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Guido's Treasure
Arrived a little late due to my passenger having to buy dinner, and discovered all the others had already arrived.
Bowled into the first encounter of the night. Dice ran hot.
Came a whisker from a TPK. The first permanent1 fatality of the game (after 1.5 years real time) is Jacob, 1/2 elven ranger. Complete with famous last words "I don't think I need healing just yet" and "I wouldn't say I'm about to do something stupid. Foolhardy maybe"2, and going from +ve hp to dead on one hit (critical).
The PCs did make some pretty big mistakes though.
1. treating bugbears like 1-hit-fall-over hobgoblins. Splitting up enough to get isolated/flanked lots.
2. Not calling for help from the rescued soldiers they had ordered to guard their backs by staying at the bottom of the stairs.
2. The guy with the at will unlimited healing item hanging back rather than running around using it (he keeps forgetting).
3. Same guy forgetting one of his combat feats3.
The DM made a couple of small mistakes as well, which he's not going to list here because they might give certain things away to the party, but also fudged a little bit in their favour.
Anyway, once they'd picked themselves up from that fight and decided now was a good time to make a hasty retreat out the back door [paranoia](which they think the hobgoblins don't know about)[/paranoia]. Once down in the maze of twisty passages (which they successfully navigated thanks to the map Oswin made the first time) they stopped to rest for a day. Some ghouls turned up, chewed on a couple of the soldiers, and were turned away by Father Theo4. Same ghouls attacked again later and managed to infect two or three of the PCs with ghoul fever before being dispatched.
Carrying on the group made it to the next section of caverns, where they were attacked by a few shadows who a) completely got the drop on them, b) randomly attacked the soldiers first c) kept rolling max on their strength drain.
The PCs have determined that shadows are incorporeal, aren't affected by Color Spray (the luckless soldiers however were), and can be dispersed by the cleric. Oswin is now weaker than his tiny viper familiar. Other PCs are a little better off having hade higher scores to start with, but still pretty weak. The party has stopped until the cleric can memorise restoration spells, and are desperately hoping for no more encounters until then.
I'm hoping that the party has lost the attitude of invincibility I've been sensing from the players. (I wonder if I can have a completely new party by the time the new PCs come in?)
1. The party is all out of Fate (ass-saving) Points. However they're dragging his body along with them, so I suppose there's the faint possibility he'll be raised.
2. As near as I can remember
3. He forgets a lot of stuff. That player is a whole 'nother rant :) But we're slowly working on him.
4. Father Theo is an NPC cleric that the new player is running until the opportunity to bring in his own PC arises. Actually leaving the monastary is a big step in that direction.
Arrived a little late due to my passenger having to buy dinner, and discovered all the others had already arrived.
Bowled into the first encounter of the night. Dice ran hot.
Came a whisker from a TPK. The first permanent1 fatality of the game (after 1.5 years real time) is Jacob, 1/2 elven ranger. Complete with famous last words "I don't think I need healing just yet" and "I wouldn't say I'm about to do something stupid. Foolhardy maybe"2, and going from +ve hp to dead on one hit (critical).
The PCs did make some pretty big mistakes though.
1. treating bugbears like 1-hit-fall-over hobgoblins. Splitting up enough to get isolated/flanked lots.
2. Not calling for help from the rescued soldiers they had ordered to guard their backs by staying at the bottom of the stairs.
2. The guy with the at will unlimited healing item hanging back rather than running around using it (he keeps forgetting).
3. Same guy forgetting one of his combat feats3.
The DM made a couple of small mistakes as well, which he's not going to list here because they might give certain things away to the party, but also fudged a little bit in their favour.
Anyway, once they'd picked themselves up from that fight and decided now was a good time to make a hasty retreat out the back door [paranoia](which they think the hobgoblins don't know about)[/paranoia]. Once down in the maze of twisty passages (which they successfully navigated thanks to the map Oswin made the first time) they stopped to rest for a day. Some ghouls turned up, chewed on a couple of the soldiers, and were turned away by Father Theo4. Same ghouls attacked again later and managed to infect two or three of the PCs with ghoul fever before being dispatched.
Carrying on the group made it to the next section of caverns, where they were attacked by a few shadows who a) completely got the drop on them, b) randomly attacked the soldiers first c) kept rolling max on their strength drain.
The PCs have determined that shadows are incorporeal, aren't affected by Color Spray (the luckless soldiers however were), and can be dispersed by the cleric. Oswin is now weaker than his tiny viper familiar. Other PCs are a little better off having hade higher scores to start with, but still pretty weak. The party has stopped until the cleric can memorise restoration spells, and are desperately hoping for no more encounters until then.
I'm hoping that the party has lost the attitude of invincibility I've been sensing from the players. (I wonder if I can have a completely new party by the time the new PCs come in?)
1. The party is all out of Fate (ass-saving) Points. However they're dragging his body along with them, so I suppose there's the faint possibility he'll be raised.
2. As near as I can remember
3. He forgets a lot of stuff. That player is a whole 'nother rant :) But we're slowly working on him.
4. Father Theo is an NPC cleric that the new player is running until the opportunity to bring in his own PC arises. Actually leaving the monastary is a big step in that direction.
