See part 1 here.
Setting up the Fight
This is going to be a weird game report because the fight that I will get into shortly, is pretty much all that happened in the game, with some dream sequence before and a bit of story and scary stuff after. So I’ll spend a few minutes on the fight setup itself, the cool new gadget we used and how it was designed it.
Plus, it will likely make Yan’s head explode of impatience as his PCs was so damn awesome throughout the damn fight.
I wanted the combat scene of the season to be hard but not so hard that I would hand the PCs’ butts back to the players, like many of my previous campaigns started. I wanted an encounter made of Abberant creatures to set the tone of sessions to come. To that effect, I took a lvl 13 Solo monster from Dungeon Magazine (the Wellspring Horror, from issue 162), I added 2 level 10 Destrachans (Artillery) and 2 level 10 Warped Ghouls (Brutes, from Dungeon Mag #161).
I set the fight on one of the D&D 3.5 era battlemaps, called Thieves Guild from the City of Peril map-packs, a series of multi-storied houses with plenty of plank bridges and ladders. (These maps are absolutely great for 4e encounters, get them if you can still find them).
I also deployed two of my many Gen Con finds: Dark Platypus’ Magna Map and magnet action stands with Status flags! By putting the rubbersteel map underneath the WotC paper battlemap, I was able to place stands beside all the minis. Whenever a condition hit them (Dazed, Continuous Dmg, Blooddied, etc), I’d bring a little flag close to the mini’s stand and it would literally leap from my fingers to the stand… stacking with other flags without fumbling!
Best luxury D&D accessory ever!
Tentacles cleanup in aisle 4, stat!
The fight started right after the PC heard the disgusting tearing sound, coming from somewhere hidden in the middle of the map, with the PCs focusing on the Destrachan. One was nearby and the other was sitting a few building further away. The Shaman stepped back to get line of sight and summoned his spirit companions. The Sorcerer did the same and fired a chaos bolt on the creature, taking a big chunk of it’s HP away.
The Rogue climbed the 20′ tall building to melee the creature. The Barbarian, after studying the environment, ran to the next building, jumped ON the 10′ tall building and charged the Destrachan over a narrow plank bridge, killing it outright.
Of course, caught in the Rule of Cool, I forgot that rules for high jumps were totally different from the long-jump rules. Hence the barbarian managing to jump ON a 10′ tall building without breaking a sweat (or a disk)…
Oh well, sometimes freakish things happen, like a barbarian leaping like the Hulk.
Shortly after, the ghouls climbed out of the map’s sewers and onto the roofs to join the fight. They were rapidly dispatched without hitting anything much.
The Horror, however, made quite an impression on the players, especially when it played ball with the Warden, grabbing him with tentacles, throwing him to the ground and grabbing it again for massive damage.
The combat was once again a demonstration of good player cooperation. The Warden kept the Horror “busy” while the Rogue and Sorcerer dispatched the ghouls. The Shaman provided healing support, buffing with strategic placement of both of his spirit companions and damage bonuses with a huge Burst 5 zone that added +1d6 thunder damage to all attacks. The Barbarian happily jumped from roof to roof, chasing the last Destrachan.
The evening’s play occurred when the Barbarian, dazed by the Destrachan’s blast attack, killed it, got a free charge attack…. jumped from roof to roof, twice, jumped down to the ground (rolling acrobatics, taking no damage, therefore remaining standing) and scored a solid hit on the Horror!
Yan: Oh, I’m dazed? Fancy that!
ChattyDM: Please excuse me, I’ll need to have a little moment alone.
When all other monsters were dealt with, the PCs converged on the Horror. While it still had almost 400 of it’s 650 HPs and could manage to grab a PC and use it as a shield every round or so, I decided to cut the combat scene short. The fight had been running for about 2 hours and, quite frankly, I didn’t feel like stretching the encounter for another hour when the only resource I could rob the PCs were a few healing surges.
So I called the fight as being over, the PCs eventually beating the Solo monster. Discussions with the players after the game led to 2 main opinions on the subject: Some were cool with such calls and approved of them if it made things move faster. The other side argued that while it was a good idea, game wise, they would prefer more verisimilitude, like having bloodied monsters running away or come up with ‘plausible’ reasons to end a fight.
(I have a whole post just about the length of 4e fights planned for later this week).
Sewer Sortie
Once completed, the PCs explored the area, including the gore-filled sewer. Behind the grate, they found a shimmering portal opening into an apparently featureless dungeon room. After some preliminary precautions, the Rogue entered the portal and retrieved a scroll and a rounded stone from the otherwise empty room.
The scroll contained a letter in a flowery script asking the PCs if they liked the little gifts he sent the City. It then went into typical overlord megalomania drivel, saying that he could still use the Teleporting portals they learned about and that he will enjoy seeing them get in trouble with the whole thing. Finally, it mentioned a little gift, the stone, that would help the PCs identify what they are up against. It was signed: The Master.
Cue dramatic music!
The stone was a magic items, a Foe Stone, allowing to identify the immunities and vulnerabilities of foes. The city also paid the party 5000 gp for getting rid of the threat.
A short custom magic item buying session followed, upgrading a few weapons to +3.
Coming up in the next episode
Since it was already passed 10 PM, I started shifting into game end mode. I informed the PCs that using the carcass of the vanquished Horror, the mages of the Foundation were able to identify where it was ‘linked’ and managed to create an item that would open a portal for a short period near the Horror’s Dungeon focus, one of the 5 core dungeon focuses needed to cutoff the Primal from its dungeon.
