The Silver Pyramid: a 4th edition adventure for 6th level characters

To help celebrate the holiday I thought I would share the closest thing to a horror adventure that I have written for D&D. I've found that atmospheric horror is a tricky thing compared to the simple joys of "a blue dragon?! But we're only 4th level!" so I don't do much of this kind of thing but on the chance that someone else can use it, here it is.

Technical details - this was set up to take my pc's from 6th to 7th level and there is enough XP here to do just that for a 5-man party. You could also use it with a 7th level party going from 7th to 8th (the encounters should be enough of a challenge) but you may need to add a 1000 XP bonus for figuring out what's going on and a 1000 XP bonus for ending the threat. Also, it's pretty linear, largely due to the way the interior is laid out. Hopefully this won't be too much of a problem for another group - my guys had a pretty good time and never complained about this aspect of it. Ideally the exploratory nature of the adventure, and the unusual scenery, will keep everyone interested. Plus there was some thought given to having the weirdness build to a crescendo of sorts, and the linear approach helps with that.

Map Notes - these are my original hand-drawn maps and are effectively notes - they tend to get embellished some when drawn on the battlemet, particularly the big outdoor maps. At the very least it's easier to tell where the water is. Keep this in mind and if someone is going to try and run this with my maps, drop me a line and I'll put up some bigger copies if you need them and try to make them a little more user friendly to others.

Setup - the hook here is that some nasty substance is polluting the river near a city in your campaign, killing fish and giving it an unpleasant taste. Your party is sent to investigate, forewarned with the knowledge that there is  a legendary silver pyramid rumored to be a home to mighty magics located somewhere upriver.

DM Notes - this little trek is intended to be deliberately weird. I see the pyramid as an interdimenstional incursion that does not follow the rules of linear time or space. Legends speak of the pyramid from a century ago yet your party will come across signs that unpleasant things have happened in just the last few minutes. In my campaign vision, sometimes the pyramid is not even there, and other times it's not this pyramid but a completely different pyramid, with a completely different interior. It's meant to be a wild card, a little piece of the countryside that is different every time someone decides to go look at it.

You can see how my group handled it beginning here. There is some additional descriptive and background material in those posts that might help explain what's going on too. At the very least it might be interesting to look at the DM notes here and compare to the session notes as to how it played out.

Final note: The room names are there for the DM only, to help with visualization and description - don't say them out loud! Let the players figure out what's going on.

The Silver Pyramid

The pyramid is located roughly 30 miles up river, about a day’s travel time for most parties. The party will most likely follow the river. Most of this travel will pass uneventfully but about halfway there  the group is attacked by big bugs:

Ankhegs! Level 5 Encounter (1050) - DC15 Nature Check to avoid surprise for the party

• 3 Ankhegs (900) MM2 111
• 6 Broodlings (150) MM2 111

Use any convenient outdoor map for this encounter. Remember that these beasties burrow and so may not even be seen until they emerge from a charge and attack. I'd tell everyone that the ground is vibrating and then give the PCs a perception check to figure out where they are coming up. Tunnels in the area lead to a nest where bones and a split bag of 200gp can be found (Parcel #10 for Level 6)

The river gets progressively nastier as the party proceeds north. It is especially noticeable at this point (no skill check) and looks like a black slick in the center of the river.

Finally they see the sun glinting off of something in the distance.

Approaching, the party sees a shining silver pyramid with a flickering purple crystal forming the peak. The pyramid sits in a lake and is surrounded by water on all sides. A viscous purple-black substance contaminates the lake. Everyone is going to want to make checks for this so let them:

• DC 15 Perception: The pyramid seems to be slightly tilted to the east side
• DC 15 Perception: the pyramid is smooth and seamless above the water
• DC20 Perception: There is occasional movement in the water and it is not the wind
• DC15 Nature: The substance is not natural
• DC 20 History: The pyramid has been here since before the spellplague and there was talk about it being a source of pollution once before

The water is calm but it’s a DC15 Swim check because of the substance to swim the 100’ or so out to the pyramid, DC12 if attempted from the west side as it’s less nasty over there.

Commotion on the shore or in the water attracts 3 Chuuls:

Pond Beasties! Level 7 Encounter (1500)

• 3 Chuuls (1500) MM1 43 (note these guys can swim just fine, though they are melee combatants and so may emerge from the water to fight.)

• The shoreline (the edge directly above this text) is normal ground
• The first two squares are Challenging (knee to waist deep) and require a DC15 Atheletics check to move normally, otherwise it’s 2 per square
• The next two squares are Difficult
• Beyond that it’s an Atheltics check and a swim. Underwater everything is heavily obscured due to the foulness in the lake. The scribbles on the one side of the pyramid represent the oozing side.

A few minutes after the Chuuls are defeated (enough time for a short rest) the inhabitants get the teleporter working and a Beholder Gauth Solo appears at the apex of the pyramid , looks around for a few seconds, then attacks.

Eye Fight! Level 5 Encounter (1000)

• 1 Beholder Gauth Solo (note he doesn't have to make this easy - he can stay over the deeper water and fight at range) - original beholder gauth is MM2 p24

After defeating the beholder the party can determine that there is an opening in the side of the pyramid underwater. 

Hangar Bay! Level 7 Encounter (1400)

• 2 Black Puddings (1400) MM2 172 or MV 223

The lined out areas are the slippery (DC 15 Athletics check if running) water and ooze-covered areas, the two lines pointing out to the right represent the open bay doors by which the party would enter. I made them challenging terrain but feel free to throw in other environmental effects.I made the shuttle roughly 10' (2 squares) high to let the acrobatic types get some height if they wanted to do so. I described it as a wagon-sized metal box that had clearly been damaged, twisted, and cracked. None of them went inside it, so I leave that description up to you. Remember that the puddings spawn off smaller puddings when hit by any weapon (triggered action, no action!), so this fight could actually get nastier in the first few rounds, not easier.

A lot of the black goo appears to be leaking from one of the shuttle engine pods, but that's mainly because one of the puddings is living in the damaged pod. Despite appearances, this is not the true source of the contamination - but it sure looks like it!

Turboshaft up! - Rope use is a good idea here for the less athletically-inclined party members as though there are rungs the climb is at a steep angle and the air is bad. I called it a DC 15 for rungs-only (that's a lvl 6 moderate for those of you tracking such things) and a DC 11 (lvl 6 easy) with a rope. Those two squares at the top of the map are the turboshafts - think elevator shaft and you're close enough for this one.

Quarters are full of beds & vanity/desk/console items

Sounds in the main corridor will draw the attention of the “crew”

What’s Left of the Crew Level 7 Encounter (1750)

• 2 Foulspawn Mockeries (500) MM3 89
• 10 Foulspawn Wretches (750) MM3 88

M = Mockery, W = Wretch
That area to the left is the sick bay, and the oblong shapes are meant to be the hospital beds. Feel free to add gruesome details - think zombie movie, alien/aliens, etc. Refer to the monster entries for descriptions of these nasty things and play up the twisted awful wrongness of them. A massed rush in a confined space can be somewhat scary for the players, at least.

Turboshaft up!

Transporters - The room is dusty with no marks on the floor and appears to be disused, other than the crystals being placed on the pad by three floating brain-creatures. Each of the 6 pads has a 1’ dimly glowing purple crystal on it in a silver stand or socket of some kind. Fine silver wires run from each of these crystals back and forth across the pad area. Several of them run up the wall to another silver socket that is empty. If the control crystal is recovered from the ready room and placed in the socket, all of the crystals will glow much brighter and a hum will be heard in the room. After 1 round anyone still in the room will be teleported to the Pool area.

