A city in need is a city indeed?
Mar. 5th, 2003 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was Lance's high-level D+D game (yes, we *did* play a second session!). We were transported to a prestigious scifi novel, and attacked a city full of evil. And kicked their ass. But most of the important ones got away, except for the one carrying all the phat lewt, who was incinerated, zapped, doused in acid, poisoned, driven insane, turned to stone, and destroyed utterly.
Oops.
So the party of three travelled to the Arch of Heaven, which turned out to be a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, large, empty world -- the players recognized it as the Ringworld from Niven's novels instantly. It took the characters a little longer, but fortunately the NPCs on the world were aware of its nature and filled them in, minimizing player/character knowledge conflicts.
Er... that is, they were taken by their guide to a money-changer who filled them in on the specifics of this new 'Cenotaph' and let them buy local currency. A discern location spell revealed the position of their friend's soul, but it was very far away. Meanwhile, a day's ride away -- or an hour's flight by 'fly' spell, the slowest method of locomotion the party possessed -- a city was being invaded and destroyed by the same bastards who stole the soul.
This could mean only one thing! Of course, it was a different thing for each party member. But eventually they settled on freeing the town and destroying the enemy.
The guard tower outside of town was pretty pathetic... every guard in the tower was taken out in two rounds, before they could set off their warning flare, and none of them were seriously injured in the process. This turned out to be a good thing, since they were the town militia, dominated by a magical circlet. Once decircleted (and healed back to consciousness) they were happy to give approximate numbers and position of the enemy. 30 of the silver draconoform constructs, 5 humanoid bosses, and about 170 enslaved guards.
The party's monk -- calling herself Abbey now, as the party had been told not to use their real names ever -- got herself invisibled and ran around the wall of the city, snatching off circlets and storing them in a bag of holding where they couldn't hurt anyone. She managed to de-convert every guard on the wall without anyone noticing enough to resist.
After that, though, the jig was up. The dragon, the mage, and the squirrel -- so called because he'd taken squirrel form -- entered the city and were challenged by a pair of constructs and some guards. Or perhaps 'challenged' is the wrong word. The guards were freed, and the constructs dispatched.
This attracted more attention, in the form of a dozen constructs, flying in from all corners of the city in four groups. The dragon was unable to control himself, and charged wildly at one of the groups, eventually dispatching it while taking barely a scratch himself. It took too long, however, and the remaining nine got to the party while he was still engaged.
Seven of the nine constructs were annihilated in a single round by the mage's spells, but the last two opened a gate and summoned in three of their bosses -- a giant, a ninja, and an apparent mage. The mage got fireballed, and ice stormed, and surrounded in black tentacles, and punched a lot, until she was pissed off and revealed her true form as an adult red dragon. The giant got force-caged and dimension-doored out, then failed to hit the mage with his crossbow. The ninja had impressive looking glowy nunchuks and swords, but couldn't hit the broad-side of a monk (admittedly, an AC 54 monk) and eventually got telekinesed through a prismatic wall, annihilating him. And all his stuff. Which was the only treasure the party *would have* gotten.
The mage was not at all apologetic about disintegrating the treasure.
Around that same time, the party's dragon finally returned to rejoin the fight, and his rider started summoning a flock of arrowhawks to harry the evil red dragon... and the dragon and giant bugged out with word of recall.
last week next week
Oops.
So the party of three travelled to the Arch of Heaven, which turned out to be a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, large, empty world -- the players recognized it as the Ringworld from Niven's novels instantly. It took the characters a little longer, but fortunately the NPCs on the world were aware of its nature and filled them in, minimizing player/character knowledge conflicts.
Er... that is, they were taken by their guide to a money-changer who filled them in on the specifics of this new 'Cenotaph' and let them buy local currency. A discern location spell revealed the position of their friend's soul, but it was very far away. Meanwhile, a day's ride away -- or an hour's flight by 'fly' spell, the slowest method of locomotion the party possessed -- a city was being invaded and destroyed by the same bastards who stole the soul.
This could mean only one thing! Of course, it was a different thing for each party member. But eventually they settled on freeing the town and destroying the enemy.
The guard tower outside of town was pretty pathetic... every guard in the tower was taken out in two rounds, before they could set off their warning flare, and none of them were seriously injured in the process. This turned out to be a good thing, since they were the town militia, dominated by a magical circlet. Once decircleted (and healed back to consciousness) they were happy to give approximate numbers and position of the enemy. 30 of the silver draconoform constructs, 5 humanoid bosses, and about 170 enslaved guards.
The party's monk -- calling herself Abbey now, as the party had been told not to use their real names ever -- got herself invisibled and ran around the wall of the city, snatching off circlets and storing them in a bag of holding where they couldn't hurt anyone. She managed to de-convert every guard on the wall without anyone noticing enough to resist.
After that, though, the jig was up. The dragon, the mage, and the squirrel -- so called because he'd taken squirrel form -- entered the city and were challenged by a pair of constructs and some guards. Or perhaps 'challenged' is the wrong word. The guards were freed, and the constructs dispatched.
This attracted more attention, in the form of a dozen constructs, flying in from all corners of the city in four groups. The dragon was unable to control himself, and charged wildly at one of the groups, eventually dispatching it while taking barely a scratch himself. It took too long, however, and the remaining nine got to the party while he was still engaged.
Seven of the nine constructs were annihilated in a single round by the mage's spells, but the last two opened a gate and summoned in three of their bosses -- a giant, a ninja, and an apparent mage. The mage got fireballed, and ice stormed, and surrounded in black tentacles, and punched a lot, until she was pissed off and revealed her true form as an adult red dragon. The giant got force-caged and dimension-doored out, then failed to hit the mage with his crossbow. The ninja had impressive looking glowy nunchuks and swords, but couldn't hit the broad-side of a monk (admittedly, an AC 54 monk) and eventually got telekinesed through a prismatic wall, annihilating him. And all his stuff. Which was the only treasure the party *would have* gotten.
The mage was not at all apologetic about disintegrating the treasure.
Around that same time, the party's dragon finally returned to rejoin the fight, and his rider started summoning a flock of arrowhawks to harry the evil red dragon... and the dragon and giant bugged out with word of recall.
last week next week
