking out to try to grab party members and suck them in. But Bore kept marking the boss, and soaking up the punishment he could deal out, while trying over and OVER AND OVER to smack him out of the circle with his shield-bash attack. Finally, a series of lucky hits did the trick, and with Vexx he formed a wall keeping the guy from getting back in.
Not that that made it *easy* to kill him, just *possible*. Things looked grim when Vexx finally fell beneath the deathlock's onslaught, and Sam was yanked out of flanking position (yes, they made the wizard flank, things were pretty desperate) by the rift's tentacles, leaving a clear path for the priest to re-enter the circle...
But he was under a warlock curse that would do damage to him if he approached the warlock (say, by entering the circle) and Bore had him marked, making his shifts draw an extra attack from the fighter, and those two last attacks finished him off before he could start healing again.
The wizard escape from the tentacles and ran out of range, and Bore picked up Vexx's body before the tentacles could grab it, and ran it to a relatively safe location, where he spent several turns doing first aid and throwing hammers, because the deathlock had decided to lock *him* in place finally (since its previous target was unconscious). The wight also resurrected the one linebacker they'd taken down earlier, being a real pest even after its master was dead (dead and sucked into the rift).
But the wight wasn't very tough once the party started shooting at it (it was finished off by a patched-up Vexx's charge), and they were able to lure the skeletons out of the circle and wear them down.
Unfortunately, these enemies proved to be a load-bearing boss fight, and they were forced to grab what treasure they could from the bodies and run for their lives as the entire keep collapsed! There would be no going back to clear the passages they'd skipped on the way down.
But the world was saved, and the prince even came through on his promise to pay them, although he didn't pay them the 1 million gold each that they all remembered him promising. What a skinflint!
previous session | next session
Bore led the way, attempting to slide down the slippery chain to dramatically confront the enemies, only to lose his grip and fall 50 feet into a pool of blood instead. OW. Alaric (or whatever the warlock was called today) decided to drop a rope and climb down safely, but slowly, while Vexx followed Bore down clumsily. Shanarea and Samuel stayed up top to snipe, but didn't see any targets... so Shanarea slid down gracefully, and Sam hung his head and wand-aiming arm over the overhand to fire magic missiles.
The opposition looked pretty sparse -- a 'deathlock wight' so named for its immobilizing rays, two linebacker skeletons (not their name, but their purpose), and one high priest of Orcus with a scary-looking rod. Oh, and there was also a Rift to the Shadowfell, and strange glowing runes.
At first, things looked like they were going well -- Bore and Vexx engaged the linebackers, while the three ranged attackers focused on the priest (Sam eventually decided to climb down the rope, but plummeted to his certain injury instead). But the priest was having none of that, and used a massive burst of dark energy to... slide his minions and himself around? Into the circle of glowing runes?
That proved to be a huge pain in the ass for the party. In the circle, they were constantly healed and almost impossible to hit. Plus, about half the circle was in reach of the black tentacles that the rift itself kept snaking out to try to grab party members and suck them in. But Bore kept marking the boss, and soaking up the punishment he could deal out, while trying over and OVER AND OVER to smack him out of the circle with his shield-bash attack. Finally, a series of lucky hits did the trick, and with Vexx he formed a wall keeping the guy from getting back in.
Not that that made it *easy* to kill him, just *possible*. Things looked grim when Vexx finally fell beneath the deathlock's onslaught, and Sam was yanked out of flanking position (yes, they made the wizard flank, things were pretty desperate) by the rift's tentacles, leaving a clear path for the priest to re-enter the circle...
But he was under a warlock curse that would do damage to him if he approached the warlock (say, by entering the circle) and Bore had him marked, making his shifts draw an extra attack from the fighter, and those two last attacks finished him off before he could start healing again.
The wizard escape from the tentacles and ran out of range, and Bore picked up Vexx's body before the tentacles could grab it, and ran it to a relatively safe location, where he spent several turns doing first aid and throwing hammers, because the deathlock had decided to lock *him* in place finally (since its previous target was unconscious). The wight also resurrected the one linebacker they'd taken down earlier, being a real pest even after its master was dead (dead and sucked into the rift).
But the wight wasn't very tough once the party started shooting at it (it was finished off by a patched-up Vexx's charge), and they were able to lure the skeletons out of the circle and wear them down.
Unfortunately, these enemies proved to be a load-bearing boss fight, and they were forced to grab what treasure they could from the bodies and run for their lives as the entire keep collapsed! There would be no going back to clear the passages they'd skipped on the way down.
But the world was saved, and the prince even came through on his promise to pay them, although he didn't pay them the 1 million gold each that they all remembered him promising. What a skinflint!
previous session | next session