Transporter Crew Level 7 Encounter (1800)

• 3 Grells (1800) MM 144

Just look at a picture of a Star Trek transporter room and you have this one down. It's the top right room.

Ready Room (this one is the top left room on the map above):

The door is closed and locked and shows signs of claw marks and bloody smears on the outside. Behind the desk is a headless body slumped back in a chair. On the desk before him is a glowing purple crystal similar to the ones outside. A small boxlike object lays on the floor near the chair, If molested, the black box will show 1 red light and make a chirping sound. 

The Bridge (bottom half of the map above)

There are 5 chairs around the room placed in front of tables. Sitting in those chairs are what look to be uniformed humans. The top of their heads is open (their heads appear to have exploded), blood streams down their bodies and is splattered over nearby consoles and floor, and what appears to be their brains are crawling away from their bodies. Think "star  trek bridge" - upper deck, railing, lower deck, chairs, dashboards - and you have the picture.

Level 7 Encounter

• 5 Ustiligators (1500) MM3 118

(These things have a leap attack that is a lot of fun - nothing like having animate brains leaping onto you from across the room. Make it fun!)

The Pool of Twilight

Note: the only defined way of getting here is via the transporter room, but it does not have to be the only way. Most parties will work this out. If yours do not then try to give them another option to help them get to this encounter if you like it, or just leave it alone and let them walk away without ever getting here, but until they close this portal, the black goo will continue to pollute the river.

I just dropped the party in at the upper right corner and had the Mind Flayer and the Mouther start in the lower section near the control panel. 

Four large purple crystals are set up here surrounding an inky black pool. Nearby stand a mind flayer and a mass of flesh that appears to have many faces on and within its flowing substance. Arms and legs emerge at times as do brightly colored bits of cloth. This is what remains of the crew that was not warped individually – some of them were pulled together into a single entity that babbles maddeningly and constantly. Over the pool is a smoky black mass that drives an observer to the edge of madness. Vaporous forms swarm from the pool to this cloud. When the party acts it begins to move.

Level 10 Encounter

• Mind Flayer Leader (1000) Level 10 Elite Lurker (custom)
• Gibbering Mouther (1000) Level 10 Controller (MM 126)
• The Thing from Beyond (1000) Level 10 Brute (custom)

I believe I modified someone else's creation for this one but I can't find the reference - if this looks familiar point me to the originator and I will give credit 

• Anyone entering the pool finds it is physically about knee deep. The pool is a link to the Far Realm and will cling to the legs of anyone entering, making a +10 attack vs Will and inflicting ongoing 10 Psychic damage

• The energy barriers linking the crystals make a nearly subsonic throbbing vibration and anyone touching the barrier takes 4d6+5 lightning damage (lv 10 limited medium). The crystals can be attacked – Defense = 24, HP = 100. If a crystal is destroyed then the barrier drops – all of it

• The various consoles are about 5’ high

The pool can be closed after at least one crystal is destroyed by doing 100 points of radiant damage or by touching it with the Black Spear of Thar*, which was forged specifically to do this. If the spear is used then the silver runes winding up and down the shaft will disappear in a blast of silvery light as the pool screams and the psychic winds of limbo roar around the party. After a massive explosion the party will awaken on the shore of the lake where they can see that the pyramid is gone and the waters now glow purple. There is no other sign or feeling of magic.

*this was a special magic item in our campaign and yours is unlikely to have the same item, but feel free to link it to something unusual in your game.

Anyway that's the end of the adventure. If enough people are interested maybe I'll go through and revise my notes into something more presentable (see above for their current state) and put the whole campaign online for use. If not they can keep on living in my folder until the next time I decide to visit Phlan.

Return to the Ruins of Adventure - Epilogue

So the party was all but wiped out in the hydra-dragon-vampire fight series with only the wizard fleeing the scene (after being revived by the fighter). "So What?" you might say. That's kind of what I said. I had even offered up the opportunity to take out some insurance against this kind of event by having the temple of Torm make a deal with the party: In return for services rendered, if the party left a lock of hair then the temple would raise them in the event of a catastrophe - at no cost. Since the party had already undertaken a mission in return for this, there was no further obligation. My thinking was that the team would return, take a short quest or two to rearm themselves against their known foes (perhaps there is a legendary weapon or two made to fight the lizard king and his undead legions) and then go set things right. That's not what happened.

First, Uthal's player decided to let him rest, as he was a pure Tempus follower and didn't sign on for this deal. Now there was enough gold available to have the ritual done if he had wanted to return, but he felt it was more in-character to go out in a big fight. No problems there.  Then, two other players decide that they don't want to bring their characters back either. Now my basic philosophy is that players should be allowed to play the characters they want to play, but I have tailored this campaign a bit to this party. Losing 3 out of the 5 players changes quite a bit of this and reconciling things is tricky. I have been explicit that they are by far the leading/toughest new band of heroes in town and no one else is even close. This helped explaining their growing role within the city and its various groups, but it's a real pit trap when having to bring in multiple new characters at a level similar to the two remainders. Plus we have the question of the consequences of not stopping the lizard king's looming attack on the city which adds a time element to things now. I had also sketched out the final level's worth of encounters to be a little more of a narrative thing than I normally run and this was going to wreak all kinds of havoc with that.

So I thought about it and decided that if we were changing out 60% of the party anyway that something drastic was required to explain the changes. So I proposed a timeline jump of about 2 years and a level jump to move all existing and new characters to 11th, the start of Paragon tier. This would reflect the time and experience spent fighting the Lizard King and repulsing his attack on Phlan, giving a reasonable explanation for the presence of new heroes, changing out some NPC's, and generally going with a "Season 2" or next movie in the series feel for it*. Working through this process had me fired up again about the campaign as I admit the lack of interest in rezzing the existing party had taken some of the wind out of my sails. Unfortunately my players decided that playing through a war sounded like a lot of fun and that they didn't want to skip levels. I pointed out that most of the new party would be skipping a whole bunch of levels unless they wanted to play firsties again but to no avail. After the down-up-down-up-down cycle I was losing my enthusiasm for trying to continue this campaign. I did not want to run a wartime game because I had spent no time planning or laying the groundwork for it and it's just not a direction I wanted to go, in part because I was planning on doing that for a big chunk of Paragon tier. I typically try to stay flexible, thinking that over-planning leads to a loss of flexibility and that a good idea for today's game is better than a great idea for the "next" campaign but I really didn't want to short-circuit a great Paragon concept for a short-term problem in Heroic that I didn't want to run anyway!

There was a last ditch idea where I was going to have the characters come back as 20th level versions of themselves passing through time and planes to deal with another problem deep beneath the keep and incidentally raising the lower-level versions of themselves along the way with some funny scripted dialog to explain it (like the old Star Wars d6 read-aloud opening scripts)  but it seemed to incorporate the worst elements of things such as forced raising of characters and forced playing of characters they didn't want to play anymore,and the more I thought about it I decided it was just too cute and too much DM fiat - I shouldn't be putting words in the mouths of their characters or forcing their actions to that degree, it's not nearly as cool as I thought it would be initially and I don't know how I would feel about it as a player. So instead of trying to shoehorn something into the game that both I and the players could stand I decided to just end it.

