DM Chronicles, Session 5: Graveyard Shift, Part 2

Part 1 can be found here.

The players decided to go explore the Necropolis to find where the seven plant-creatures that survived the streets of Ptolus were headed for. They met once again with the leaders of the Keepers of the Veil who gave them another healing package (a 5 charge wand of Restoration and a few potions of Cure Moderate wounds).

Aside: One of our House rules is that no skills are cross-class. Each character class has a number of skill group that gives 1 rank in each skill of the group whenever1 skill point is put in a group (like Iron Heroes). All other skills are available at 1 skill point per rank. So Use Magic Device is now a skill that everyone can take. This makes the group’s lack of cleric far less problematic, Lillie acts as surrogate cleric with wands of healing spells. Maybe I’ll post this one day…

Cixi also offered to reinforce the Keeper’s numbers with members of the Order of Iron Might under her command (Ptolus’ Fighter’s guild, she’s a leader there), scoring a few points in the Great Game for House Khatru.

As soon as they entered the giant graveyard, they rapidly spotted a Huge Earth Elemental fighting something. While approaching, they say it squash one of the Plant like-creatures like a bug (these Planty-creatures are STRONG, as you’ll soon read about, I really needed to find a way to reduce their numbers in a believable manner). They left the elemental alone and marched on toward the Druid’s grove.

They were soon joined by an ancient, slightly grumpy man who was scrapping some green slime off his knuckles. That’s how they met Andach the Druid. He filled them in about the Plant beings and where they were headed. He had detected the awakening of some sort of alien awareness some time ago, but never actually got around to do anything about it (Callous and Busy, I love Chaotic Neutral characters!) He was fighting the Plant-things (called Child of Sehan) because they made the awareness stronger and a direct threat to his plans.

On their way to the funeral mound where the Children of Sehan were headed (Andach told them there were 3 more inside) they found the remains of three of Navana Vladdam’s (the youngest scion of an evil, demon-touched Noble House) Werewolf agents. Contact with a Child made them into Chaos Beasts. Finally a fight!

I don’t remember the details but the fight was rather short. However, when I started asking the players to make Fort saves whenever they were touched by the beasts, the players started worrying and using their newly restocked action point pools (They leveled up to 8th last game).

The players then made thier way into the Funeral mound and I got to use my D&D tiles again! Yay me! (the Iron Golem is actually only a statue).

In that first room the party finally got its first taste of the Children of Sehan in all it’s Pacifying Gaze, Charisma Damaging, High AC and High HP glory. The fight was hard, the players were scared, Action Points were eaten up at the speed of Smarties in the hands of a sugar junky.

Once again, player dice were bad. This combined with the creature’s AC (26) and the necessity to play around the creature’s gaze attack made for a hard fight. But, as always, the heroes prevailed.

Aside: Seeing the new incarnations of Nogard and Lillie was nice. I think this whole Character tweaking thing finally paid off.

A few saving throws , Slow Spells (12 rounds Lesser Restoration FTW!) , and Harry-Potteresque flicks of the Wand of Restoration later, everyone was ready to continue.

They moved to a looted side-crypt where 2 stone sarcophagus were closed and showed clear traces of green stuff (I mean that’s an obvious ‘do not touch’ sign right?)…. Well Power Hungry as always, Nogard went and opened one without breaking a sweat.

To general groans, another fight against a Child of Sehan started. Much like the 1st one, except that more characters got pacified, making the fight harder and frustrations stronger. When I described the second coffin shaking, desperation set in and the pacified Draconic Barbarian sat on it… The fight wore on and we agreed to stop for the night at that point… (You See Cruguer and Nogard “sitting” on the Sarcophagus in the picture below)

In the end, the players were happy about how the story progressed and how interesting the adventure’s fluff was. However, they were somewhat frustrated about how hard the fights against the Children of Sehan had been.

But the thing is, when I look back at it, frustrations because of failures, the hardness and difficulties of an adventure and winning over them are what makes a great D&D session. However, the child of Sehan should have been a Boss Monster, not a CR 8 Mook like it is cast in this adventure (CR 8 my butt! That thing would still be a challenge to a level 10 party). Meeting 3 of them back to back was just too much for the players and I agree.

So far, Aravard, Nogard and Cruguer have been exposed to Sehan’s secretions. I slipped another “cutscene” where Cruguer spaced out and got to meet with both a God of Good and a Contract wielding Devil. The God offered 2 choices around the theme of salvation for his soul…both of which Cruguer refused flatly. Oh well…. Bonus XPs for Eric.

Still, it was a great game and I’m looking forward to next week’s game.
Lessons Learned:

• Tweaking adventures for your players is crucial.
• Ability damage is all right, but lethal ability damage should be used sparingly.
• Don’t pull the beer pouring joke after 4 beers, I missed the empty can… by a lot…

What players liked:

• Ptolus coming to life through the player’s interaction with the organizations.
• Stef’s and Lillie’s new characters.
• The adventure continues to interest the players.

What players disliked

• The child of Sehan are just too damn strong. Even when partially nerfed by the DM
• Franky’s Buttkicking side thrives on Critical hits… Plants and Misshapen chaos blobs are immune to them…. His cries of ‘I hate the Necropolis’ are going to become a staple of this campaign I fear.

What’s next:

• Continue the adventure.
• Try to work in the exposure to Sehan and the actual significance of this Lovecraftian entity into the campaing’s Meta-plot.