Session #8 - Draigdurroch Tower [Part Two]

[thedungeonmaster]

This following excerpt is based on a D&D session that took place on 22nd June 2009 from 2000hrs to 2300hrs at the 'mindcafe'. However, the adventure could not be completed in time, and the session was continued at Mr Bean til' about midnight.

The party of 4 comprises of Tas'sadar - Genasi Warlord (played by Marcus); Mobius – Human Wizard (played by Edmund); Romean – Elven Cleric (played by Mark); and Gond Oremighty - Goliath Fighter (played by Eugene).



The session continues from where the PCs emerge after an extended rest from the room when they last encountered the poltergeists.

Do note that although the Nentir Vale is a generic location, it has been embedded into the continent of Faerun of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

The Draigdurroch Tower

Encounter 1 – Draigdurroch's chamber…

The party climb up to the 3rd and final level of the tower and meet Draigdurroch - who had been transformed into a skeleton, although undead, he still retained his warlock powers. Aided by fiery skeletons, Draigdurroch attempted to attack the PCs, but the PCs managed to defeat the undead warlock.

In the midst of the battle, Romean had went to check on Lady Moonfire who was flung down the flight of stairs. And a moment of romance passed between the two as the rest of the party were up fighting with Draigdurroch and company...

With his final breath, Draigdurroch thanked the PCs for relieving him of his curse and that he had been tricked into a deal with Shar. He handed to the PCs a ring with a skull which could be used to open a door at the basement of the tower.

Encounter 2 – Bizarre Experimentations

There is a sign on the door that reads ‘Experimentations’

You open the door and you see that the room is filled with an eerie green glow. The light is dim however. The smell of death lurks in this room. You see that something is moving in the corner.. the sight is ghastly as you notice that it comprises of butchered flesh, rotting organs and fluids of livestock… It is as though the necrotic forces of the undead has imbued these refuse and residue the undead powers.

And at the other corner of the room is an even more disturbing sight. You see the naked body of a woman and she is standing… the only thing is that what’s left of her is her skin; her internal organs are all splattered around her. It was as though she had been skinned alive at one go as her skin is still full and the whole shell of the woman is shambling towards you.

The PCs get into a gruesome battle with an offalian, a forsaken shell and two skeletons. There was a part when the forsaken shell enveloped Tas'sadar, but he managed to escape eventually. Despite the horrors in the room, the PCs emerge victorious.

Encounter 3 – Skeletal Encounters again...

The PCs enter the room and fight off boneshard and blazing skeletons.

Encounter 4 – Swinging Pendulums

The PCs enter a wide corridor. They managed to discover there was a trap. However, Gond just carried on walking and triggered another trap. With swinging pendulums all around, the PCs managed to walk along the sides without being hit by the swinging blades; only Mobius seemed unhappy he could not incinerate the devices with his scorching bursts...

As the wizard stood and attacked the pendulums with anger, the rest of the party were already on the other side of the room, waiting... tapping their feet with controlled impatience.

Encounter 5 - The Bloodkiss Beholder

The PCs manage to open the locked door with the aid of the skull ring given to them by Draigdurroch.

As the door opens, you enter a room that is almost as large as the other rooms on the floor. However, there is something uncanny about the room. It is as though the something is watching you. You see something swirling in the middle of the room and as it gets closer, you see a big mass of weight floating in the air, and a big eye stares out at you. Tentacles writhe out of the single big eye, and the ends of the tentacles are also eyes and they seem to have teeth…

The PCs get into a climatic battle with the large aberrant magical undead creature. The whole party was almost wiped out. Romean, Tas'sadar and even Gond, were knocked unconscious during the battle. Even Mobius was near death. It was at the last desperate moments that Lady Moonfire dared to crawl into the room and threw a pouch containing healing potions...

With renewed vigour, the PCs managed to kill the monster.

It is the evening of 21st Ches when the PCs emerge out from Draigdurroch's Tower. The ice sheet covering the tower had also disappeared. There is a feeling of serenity that was never felt before the PCs entered the tower.