Epic Kordan?

Thirty sessions is a pretty good run and I enjoyed it a lot and learned a lot. I like 4th edition just fine. There are changes and differences of course, but it still feels like D&D when I run it. Fighters still run around with +1 swords and b*tch when they miss a saving throw. Players still try to get away with crap they shouldn't  -   "Daily" means once a day, not "as often as I can get away with it until the DM notices"**- and have to be reigned in. I'm still drawing up maps on graph paper and picking out monsters to inhabit them. There are still mage guilds, thieves' guilds, and temples to various deities. This version lends itself to traditional extended campaigns just as well as the earlier ones did.

Downsides? Well it does play better with mini's and maps and if I was going without those I would just play B/X D&D rather than trying to cope with gridless AOE's and the like. Combat does take more time than older versions but it is a lot more detailed and interactive, keeping players involved even when it's not their turn. We were lucky to get through 3 encounters in one night and two was our real average. Would you rather have 3-6 fairly simple fights in a 4 hour run like in Basic or 1-3 detailed crunchy fights with 4E? It's mainly a matter of taste and mood. Minions help quite a bit, and remembering that every "Encounter" doesn't have to be a combat encounter helps too. Skill challenges are nice new addition too, after the kinks were worked out. I don't like the attempt at tying the game to an online subscription model via DDI either, but that's more of a publishing issue than a problem with the game itself.

Process-wise the way I ran this one was a reaction against the way I ran most of my 3E campaigns from 2000-2009. Those were mostly published adventures (there were so many...) and I actually flowcharted out possible paths from levels 1-20. Depending on how Adventure A ended up, the party might be driven more towards Adventure B, C, or D. I didn't spend a lot of time preparing the individual adventures, instead I spent time trying to make connections between them via legends, rumors, maps, NPC's, and enemies. It worked well enough but I was never 100% happy with the adventures themselves. With 4E there was not the glut of published material and it was reputed to be easy to prepare so I wanted everything to be hand made by me. For the most part I stuck to that (I did use some material from Dungeon Delve) and it was very refreshing to know my material backwards and forwards and it also makes it incredibly easy to improv when neccessary as you know what makes sense and what doesn't because you wrote it! So despite the ending I still see it as a successful tour of (most of) Heroic Tier 4E.

I think this experience is also what is driving my interest in converting old material to the new version. Even this campaign started out as a conversion of "Ruins of Adventure" theoretically, although I never intended anything more than some thematic similarities - you fight humanoids, undead, and lizardmen and there is a sorcerer's pyramid, and that's about it. The best of the old material is incredibly familiar in a general sense because I've been looking at it for 25-30 years. Things like White Plume Mountain and Against the Giants are part of the lore of D&D. Converting them to another edition forces me to look at them again in extreme detail (is this room physically big enough to hold these creatures?) and to think about how to make them a better fit to a new mechanical system. This makes them mine, all over again, almost as much as if I wrote them from scratch. Yet they also have the benefit of tying in to the legend - it's a pretty good sandwich for an evening of dice-busting.

So what's next? I'm not sure. I still have my 4E game with the Apprentices that we play when we can, and the other games too. I've run the main game on Friday nights for the past 2 years and schedule wise Saturday nights make more sense for us now so that's going to have to change and may cost me some players. I'd like to keep a "grown-up" 4E game going but I'd like to get back to Savage Worlds (Deadlands?) too and I'd like to give Star Wars and Mutants and Masterminds a real shot as well but I'm not sure I can juggle all of those at once. I have to see what my players are up for, now that they (and I) have had time to get over the end of RTROA.


*Yes this was somewhat inspired by the BSG "one year later" thing in the middle of that series. I thought that was brilliant and if I could get some mileage out of it here then great.

** It's funny that encounter powers are rarely over-used in an encounter but the limit on dailies are "forgotten" somewhat often.

Return to the Ruins of Adventure - Session 30: The End

We begin in the ruined Star Keep, with our heroes standing amidst the shattered undead forms of the knights who once ran and defended the keep. Somewhere along the way the Lizard King animated the long dead knights and used them as guardians. Dispatched by the party, it is hoped they have now found whatever rest awaits them.


Now however, a booming crash echoes from the large double doors leading to the inner section of the keep. At the same time, Uthal notices and points out to his companions that the tower behind them is frosting over, ice creeping down from the top to cover the sides of the half-ruined round tower that adjoins the gate. The party makes a choice and decides to worry about the booming first, as the planks sag outward under repeated impacts. Kordan takes up sword and shield at the bottom of the wide stairs that lead to the rapidly failing doors. The rest of the team spreads out behind him, readying their powers to aid him and stop whatever danger lurks within.

(The next part is best read in the style of a 1920's radio boxing announcer - too much Boardwalk Empire lately...)

With a final shriek the doors are ripped asunder and a 4-headed monstrosity smashes through them, trailing a length of chain. The huge hydra shuffles forth, blinking in the light. Now it focuses on the puny shiny thing directly in front of it and charges, only to be tripped up by a quickly spoken phrase from the bard - Blunder! The hydra trips, staggers, and Kordan strikes with his blazing sunblade - first blood to the bard and the fighter! Althea joins in with Grasp of the Grave and hundreds of skeletal arms burst forth form the ground, tearing into the hydra and holding it in place. Kordan takes another swing! The beast strikes back with all 4 heads tearing at the fighter but the Invulnerable Coat of Arn(ol)d protects him from the worst of the damage! Uthal charges in and unloads a vicious set of stabs with his spear, ripping off one head...


...then two more spring up in its place! Kordan takes another shot! Jovanni ramps it up again with a Stirring Shout!  The wizard summons a Flaming Sphere at the foot of the beast, and pinned in place by Grasp of the Grave it cannot escape! Mikal lands a strike with his Force Grip, squeezing the pinned opponent! The beast replies with vicious multi-headed attacks against Kordan and Uthal who strike, tearing off one more head and again two more spring up! In a burst of energy the beast lashes out in a hurricane of snapping jaws, bloodying the mighty fighter and seriously wounding the goliath barbarian!


Staggering, Uthal hits back hard with the Black Spear of Thar! Kordan joins in with a Brazen Assault! Althea blasts away with Magic Missile! Mikal unleashes the Phlames of Phlegamegathos, immolating the screaming beast with purple flames! Enraged and hurting badly, the hydra strikes out with all of its heads focusing on the fighter - and even with his mighty magical armor it's too much and down goes Kordan! Down goes Kordan!


Wiping away the blood and stunned at the punishment inflicted on the toughest human he has ever seen, Uthal rams his mighty iron spear into the beast one more time as the rest of the party blasts forth in unison! Even that's not enough to finish off the huge thing and now the bell tolls for Uthal as 7-10 heads (explanation later) slam into the lightly armored and already wounded barbarian, ripping him asunder in a fountain blood and body parts! The Black Spear of Thar drops to the turf as Uthal's spirit goes to join his ancestors. Shocked but not giving up the wizard, warlock, and bard all unload their most potent remaining magic into the beast and it finally collapses, blasted into ruin over the shattered body of the goliath. The heroes...win?