So the PCs had their mission for next time: Teleport deep into the dungeon, face the local aberrant fauna, bust the local focus and teleport back.
Before ending the game, I played one last gross card on the PCs.
ChattyDM: Dworkin, shortly after your fight against the Horror, you noticed something weird while dressing up. Inside your chainmail, right at the height of your neck, you see a weird fleshy patch stuck to it. It seems alive as it reacts to your presence and seems to pulsate with life.
Franky: Dude, leave me alone! I scrape it off with a knife and put it in a glass bottle.
ChattyDM: You also find 4 other such growths in various places putting them in contact with your skin. Somehow, the patches of skin those things touched were made insensible, meaning you never noticed that you were being leeched of your blood….or worse!
Franky: Hey… I tell they others and I put all of mine in the bottle.
Chatty: They all have similar growth, except Fangs. Oh and when all your blobs of flesh are brought together, they fuse and an eye, the same color as yours, forms and frowns at you!
Yan: Oh crap guys, we’re sprouting clones!
ChattyDM: See you in 2 weeks guys!
Lessons Learned
- A complex fighting environment with 3D elements rules, even at Paragon level.
- The use of Magnet flags and Spell templates is just plain awesome.
- Plan an exit strategy for all your Solo fights. You might want to cut it short to avoid a grind. A good story-compatible reason to stop the fight is less jarring.
- Sometimes creating a problem without knowing where it comes from or how it will play it is just too cool. I should do it more often.
- Barbarians are damn scary…
Hehe! For the sake of completeness and since it was such a showcase of the potential of the barbarian here are the detail of that turn…
I was dazed, Standard action: Charge the Destrachan going through over a narrow plank bridge (Acrobatic DC20).
Kill it which allowed my use of the Swift Charge power as a free action.
Charge the boss jumping down from a 20′ high building. Used acrobatic to reduce damage, taking none.
Then I used my action point to have an other standard action, scrapped my 5th level rage to make an extra powerful attack. Total damage dealt: more then 150. 😉
Yes I love my new PC Nairabrab eht Nanoc. :p
Yeah, you have a track record of finding THE perfect charcater… I’m starting to dread the coming of the PHB III.
🙂
My players would say…”COOL! now we can be in 2 places at once,” not “Oh Crap.” Of course afterwards it would dawn on them that I would never be that nice
.-= Joey´s last blog ..Character Counts – Master Abjurer Saelion =-.
I really like how this campaign has a distinct evil Biomancy (Magical Biotechnology) vibe. Which serves to show that work always ends up creeping up in our RPGs.
The perfect character is far fetch. Lets just say that I usually know how to get the best out of the class I pick.
Barbarians are freaking brutal, too. Maybe even a little unbalanced compared to the PHB1 classes.
The (6th level) one in my campaign does that free charge schtick relentlessly, deals upwards of 25 points of damage with every hit, and gets something like 8 temporary hit points every time he hits with Recuperating Strike. The only things that even faze him anymore are will attacks, status effects, and getting flanked by skirmishers. I’d be worried about him outshining the rest of the party combined if his player wasn’t a mortal enemy of the Dice Gods.
I’m pretty sure that barbarian are balanced as Strikers. I’m not quite sure if they might be unbalanced, the weaknesses they were assigned might not be all that important: HP and Will defenses.
From the strikers I’ve seen so far:
Warlock: Weaker than all other Strikers, but great dailies.
Rogue: Hits really hard when played adequately
Avenger: Hits more often, can deal massive damage to undead. Can hit extremely hard if ganked by multiple monsters.
Sorcerer: Higher Damage output than Warlock, lower than melee based ones… has built in variability to can add effects to hits.
Barbarian: Very high damage output if equipped with proper gear, especially gear that (ab)uses Temporary HP.
However, one thing is certain, in a party with no other strikers, the barbarian (if lucky) can deal damage equal to the total output of the rest of the party. And in a gaming group that has failed to realize that each role are not balances in term of damage, this can be perceived as unbalanced.
In fact, any player that finds a striker to be unbalanced should probably be playing one because it’s most likely their best fit.
I agree with Phil on this. Strikers do a lot of damage.
As far as the damage output it was just a bit higher then the sorcerer and rogue as they where doing an average of 45 damage per hit each.
The contrast was just huge between the barbarian and the avenger which felt more like a defender then a striker… At least in the damage dealing department.
And let’s not forget how the Bloodclaw weapon adds 12 points of Damage per hit instead of the usual 3, every hit, for a mere 3 HP per hit.
The Sorcerer has a Staff of Ruin +3, adding 6 per hit and the rogue has weapons that deal more damage to creatures larger than him (he’s a halfling).
I’m sure we’ll find the barbarian’s weakness soon enough.
Loving the horror flavor of this current campaign. Messing with players’ heads is tons of fun. I was running a game in Cyre (Eberron) just prior to the Day of Mourning and had tons of fun springing sudden appearances of “dead grey mist,” mistwraiths (thanks Brandon Sanderson) of departed comrades and relatives, and one corpstrosity that appeared when the innards of several defeated gnomes suddenly ripped out of their skins and combined into a horrid gestalt of dripping flesh.
Ah, good times.
.-= Mike´s last blog ..Incoming Fall =-.