Weary and tired, the PCs ride back to Loudwater; minds thinking about how much more gold they should demand from Lady Moonfire.

DM's afterword

Draigdurroch Tower is as good as a Dungeon Delve. But, such adventures will be quite rare in the future as your PCs are now level 6, and I intend to put more mini free-choice adventure paths your PCs can take. Dungeon Delve now shall be Eugene's territory.

[Mobius]

The freaking undead Beholder was freaking overpowered. Admit it, you just couldn't wait to try it out.

[Neo|*|Origin]

Honestly, seemed like every encounter in the tower could've wiped us off clean if not for Divine Grace bestowed upon DMC.

[elijin]

yea. I have changed some of my powers just cos the encounters are scarishly frightening.

Oh mobius, this is the rituals:

Last Sight Vision
Level: 2
Category: Divination
Time: 10 minutes
Duration: 2 or more rounds
Component Cost: 25 gp
Market Price: 100 gp
Key Skill: Arcana or Religion

As you finish the ritual, you see the final moments of the corpse’s life. When you perform this ritual in the presence of a corpse or a skull, you witness an auditory and visual replay of the moments before the death of that creature, as seen from the creature’s perspective. You cannot perform this ritual on headless corpses. Once you have performed this ritual, you must wait until you have gained a level before using it again on the same remains. Your Arcana or Religion check determines the length of time prior to the target’s death that you experience.

Check Result Time Period
[19 or lower -> 2 rounds
20–29 -> 4 rounds
30–39 -> 6 rounds
40 or higher -> 10 rounds


Skull Watch
Level: 4
Category: Warding
Time: 10 minutes
Duration: 4 hours
Component Cost: 80 gp
Market Price: 175 gp
Key Skill: Arcana (no check)

As you complete the halting words of power, a light shines from the grim skull’s sockets before fading again into blackness.
You enchant a skull to watch over an area and alert you when something intrudes. The skull uses your Perception modifier with a +5 bonus. It cannot hear or smell, and it never considers you an intruder. In addition, you can designate any number of other individuals as nonintruders. When you perform the ritual, you can also designate one or more categories of creatures that the skull will ignore. You can define these categories by obvious physical characteristics (such as height, weight, or body shape), creature type (such as humanoid), creature race (such as hill giant), or obvious equipment (such as a creature carrying a shield with a flame emblazoned upon it).
When the skull detects an intrusion, it mentally alerts you if you are within 1 mile. At any time during the ritual’s duration, you can choose to look through the skull’s eyes as a standard action. While you look through the skull’s eyes, you cannot see through your own and are considered blind. You can end this effect as a free action. The skull can be moved from its original position during the ritual’s duration without disturbing the effect. Destroying the skull ends the effect, and you are not magically made aware of the skull’s destruction (though you might already be alerted about intruders).

Undead Servitor
Level: 6
Category: Creation
Time: 1 hour
Duration: Permanent
Component Cost: 150 gp
Market Price: 360 gp
Key Skill: Arcana (no check)

The corpse shudders, then clambers to its feet. At your direction, it shoulders your gear and lumbers after you. You imbue a humanoid corpse of natural origin and Medium or smaller size with the ability to move under its own power and an understanding of one language of your choice. It has speed 6 and Strength 16, never tires, and obeys you at all times.
The undead servitor is a noncombatant. When forced onto an active battlefield, treat the servitor as an allied minion (1 hit point, never damaged on a missed attack) with all defenses of 11. It acts just after you do and never makes attacks.
You cannot have more than one undead servitor at a time from different performances of this ritual. If you attempt to create a second servitor, that ritual fails without component expenditure.