DM Notes Part 1:


The Hydra encounter was a 4 round fight, which seemed (and seems) really short for an 8th level party against a 10th level solo. I saw some potential issues with the standard hydra so I did make some changes to it. One example - the Hydra sprouts new heads when it has taken certain amounts of damage. Unfortunately if it takes fire damage that round it does not sprout said heads. Considering how common fire damage is in even a low level party, this seems to me to rob the hydra of one of its signature features, and there was no way I was going to let that happen. Flaming Sphere is a 1st-level wizard daily power that hangs around the battlefield doing fire damage, as just one example, so once it's dropped on the beast the whole sprouting head thing is over. There are many other fiery powers for the wizard and warlock as well so it was a problem I wanted to mitigate. I called it a "Swamp Hydra" and gave it some fire resistance and a few other tweaks to make for what I thought would be a better fight. No problems there.


Once I got into the fight, though, I let some things get away from me in the heat of battle. Most significantly I was having a 4 headed hydra that had lost one head go to 6 heads when it regrew, instead of 5. This got really nasty near the end when instead of the 7 heads it should have had it ended up with 10. At 3-30 points of damage for each bite attack, that's noticably more potential damage. I also screwed up some of the timing as the heads are supposed to regrow with a bit of delay instead of instantly as I was having them do, and that made a difference on some of the opportunity attacks, but I think the 3 extra heads was more egregious overall. My original goal was to make the creature a little more able to hang in a fight, but with this screw up on my part he got a lot more offensively capable as well.


Remarkably, this was the first time I have actually killed a character in this campaign. Now I have had several drop and require medical attention, but none of them have been flat-out dead until now.  I think that's a pretty good record for 30 sessions. Now the hydra is a potentially nasty opponent and my head-miscounting made this nastier. I think the players take some of the credit for this one though as they locked down the hydra on round 1 but had their two melee fighters continue to attack it up close while the other three members of the party stayed at a distance. You might say that's the defender's job, but the hydra has no ranged attacks - once it's immobilized it can't hurt you from more than 2 squares away! So even with my head-math problem, some of that danger could have been avoided by backing off and acting as a firing squad for a few rounds - Range 1 = 10 head attacks, range 3 = 0 head attacks. As it turned out the hydra only broke free on the last round, but by that time Uthal and Kordan were so battered they couldn't take another round of that kind of punishment. Rolling 6, 8, or 10 attacks with a decent attack bonus is a lot of fun for the DM, but only having two targets to receive them magnified the impact greatly. Plus 8-10 rolls means you're get a crit for 30 points of damage about every other round. One good round of rolls at the end flat-out killed the barbarian, taking him to -70 or something from a non-bloodied state, because he was the only one in melee range - that's a bad place to be with a relatively low armor class, even with better hit points than most.


However, at the end of this encounter things were still alright - one glorious character death against a big bad monster isn't neccessarily bad for a climactic run to the swamp adventures. I didn't want Uthal's player sitting around bored for the rest of the session so I recruited him to run one of the main creatures in the next encounter. He digs into the mechanics of the game so I thought it was a good choice. The rest of the party seemed a little unsure of this move, confirming to me that it was a good idea. We continue:


Part 2:


As Jovanni revives Kordan, the rest of the party hears a strange sound from behind them. As they turn and look up at the tower, it turns out to be the mocking laughter of the Lizard King who now stands atop the structure, gazing down at them. Behind him a long, white-scaled, ice-rimed neck unfurls and leans down over the side of the tower, observing the remaining heroes.

Zarius, the undead lizard king, announces: "Fools! You have slain my guardians but you will not stop the plan I have set in motion! Soon the remaining tribes of the swamp will march on Phlan, aided by the undead legions of all the prior generations of lizardfolk slain by the Phlanites! We will swarm the city and slay the inhabitants! Sturmovax (gestures at dragon behind him) will freeze the defenders on the walls and then the gates of the city itself, allowing us to shatter them! We will pour in, an irresistable tide of vengeance for all the scaled folk ground under the heels of the humans! First, however (points at party), we will destroy you and the last hope of Phlan!"


Our heroes spend some time debating how to fight, whether to fight, and what their chances are with Uthal out of the picture. As they do this a swarm of lesser lizardman vampires emerges from the tower and hey move to engage the more lightly armored members of the party. Sturmovax the Blizzard Dragon drops down from the tower and blocks the gate leading out of the courtyard. Concerned, Mikal the Warlock unloads, blasting Zarius and some of his minions with fire. The sort-of retreating party is driven back towards the center as the lizard king drives into the middle of the party. As the lesser vampires drop, things look alright for the party.

Unfortunately this does not last. Kordan is torn between attacking the vampire lizard king with his sunblade versus attacking the blizzard dragon with his dragonslayer and switches targets a few times. Sturmovax flies about, switching positions nearly every round, and tends to time his swirling ice storm aura's peak with near-perfect positioning to inflict the most harm on the party. Zarius manages to stun multiple party members, blood drain them, and even manages to take control of the warlock at one point and cause him to take a shot at the wizard! Soon Mikal is down, Althea is down, and then Jovanni goes down, leaving only Kordan, bloodied and alone, to face off with both a vampire lizard king and a blizzard dragon. Desperate but not defeated he does manage to revive Jovanni and Mikal during the fight, but the warlock goes down agan soon after. Atop a crumbling wall (where the dragon had carried her body), Kordan revives the wizard with a healing potion and orders her to run as he prepares to make a last stand to give her time to get away and warn the town. As the dragon swoops back down, Althea teleports into the swamp and runs, until the sounds of battle die out behind her.

DM Notes Part 2:

In contrast to the earlier fight, this was a 10-round epic with several ups and downs and points where it looked like either side could win. It was a level 11 encounter which should be difficult but not deadly for an 8th level party, and despite the outcome I don't think that's inaccurate. Some points:

1) All of the monsters were from the Monster Vault or the MM3, some of the "new style" books for monster stats and I now agree that there is a substantial power boost for many creatures in comparison to earlier versions

2) This was the second half of a back-to-back encounter during which the party had burned many of their big-hitter daily powers

3) Having another brain to run a somewhat complicated monster while I ran the rest meant that I didn't forget any of the dragon's powers which can happen from time to time in multi-creature fights

4) The party was in no mind to retreat - it was discussed briefly and then never discussed again until the very end

Nastier monsters do make a difference, and having an assistant amplified that impact. It worked so well that if I ever run Champions again I might recruit a villain-runner just to help exercise the rich tactical options found in that game's mechanics. Knowing that they had expended many dailies already and knowing that Uthal was dead and knowing that the lizard king's rep is as one bad hombre, I think the team should have seriously considered a retreat rather than staying for the fight.  This has always been a problem with the parties I run for - they pretty much never consider a retreat. I have begun to wonder if it's something I am doing that encourages this kind of behavior but looking back I would say my games tend to DIScourage it - most of the fights where characters die tend to be when the party is at a low ebb, regardless of edition, and where there is a lot of room for an escape. I've been conscious of the need for options besides "frontal assault" for years and so I do try to ensure that at least one exists. I'm comfortable blaming the players of course  - : ) -  and my players often describe themselves as a "Plan A kind of group" but I can't help but wonder how I could make this option more obvious and more palatable.


As far as specific monsters let me say that vampires are quite a bit of fun in 4E combining mobility, a good melee attack, and the ability to dominate during combat and turn party members against each other into one fun package. The blizzard dragon is a dragon but it's not a solo, making it a nice "sidekick" for another strong monster type. He's also pretty mobile and does decent damage up close and has an aura type attack that grows in power each round until it peaks and starts over again.He also has no vulnerability to fire or anything else which is nice. With the vampire as a strong single-target threat and the dragon hopping all over and making himself a whole-party threat and some minions running around to provide some numbers, it was a pretty good mix in my opinion.


