Primal/Within Chronicles: A Master’s Wrath, Part 2

See part 1 here.

Plot Exposition break

Before jumping in the suspended portal standing 15′ over the 1st floor, the PCs rested for a few minutes and searched the Wizard’s lair.  They found that the mad mage had recently abandoned his work on creating enhanced monsters and started focusing on portals.

His various research notes seemed to focus on harnessing the energies of the Nexus and those of the nearby, recently bound Nature spirit to open portals between the Dungeon and the City.   Such a thing had not been possible before and this spelled trouble for the City.

Retracing the paperwork back, the PCs found that a certain ‘e’ introduced himself to the wizard as a representative of ‘The Master’.  The Master wanted to mage to work on manipulating the two closest energy flows.  As a token of good faith, the Master provided the wizard with a large quantity of Residuum (The 4e fearie dust you get from disenchanting magic items, allows you to create new ones).

The party found the chestful of Residuum and they added that to the loot.

Loot Interlude

After the last adventure, the players had to choose a level 11 item and assign it to a one PC.  Reviewing the common slots of neck, armour and weapon, my players found  no interesting upgrades.  They were willing to settle for a Circlet of Mental Onslaught (Head slot, +1 to Will defenses, Daily that adds +1 to atk and damage of Int, Wis and Cha-based powers).

Then I remembered Chris Perkins mentioning how his Ranger gave his Healing surges away in the D&D4e One year later Podcast.  He did that with the help of a Healer’s Sash, a waist level 11 item.   Looking at it in the Adventurer’s Vault we discovered just how awesome this item was (finally a cool 4e item).    It allows the wearer to heal (as an immediate reaction) someone nearby using the item’s charge (it has one a day) or by using healing surges that PCs have stored in it.

You have a ranged striker in your party?  Look the item up if you are at or near paragon level, this is a must have.

The Master’s Lab

Anyway, the PCs were now ready to jump in the portal.

They appeared in some sort of underground arcane laboratory.  A streak of blood trailed out of the room’s only exit.  The portal was still open , flanked by 3 magical circles, each attuned to a Dungeon, Nexus or Spirit energy focus situated somewhere else in the complex.

That’s where I threw another curveball at the PCs.  As soon as they appeared in the room, I described a hunchbacked, seriously disfigured longtooth shifter that looked strangely like Fangs (Eric’s PC). It came in the room to check the source of all that noise and. when it saw the party, retreated to a corner, gibbering to itself.

I also described that two cages near the Nature-powered circle contained the dessicated remains of 2 other ‘Fangs’.  Wires were connected to the cages and lead to the Nature circle which had 2 pairs of metal rods surrounding it.

“What the hell Dude? I think Fangs has been cloned!”

“Later, we must find the mage”

They followed the trails of blood (and the unnecessary cries of pain,  apparently my players don’t think it would be possible to live 10 minutes without the lower half of your body) down a corridor with various doors and arrived at an opened doorway marked ‘Sampling Room” where the weakening whimpers of the mage could be heard.

The Sampler

By now it was already late (around 9h30 PM) and I wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea to have a fight vs a Solo monster.  However my players insisted (particularly Yan who didn’t want to spend an evening  without combat successes) so I placed the ‘Dungeon of Blood’ map from the Fields of Ruin map pack and placed my undead Beholder mini on it.

‘You see a large sphere of shivered gray-green flesh with a single bloodshot eye looking at the half-body of the Wizard.  Several stalks, ending with a claw and a mouth, are busy tearing chunks of flesh from the wizard and spit these chunks in a fist size portal.

(I recall saying that the wizard cried for help, but no-one bought it… so let’s just say that it was dead).

The creature was a Bloodkiss Beholder, an undead level 9 solo controller (from the Open Grave Sourcebook).

With 4 level 9 PCs, this was supposed to be a hard but fair fight… and a hard fight it was.  That thing had a dazing breath weapon, it could stun bloodied opponents, and most devastating of all, it got a massive free attack whenever it bloodied an opponent, weakening the target, and allowing the beholder to spend a healing surge and heal all the damage it had been dealt so far!

Good thing monsters below level 10 only have one surge!

This fight really felt like a Solo encounter should be.  The players had their hands full the whole time and the monster was all over the place, dealing damage and doing it’s controller job.

Most players got bloodied (and dazed, and stunned…) during the fight, some even dropped to negatives.  As the evening wore on and players were becoming tired, I made the DM call to adjust the creature’s hit points based on the new Monster Manual maths, dropping them by 20%.  As luck would have it,  on the next attack after this decision, Jaiel killed the monster with a critical hit dealing 40+  damage (thanks to a +3 Vicious Greatsword).

Thus, we avoided the grind because at the end of the fight, the combat’s issue hadn’t been clearly established with several PCs near death and out of healing.

The Lab of Dr. Moreau

After the fight, the PCs found three energy foci (Dungeon, Nexus and Sprit) that seemed to power the whole complex.  They decided to destroy/free each.  Then they explored the rest of the laboratory and found it to be without exits.  In one room, much like the scene in Aliens Resurrection, they found multiple copies of Fangs, in various states of mutation, including quite a few that seemed to veer toward humanity.

Looking at the research notes, they discovered that the ‘original’ had such a strong link to Nature magic that he could be used as a focus.  It mentioned that most of the copies made weren’t as strong and died rapidly when hooked to the portal generator.  A mention was made of one copy, stronger than the rest, having escaped by triggering the portal randomly and jumping in.

Lastly, one copy, named ‘e’ was later created that was almost as strong as the original and wholly loyal to the Master.  The later notes were written by ‘e’.

That’s called a Tomato in the Mirror.  Talking to the players, we agreed that we would leave it vague enough that Fangs could be either the Escaped clone or the misplaced original (thought to be dead according to the research notes) depending on Eric’s preferences.  I’m curious to see how he’ll react.

The PCs then returned to the first room, finding the portal closed.  However, with a book of ritual they found and by having an Arcane, Divine and Primal class spending a Healing Surge each, they managed to open a portal back into the city.

(That’s going to be a very useful plot travel device in the next season)

A good session, too railroady but satisfactory to all.

Lessons Learned

• Even a cool adventure should have at least one instance where PCs must make a choice other than ‘accept the quest”
• Cut down the hit points of pre- Monster Manual 2 solos by 20%, it shortens the fight without affecting it’s relative deadliness.
• Don’t put artillery monsters in maps with too much cover.