Undead Ward
Level: 3
Category: Warding
Time: 30 minutes
Duration: Until broken
Component Cost: 35 gp
Market Price: 130 gp
Key Skill: Arcana

The line you etched in the floor shines like ivory in moonlight,
and the skeletons stop advancing. You create a magical barrier against undead creatures. This barrier can be a closed circle, with an inscription time of 1 minute per square inside the circle, or a line,
requiring 1 minute per 2 squares of length.
An undead creature whose level is lower than your Arcana check result – 10 cannot pass through the barrier, affect creatures through the barrier, or affect the barrier in any way. Any other undead creature takes radiant damage equal to your Arcana check result when passing through the barrier, but doing so breaks the barrier and ends the effect. Any creature able to pass through the barrier can take a standard action to obscure the inscription and thereby break the barrier.

[Mobius]

Thanks for the post, Jin.

A good idea would be to reckkie the place where we are going and get as much info as possible so we can prepare the right powers for the occasion.

Time to get some radiant gear, guys. You all know we gonna see plenty of undead in the days to come...

[Neo|*|Origin]

Gauntlets of Brilliance from AV1 - 133 looks pretty cool.

(Daily) Free Action: Add 10 Radiant Dmg after you hit with an attack.
(At-Will) Minor: Cast Light on your gauntlets like a wizard does.

All these at 5000gps.

[Mobius]

Wah, so cheap the price...

[thedungeonmaster]

Ok, the beholder was abit overpowering. I don't deny that. But, I did everything within the legal rules. It was a Level 6 encounter; the beholder was reduced from a Level 9 Solo Controller to a Level 5 Solo Controller. Everything done was as according to the rules and guidelines of the DMG.

And also, I do agree, the encounters in the tower are quite tough, but once again, they were channelled according to legal rules provided for to balancing encounters.

So, all I can say is either the game has yet to be fully playtested; or your PCs are just plain weak. Which, I believe is the latter. *evil laughter*

Undead isn't going to be a daily affair, at the moment it seems so because Open Grave has interesting monsters to play with... at least from my point of view. But, I am not gearing the campaign towards Thriller style.

In any case, I personally believe adventures in future might consist of tough adversaries, undead or living. This has got nothing to do with me making the monsters more powerful, but, it seems that monsters are generally more powerful as the levels go higher; which probably explains why your PCs start off quite powerful for a Level 1 character.

I believe surviving tough encounters rely on group coordinated attacks, and most importantly, lucky die rolls...

Oh and one other thing, you guys managed to survive the encounters without any healing potions except for the last encounter with the beholder. Divine intervention only came in at the last encounter. So, I believe it was just a matter of unpreparedness with healing potions and from a neutral point of view, only the bloodkiss beholder was a tough nut to crack.

The rest of the encounters were quite tough, but not really if you noticed how easy Gond managed to slice down the Offalian and the last standing Poltergeist. I think it was that feeling of helplessness that probably added to the effect that the monsters are too overpowering. I guess it's really all a matter of coordinated attacks and good die rolls.

[Neo|*|Origin]

more specifically, we'd have died regardless if you played your monsters like your personal adventuring PCs.

On the other hand, with our party (at lvl 6) having more powers in its arsenal now, i'm sure DMC can explore and experiment more tactical combinations to optimize its fighting capabilities.


Tas (using Commander's Strike): "Moby, treat the Mindflayer your shiny fist."

[thedungeonmaster]

Yes, at the end of the day, it's all about strategies deployed. But again, in combat, there is never a fixed strategy.

And that good ol' 'd20' crit...

[Neo|*|Origin]

Jun 29, 2009 12:40:52 GMT 8 thedungeonmaster said:

And that good ol' 'd20' crit...

So to say you'll agree letting us use a d20 with 20 on every face? : P

[thedungeonmaster]

I don't mind, if I get to use it too. WAHAHAHAHA!

[elijin]

Nah the magic item isn't worth it. Quite pathetic that you can only do 10 radiant dmg once a day.

Well at the moment, the monsters aren't overpowering, considering that if we have more attacks that renders the monster useless i.e. immobilize, stun, etc.

It seems our tactics need to be re-looked at. We often fight in the room, and dun use our surroundings to our cause. And most importantly, the ever must have Plan B we haven't execute before. Which is to..... Run. Often we stand there kanna hamptam.

Although I did look at the DMG, it says if you have to lower more than 4 levels then its best to pick another monster.