The outcome was not really what I expected. This was supposed to be the big climactic encounter that would end the threat of the lizardman rebellion in the swamp and secure a keep for the party, setting things up for Paragon tier a little bit down the road. Instead it was nearly a TPK  (effectively it was, with only one member surviving and running away at the end). The party has fought through some realy vicious encounters before and I felt that they could handle this one, even with the barbarian down. Alas I was wrong and whatever "story" we had going with this group ends here as another group of heroes falls prey to the forces of evil.  Although I didn't know it at the time, this was also the end of this campaign which was another unexpected outcome. More on that next time.

Return to the Ruins of Adventure - Session 29: Dead Man's Party

After resting overnight at the temple ruins, the party sets forth across the swamp. As they approach the ancient keep the swamp quiets down. A single tower looms in the darkness, broken off twenty feet above the ground. The rest of the keep is in similar shape, ground down over the centuries by weather and war. A once-gated arch hangs open, inviting the adventurers in.


They enter and see a barren courtyard surrounded by broken and partially collapsed walls with a single inner gate in the opposite corner. As they look around, the ruined forms of might once have been men begin to emerge from the ground. With squelching and clanking noises the undead things move forward, evil intent in their eyes.


The experienced champions stand unshaken - they have fought the undead before. Kordan and Uthal charge the largest concentration as the arcane members of the party unleash various blasts and bolts, dropping several enemies in their tracks. One of the undead issues a wail that stops the fighting man and the barbarian in their tracks, allowing some of the lesser undead to sweep past them. Mikal is the focus of their efforts and the warlock moves backward as rapidly as he can while keeping up a steady fire on his attackers.


Enraged, Uthal explodes in fury raining blows all around him and stopping the general encirclement of the party. The other heroes also step up and deal out devastation in their own way. Despite effort this a pair of fast ghouls weave through the lines and assault the wizard and the bard back near the gate. As the rest of the creatures succumb, the party converges near the gate to finish off these last few opponents, ending a nasty little fight where every member of the party was hit and injured in some way.


Pausing for breath inside the gate they attempt to recover, then a booming crash echoes through the ruin as dust cascades down over the inner gate. As heads turn to see what new terror awaits inside, Uthal's trained senses notice frost creeping down the stones at the top of the ruined tower, and it is in no way cold enough to be a natural event. Just then another boom crashes out and the heroes gather themselves up for another fight.


DM Notes: This session was shorter than some but we still managed to get the party to the keep, only to find out it was not exactly the dreamhouse they had been hoping for. The main part of the session was an 8 round fight against a variety of ghouls some of which I pulled from the 4E Open Grave - still handy despite being one of the earlier books in the 4E run. Several daily powers and action points were burned as the quality of quantity proved to be somewhat effective against the group on a relatively open battlefield. It was a good fight and brought in some more of the lore about the keep, its origins,  and its ancient inhabitants the Knights of the Silver Star. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion in Session 30...

Return to the Ruins of Adventure - Session 28: Jaws of Doom

Our Heroes:

Althea, Eladrin Wizard

Mikal, Human Warlock (infernal pact)

Javanni, Half-Elf Bard

Kordan, Human Fighter

Uthal, Goliath Barbarian

(All are 7th level)

After pausing for a few minutes after the battle with the snakes, the party pushed open the old wooden door at the end of the room and realized they had one more battle before them - six armed lizardman temple guardians and a hooded figure with a gleaming golden bow awaited them inside a chamber where much of the floor was underwater and the walls were covered in frenzied writings proclaiming the divinity of Zarius, the lizard king.

The initial volley of magical fire killed several of the guardians but as the hooded figure fired back the heroes realized the arrows were shaped like serpents and envenomed like them as well! Kordan charged, leaping over a watery gap in the floor to close on the archer. Uthal waded into the guardians while Javanni moved to assist Kordan and Althea and Mikal stayed where they were, blasting away at their enemies.

As Javanni fired off a near-constant stream of insults, one of them evidently struck a nerve with the hooded figure and it leaped across the gap, away from Kordan, in an effort to harm the bard. Somewhat surprised, Kordan followed planted his magical battle standard, and engaged with his trusty sunblade. He was even more surprised when the hood came down and revealed a scaled feminine visage with seprentine hair that lashed out, biting him and poisoning him in a sudden furious assault. As he staggered under the attack, the creature's eyes began to glow and as he met her gaze he felt his legs growing heavy and realized he was in serious trouble.

As this was going on, most of the party was gathered on a stone platform in the middle of the room, the dryest part of the room and the place where the fight had come together. The casters, though, had backed into the passageway from the prior room as the guardians swarmed in. Out of nowhere, a column of water erupted from the well behind them and the biggest crocodile in the world lumbered forth, jaws snapping at Althea! As her life flashed before her eyes, she teleported away to safety. Mikal stepped back and began blasting the thing, hoping that it would be enough. As the jaws snapped down on him, he realized it was not and he too teleported across the room to safety. Frustrated by the narrow passage, the croc disappeared into the dark swampy water.

As Uthal finished off the guardians he realized the roaring behind him indicated a new threat had arrived. and turned to deal with it, though the croc was gone before he could react. Javanni moved to a more advantageous position to support Kordan. Seizing the moment, the fighter lashed out in a flurry of sword strikes, separating her head from her shoulders, then finishing the thing off with a shield bash that knocked her dying body off of the stone platform and into the water. As he stood there gazing down, his body stiffened, hardened, and turned to stone, the gleaming golden bow of the creature lying at his feet - a glorious way to end, if indeed it ended here.

Javanni's maneuver had helped to distract the thing but it also exposed him to a new danger as the croc exlploded out of the water in the main chamber, a terrifying storm of teeth and bellowing,  and seized him in its jaws, savaging the bard. Uthal realized it was up to him and charged, Black Spear of Thar held high. Smashing into the big reptile, he managed to slam it back hard enough to free the battered and bloodied bard. Flaming spheres and arcane bolts slammed into the beast with visible effect, but it kept on coming.

As quick as the lightly-armored goliath was, he was not quick enough and the wounded croc seized him next, biting down hard. With Kordan out, Javanni seriously wounded,  and the barbarian being crushed by the giant croc, things looked grim. Then, the power of Kordan's magical standard began to take effect on the huge creature, drawing it forward and forcing it to release Uthal as it advanced. Taking a moment, the barbarian gathered his strength as the enraged croc smashed the standard aside, ending its magic. As it turned back, the heroes realized the fight would soon be over, one way or another. With incredible speed the monster croc rushed the barbarian and seized him once again. Horrified, the arcanists blasted the thing but it only paused long enough to gulp Uthal down completely, then it splashed back into the water and disappeared from sight.

A few minutes later the drenched, chewed upon, and slightly digested goliath emerged from the "well" in the other room, roaring in triumph but accepting aid from the relieved wizard, bard, and warlock. Being swallowed had driven him nearly mad with rage, and he had cut his way out of the beast in a frenzy, killing it, and then fumbled his way to the surface.

The group took a few minutes to enjoy being alive and then began to consider the problem of the fossilized fighter. After much pondering and debate, the wizard and warlock agreed that the blood of the medusa, appllied to the lips of a victim, should reverse the magic. Finding blood from the creature was no problem and was soon smeared across Kordan's lips. There was a shudder, then over the next few minutes some twitching, and finally an intake of breath, and then Kordan was free, back to his human self.

 Looking around the party determined that the serpent-thing was the high priest of Zehir. The only interesting item from the fight was her golden bow, which was identified as a potent magic item and stashed away. Having eliminated the religious leader behind the uprising, the next step appeared to be an assault on the keep itself, the lizard king's seat of power. Slaying him would end the attacks, break the spirit of the rebellion, and secure the party a new home and base of operations. As the sun set, the party camped amid the ruins on top of the hill and gazed across the swamp where they could just barely make out the towers of the distant keep, awaiting their arrival.


DM Notes: Much of this session was consumed by an epic 11 round fight where the party faced off against some minions, a medusa, and a giant crocodile and it was one of the best fights we have had during the campaign. It went back and forth several times and the medusa and the croc were both signifcant threats that managed to hurt the party enough to put some fear into them. The croc outperformed any hopes that I had and was as tough as any solo I have run. The fight ended when the swallowed Uthal used "Rampage" and scored a critical hit - I could not have asked for a more appropriate or dramatic ending as the doomed barbarian managed to pull off a win from inside a monster! Everyone played a part and was pretty happy with the whole thing. They also managed to gather enough XP for almost everyone to advance to 8th level.


Sessions like this are golden to me as even though it was mostly combat there was no lack of role-playing going on. That's one of the things that I laugh at when someone gets on a soapbox about combat versus roleplaying - since when are they mutually exclusive? If you're talking in a funny voice, calling other characters by name, fake-yelling in distress, letting out your battle cry, shouting out plans or battle tactics, or popping off one-liners during a fight, then you are role-playing. There's no set time for it - it happens constantly during the game. It's also not exxclusively vocal - if your character always targets certin enemies first, or always opens wit ha certain move, you might be role-playing! If you consistently move to stay with another character, working together to overcome your enemies, you might be role-playing! Anything that you do as a player that makes your character stand out or makes them more memorable to your fellow players is a part of role-playing that character! Combat is a  time of tension, stress, and danger, a time when some players are at their most-engaged,  and it's when some of the most memorable moments can happen in a game - don't ignore it! Encourage it!


Around the table use character names as turns come up ... liven up descriptions of comabt moves ... give enemies a touch of personality to go along with the stats. In-game let your villains make speeches or snide comments as they fight - let them gloat when they're winning and let them curse as the fight slips away. If the party fighter bears a particular device on his shield then let some oppoinents start to recognize it and react appropriately. If the ranger regularly garbs himself in the skins of his enemies (boots, cape, armor, hat) then give him a reputation that has an impact in combat - maybe the lizardmen automatically lose initiative when informed that they will provide boots for a whole village - especially when they recognize the scale pattern of their high priest in the ranger's cloak!  Movies and comic books do this kind of thing all the time and if it's good enough for them then it's worth a try in your game.


Enough!


Next up is the final of this little side trip into the swamp as they attempt to take out the Lizard King in his own lair.

Return to the Ruins of Adventure - Session 27: Temple of the Reptile God

After camping for the night our heroes proceed to the ancient temple of the reptile god. With the skilled barbarian leading the way they soon discover a pile of collapsed stone atop a hill that rises out of the swamp. Observing from a distance reveals no activity so they close in and discover amid the ruins a clearly maintained stone stairway  leading down into darkness. Intent on their goal the group descends, Kordan in front, then Uthal, then Mikal, then Althea, with Jovanni bringing up the rear.

Emergining into a torchlit room at the bottom of the stairs the group sees lizardman guards doing exercises or possibly rituals. Due to the complete lack of stealth on the way down some of the temple guardians are already alerted to them and rush to engage. Caught on the stairs the party does not have a lot of room to fight until Kordan shield bashes some of them away from the landing, allowing Uthal to charge into the room. As soon as Jovanni gets a head around the corner he unleashes his usual storm of vicious mockery and cutting words as the wizard and warlock light up the room with various flaming magical bursts of death. These guards fight a little differently from the lizardmen of the swamp, swinging greatswords and following that up with a vicious poisonous bite - clearly they are the chosen ones. Unfortunately this does not save them as they are rapidly hacked and blasted down, the final two protecting the only other passage leading out of the room.

Barely pausing for breath the companions rip down the tapestry hanging in the doorway and see a large, oddly shaped rooom beyond, Notable features of the room include two glowing columns, two glowing snakes, and two even larger snakes, non-glowing. As ther serpents stir, the party readies for action.

Leery of the wet, magically glowing room, Kordan decides to try a new tactic called "stand in the doorway". With Uthal able to strike from behind him with his longspear, this seems like a viable plan, and sure enough the two larger snakes move up to engage. Unfortunately the two glowing snakes begin to spit fiery blasts from across the room, negating the effectiveness of this manuver to a degree.

Things are gong fairly well until one of the large serpents grabs the Fighter and wraps around him. Uthal, Jovanni, and Mikal redouble their efforts and slay the two big constrictors while Althea (who hates snakes) concentrates on blasting the flame serpents from afar. After the two big ones drop and one of the flamers has been blasted apart, Uthal rushes in and slays the last fiery snake up close.

As they recover, Kordan notices that while there is standing water in the room one there is one section that looks different, where the water seems to flow strangely. Testing the floor with spears they determine that it is a much deeper pool or well, difficult to see as there is water everywhere. Giving it a wide berth they move towards the opposite end of the chamber where there is another damp tapestry hanging in a doorway.

DM Notes:
This was another good session where progress was made and the encounters were fun. The travel and recon at the beginning felt much like some of our older games from 2E AD&D where we seemed to spend a lot of time in swamps. I think they are one of the creepier environments to play in and I was glad I had a chance to work this in.

The first encounter, even beefed up to a level 8, was not terribly challenging for the party as I had a terrible time hitting anything, even with double-digit bonuses to hit. It lasted all of four rounds. Hey, minions die quick.

The second encounter was a little more interesting as the Kordan;s player, reasoning that snakes were primarily melee opponents and not liking the water-covered floor (traps, hidden monsters - he's been playing since 1E so he's seen a lot) decided that it was better to stand in the doorway and fight and it did work but the fire-breathing snakes were an unexpected wrinkle. Giant constrictor snakes are fun too with 4E's grab rules (much less hassle than 3E). In the end the fight only lasted 5 rounds but it was a good little scrap.

The atmosphere I was going for in the temple itself was wet, ruined, ancient stonework corrupted to use by an evil, poisonous cult, old and dangerous. I tried to emphasize certain aspects of it as tt's all building up to the final encounter which I thought would be a lot of fun (and it was - next post) and while this little setup was very linear, hey, that's how a small underground temple would be IMO.

This whole setup is one of the things I like about prebuilt enocunters such as Dungeon Delve - the original delve caught my eye as being cool so I put it on the list of things to use if possible. The leveling and the chosen adventure worked out very nicely, so all I did was enhance the descriptions a llittle bit, reskin some of the monsters, and swap out the main attraction to something I liked better. I think it will end up being one of the more memorable little pieces of the campaign and I'm pretty happy with it.