[Neo|*|Origin]

Jun 29, 2009 17:02:41 GMT 8 elijin said:

Nah the magic item isn't worth it. Quite pathetic that you can only do 10 radiant dmg once a day.

For that exhorbitant price, at least the 10 radiant dmg's confirmed. Also, it'll free the mage from wasting slots to prepare Light. Painful on the wallet though.

We often fight in the room, and dun use our surroundings to our cause.

i can only think of using pillars/objects to obstruct the distance that we/enemies move in a typical room. any other ideas on utilizing our surroundings?

And most importantly, the ever must have Plan B we haven't execute before. Which is to..... Run. Often we stand there kanna hamptam.

Agreed. I also realised that we haven't been willed enough to go on a fierce all-out offence/defence. Which comes back to the co-ordination that we'll have to tighten up on.

[elijin]

Light is a cantrip at-will spell. Haha you're thinking 3.5 ed.

You know, now that I know there's such a ritual as Last Sight Vision, Gond is going to collect the skulls of all the monsters he has killed.

Then once he reaches epic and retires, he's going to spend some of his free time to watch his moments of victory. With some popcorn.
Its like his personal Kill DVD collection.

[thedungeonmaster]

Precisely, that's why I reduced from Level 9 to Level 5, which is 4 levels in reduction. Not more than 4 levels. Wahahahaha!

Seriously, as I posted in Tas'sadar's CS thread, Tas'sadar has got quite a few useful tactical powers. Once again, I reiterate that this time DMC barely survived the tower, only because DMC did not plan their moves and coordinate their attacks.

Gond should focus on dealing heavy dmg on the toughest looking adversary.

Tas'sadar should use his tactical powers to gain advantage against the monsters.

Romean should use his ranged attacks and avoid melee. His main priority is to ensure the party doesn't fall. Similar to Tas'sadar.

Mobius should just use more encounter powers and deal more dmg to a bigger number of enemies.

When Ainarielle and Ashin are in, they should be the ones dealing dmg and running about here and there.

Seriously, it's all about understanding each PC's combat role and utilizing the powers to the maximum. Frankly, I haven't really seen a solid coordinated planned attack involving smashing Encounter powers that really thrash the monsters into bits and pieces.

[elijin]

Erm I don't think you would want that cos its really a headache. Lol.
Remember how when I bot characters, I always move ready move ready move ready then I attack? If I were DM that's damn annoying on the initiative count.

[Neo|*|Origin]

Also, Gond wouldn't also ready and execute such combos due to RP purposes - will he finally do so?

[Neo|*|Origin]

Jun 29, 2009 19:34:59 GMT 8 elijin said:

Light is a cantrip at-will spell. Haha you're thinking 3.5 ed.

Oops. My bad.

You know, now that I know there's such a ritual as Last Sight Vision, Gond is going to collect the skulls of all the monsters he has killed.

Then once he reaches epic and retires, he's going to spend some of his free time to watch his moments of victory. With some popcorn.
Its like his personal Kill DVD collection.

This is brilliant. You just left me in awe and inspiration.

[elijin]

Jun 30, 2009 15:08:34 GMT 8 Neo|*|Origin said:

Also, Gond wouldn't also ready and execute such combos due to RP purposes - will he finally do so?

Partially true. Although Gond has the Wisdom to think tactically in terms of movement, but he risk not hitting and not getting the kill.

[thedungeonmaster]

Ok... RP then... wahahahhaa. And my monsters will always have an upper hand. *evil laughter*

[elijin]

tat's the fun of DnD mah. U rather we min-max and just roll dice only?
Besides, whenever Gond is blinded he always takes the d8 to walk, cos he just ain't smart enough (Intel 10) to remember his surroundings.

[thedungeonmaster]

Ah yes... well said *more evil laughter*

May the spirit of Tordrek bless DMC...

[elijin]

Nah wouldn't want his blessings. He can't even be a role model much less give us his blessings.

[thedungeonmaster]

He shall be a role model that even Gond would want to emulate...