Return to the Ruins of Adventure - Session 26: Attack of the Lizard People

Returning to Phlan after the adventure in the SIlver Pyramid, our heroes discover that they have been gone for a month and that much has happened:

- Increasing lizardman attacksfrom the swamp have cut off much of the landbound trade to the east

- More ships have been destroyed on the Moonsea close to Phlan

- Rumors are flying that the Fire Knives have assassinated the leaders of several rival organizations, consolidating their power in the ruins

- The Temple of Bane, according to the ancient charter of the city of Phlan,  has asked for a place on the council, stating that they wish to play a recognized, legitimate role in the city's growth and promising to help pacify the ruins

The party contemplates these news items for a bit and decides to kill two birds with one stone: At one point in the past the city council, by way of Barnabus,  offered them titles of nobility and a seat on the council if they would reclaim an old keep out near the swamp. The lizardman uprising appears to have taken control of this same keep, so dealing with the lizardmen and claiming the keep will both solve a problem and seal their deal with the city. The city also promises to help supply a garrison and to provide some of the supplies neccessary to rebuild the keep. With their future seemingly secures, the group rests and re-equips (mainly healing potions from the temple of Torm) then heads out to deal with the scaled folk.

Before they depart,Barnabus tells the team that an old woman lives on the edge of the swamp and is a good source of information on the goings-on therin. She may not be completely trustworthy, but when dealt with from a position of strength she can be civil. This becomes the party's first goal. However the journey is not that simple.

While traveling along the elevated roadway the party encounters a group of lizardman blocking the road, and when the team approaches one of the lizardfolk turns out to be a spellcaster and the magic starts to fly along with a rather impressive volley of blowgun darts. Kordan is hit, slowed, and poisoned in the first burst, but the rest of the heroes come through in decent shape although the mystic's spell turns the road into swampy ground, interfering with their advance. This does not slow the lizardmen down at all as two stand fast to protect the castrer while the rest flank the party, spreading out and puffing darts as rapidly as they can.

Mikal, dodging darts as best he can, sets up his infernal curse on several of the creatues. Uthal fnally gets into hitting range and rams his spear through one of the scaly ambushers, killing it and causing the warlock's curses to go off, killing two more! Kordan, battered and angry, engages the bodyguards with the help of Althea and Jovanni as Uthal and Mikal take down the rest of the skirmishers, ending the fight. The heroes win out, but poison darts and swampy terrain go on the list of "things the party does not like."

Soon enough the group spots the small house where the mysterious woman lives. Uncertain of what they are dealing with they show a sensible amount of caution, knocking politely on the door and engaging the rather attractive half-elven looking woman who answers it in conversation. Showing a remarkable degree of restraint they learn quite a bit about the lizardmen and the reasons for their agitation. Jovanni shines, words flowing from his lips like honey, until he commits a terrible faux-pas. Fortunately Kordan decides this nis a good time to strip off his armor and his shirt and offer to start chopping firewood, which he does, and which seems to perk her interest to the point she ignores the Bard's mistake. The strange woman eventually mentions that a party of lizardmen even now carries a powerful magic item to a nearby temple, another indication of their growing power.

Eventually the conversation winds down and all the wood has been chopped. Final pleasantries are exchanged, Kordan puts his shirt back on, and the party departs with the intention of intercepting the magic item and then paying a visit to the temple, one of the rallying points of the unrest in the swamp.

Uthal leads the way through the swamp, using his skill in the wild to guide his friends to their target. They choose speed over stealth though, and they emerge onto the ancient roadway leading to the temple to find four huge black-scaled lizardmen blocking their way. As the party moves to engage they hear a loud slurping sound - something lurches through the swamp on their flank and Uthal identifies it as a Shambling Mound, a terrible plant-monster! The party also spots another lizardman nearby, who begins casting as the shambler closes in and the guards move to engage - the party is in for a tough fight!

Uthal and Kordan end up taking on the shambler as Jovanni and Mikal take on the blackscales and Althea starts a magical duel with the mystic. The potent wizard blows the rival caster away in short order, then ties up the plant-thing with her signature "grasp of the grave" spell, as skeletal arms burst from the swampy ground and grab on to the creature. Even with this, the fighter and barbarian bot hget tangled up with the monster and end up hacking at it at close range while it tangels and squeezes them in return. Mikal can't let himself be shown up by the wizard and blasts 3 of the blackscales apart himself, though Althea does finish off the 4th as Kordan and Uthal finally hack down the shambling mound. Jovannis strips some gold necklaces from the big lizardmen and discovers a chest near the road as well.

Breaking open the chest carried by the lizardfolk party the heroes discover a powerful magical rod inside, one useful for defending against magical attacks. Mikal claims it for the moment and then the party decides to rest for the night before "delivering" it to the  temple of the reptile god.


DM Notes:

This was a really good session after a longer break than usual. My players know their characters now, they know the environment now,  and know what they want to do in the medium to long term. This makes things easier on the DM. Some of this is in contrast to past campaigns where they did a lot of wandering and so never got particularly invested in any one area. It also helps that a five person party can be a lot more cohesive than an eight or nine person party which is almost guaranteed to have some conflicting goals, or at the very least someone in an "I don't want to do that" contrarian mood in my experience. This has been a real eye-pener as to the potential with the right mix of players and it's been a lot of fun. Plus it's likely to be the first time in a very long time that I've had PC's running a keep and I'm looking forward to that.

The first ambush lasted all of four rounds. I think the learning curve is starting to pass me by as at 7th level the players have been using the same set of powers with occasional upgrades for along time now while the DM gets to learn a whole new set of powers and tactics with every encounter. Variety is cool, but I'm wondeirng if more uniform opposition would pay off with a greater threat level.

 The encounter at the hut was set up as both a straight combat encounter - a tough one in my opinion - and a skill challenge, and I figured a hint from Barnabus would be enough to let them know it was an option. They took to it wonderfully with the bard's awesome diplomacy skill leading the way initially. They worked in some creative use of history, nature, and bluff as well from different party members. Kordan's player was at a bit of a loss as to how to contribute at first as it was more of a talky challenge and fighters do not typically have a lot of that, but then the bard fumbled a diplomacy roll so he decided to do something different to use his very impressive athletics skill that had us all cracking up around the table. "I see you managed to get your shirt off again." I suspect that is not the only time we will see that move, especially if the opposition is female, and I'm all for it - if it was good enough for everyone from Captain Kirk to the werewolf kid in the Twilight movies, it's good enough for my game.

The second fight was against a slightly different set of lizardmen plus my first use of a Shambling Mound in 4E. Shamblers were a fairly common opponenet in our 2E games  - lord knows I got engulfed by them more than once - and were still somewhat common in our 3E games. I was glad to see that they work similarly in 4E, merrily slapping and engulfing people just like the old days. Despite this different mix the fight still lasted only 4 rounds. Sigh.

One notably effective thing that's going on is that the Warlock took "Daughter's Promise" which is an enhancement to his curse ability. The curse is a minor action and targets the nearest enemy at the time it is done, and it can affect more than one target. Normally it just grants the 'Lock some temporary hit points when a cursed target dies - nice, but not a game-changer. This DP ability though turns them into little grenades waiting to go off, especially minions. Now when a cursed target dies they explode and do damage to every enemy adjacent to them - not a to nof damage but enough to kill minions and badly bloodied creatures. I've seen this thing take out 3 creatures in one turn, robbing the DM of another round of mayhem from those beasties in a seriously annoying way. I'm thinking that maybe it should be "adjacent creatures" rather than "adjacent enemies" - that sounds like more fun - to me, anyway.

 

DM Notes on the Silver Pyramid Sessions

I had several goals when designing this part of the campaign. I wanted to touch on the idea of the Sorcerer's Isle and the pyramid found there in the old Gold Box game. It was a fairly big plot point as it was polluting the river that runs through the city and had to be cleansed and stopped . There was also an element of mutation there with some mutated forms of normal monsters being part of the encounters in and around the place. In that case though it was a mad wizard behind the trouble which I did not want to reuse but I liked the general theme. So I turned up the mutated weirdness and turned down the pollution element. I also needed to resolve the Spear/ Pool of Twilight hook and an nincursion from the Far Realm was what I had planned from the start.

I also wanted to use a non-conventional dungeon and play up the atmosphere more than I typically have, using imagery other than "ruined city" which has dominated the campaign thus far. I wanted it to feel like an alien environment, not another cave or building. A lot of that feels comes down to descriptions and language which I know I am not always great at using on the fly unless prompted by one of my players who looks at the ceiling or something. I fight that weakness by writing up some descriptions in advance and trying to remember to use them during the game. The other part of the feel of  a place is the map design. Putting the party into a large room then getting prrogressively smaller and more cramped makes it feel like you are moving towards something and hopefully that the tension is amping up. Finishing up in another large room but being constrained by energy barriers and other weirdness should feel like the climax of the adventure. I don't know how well I did this but the players seemed happy with it so I'm calling it a win.

As far as theme I wanted horror and weirdness. I don't think you can really do a true horror adventure during a game of largely by-the-book D&D. The most you can do is theme the location and the descriptions and the monsters within and try to get your players to notice. D&D is much more "Aliens" than "Alien" both mechanically and thematically but I like to take a shot at some spookiness and weirdness every once in a while just for a change of pace and I had a really good time with this one. Plus I got to throw some Star Trek into my D&D which can only make it better.

Setting it up: So how do  I drag the party out of the city & ruins and into a somewhat remote self-contained location for an adventure? Well, the players already had a fairly strong hook from the Ogre King adventure and knew the spear was connected to the Pool. They asked around and found out the Pool was in the Silver Pyramid. Sooner or later they were going to want to go there. I also had a backup option to use the pollution from the pyramid as a growing threat that must be stopped, much like the original gold box game, so I wasn't wed to a single connection.

One of the things I saw as a weaknesses that has turned out to be a strong point for 4E is the 10 encounters per level formula. In 4E XP is set up so that 10 encounters of the same level as the party gives enough experience to level up. This gives a nice way to plan out adventure locations and dungeon levels while knowing pretty well what level the party will be when they get there. It also means that as I design options for the party at each level I end up with unused outlines, encounters, and ideas that mean I could run another party through Phlan and not have them overlapping into the same adventures. I just re-sketched out how the party is likely to finish out this first stage of the campaign (Heroic Tier) and realized one of the major areas I had been planning to use at higher levels has been squeezed out - and I'm not upset! It means I have a good focus for the NEXT group to run through the area, whether that's next week or next year.Actual play is generating a sandbox campaign area for levels 1-10 without my actually intending to do so!

Mechanically things have gone pretty well. The party started the run at 6th level and levelled up to 7th when they finished it. We haven't run into any holes in the game and the players and I agree with the general consensus that a) missing sucks and missing with a big daily power really sucks so dailies with a "miss" effect are much better than those without, b) daze and stun conditions are painful for players as they get to do less during those rounds but they are better than being dead as in some older versions of the game and c) this system just seems to work really well - fights take longer than say Basic or 1E or 2E but they are more interesting with a lot more going on in each round and a lot more interplay between the payers and characters during a round: a monster misses an attack, the bard uses a power to grant an ally a free shift or a free attack, that character uses a power and hits, then another character fires off a different power triggered by that action - it's very cool in play.

Fights lasted an average of 6 rounds, with the low being 3 rounds for the "Brains on the Bridge" and a high of 12 for the finale, though that was divided into 5 rounds for the Mind Flayer and the Gibbering Mouther followed by 7 for the Thing from Beyond, so it should almost count as two separate fights.The fighter regularly takes a beating and mostly stays up. The barbarian does firghtening amounts of damage but goes down if he becomes the focus of the attackers. The wizard does OK single target damage and a ton of area effect damage and other area effects. The Warlock does a ton of single target damage and some nifty, almost afterthough area damage effects (e.g. "Daughter's Promise"). The bard is a very versatile leader type - he can heal, he can grant extra moevement, he can do ranged attacks, and he can move enemies on his own turn in ways that are quite annoying to the DM. Everyone seems pretty happy with their characters and roles as far as mechanics and that's a good thing.

Magic items are important (like in older editions) but do not dominate the game or radically change what a character can do (unlike 3E). They are definietly nice to have and do end up as a sort of signature item for some characters (Kordan's Armor and Sun Blade, Uthal's Spear and Horse) but they are not viewed as critical for optimization the way stat-boosters and a wand of cure light wounds were in 3E which is a wonderful change and feels much more like the 1E/2E days which is pretty much the opposite of what I expected. There's a lot less of the "Level X FIghter should have this, this, and this" kind of metagaming talk around the table - maybe it's more common online but in our experience the choice of magic items is much more about flavor and a lot less about choosing the optimal combination of gear.

Next up: what happens next!

Return to the Ruins of Adventure - Session 25: The Pool of Twilight Part 2

art link

Looking at the platform the party takes one of the crystals dropped by a floating brain and places it in the empty socket. A low hum sounds in the room and the other crystals begin to pulse with a bright purple light. Somehow knowing what they must do the team steps on to the platform and vanishes in a flash of light.

They reappear in one corner of a  large, open, metal-walled room. Feeling remarkably normal they look around and see...

Four large purple crystals are set up here surrounding an inky black pool. Nearby stand a tentacle-faced humanoid and a mass of flesh that appears to have many faces on and within its flowing substance. Arms and legs emerge at times, some still wrapped in brightly colored bits of cloth - a single entity that babbles maddeningly and constantly. Over the pool is a smoky black mass that drives an observer to the edge of madness. Vaporous forms swarm from the pool to this cloud, and it appears to be caged by a glowing purple energy wall that flows between the crystals.

The tentacle-faced creature steps toward them and unleashes a crushing blast of mental energy. Taking this as a sign of hostility, the heroes fire back - except for Uthal, who is still dazed by the effect of the mental blast. Kordan attempts to engage while the others blast away. The huge fleshy mass surges forward, babbling madness and slamming into the front line of heroes with teeth and arms and legs flailing. Althea locks them down with the grasp of the grave but the tentacle being manages to squirm out of reach, only to be pulled back to the fore by a magical compulsion from the bard. All the while the swirling black cloud from beyond crashes against the energy barrier.

Recovering, Uthal summons 'Dragon', his obsidian steed, and begins fighting while mounted. Through this early part of the battle the strange robed being works to keep the gibbering mound of flesh between him and his attackers, firing off mental blasts that damage and daze various members of the party. The barbarian mounted on his magical steed proves highly mobile, thwarting this to a degree.  Eventually though the mass of flesh is hacked into ruin, destroying the horror and hopefully sending the souls of those trapped within its disturbing form to a better place. Once that happens the weird controller of this place is surrounded and cut down in short order, still firing off his unearthly mental attacks.

Realizing that to get to the Pool they must bring down the barrier and face the Thing from Beyond, the heroes smash one of the large crystals and the energy barrier winks out of existance. The party braces as the pulsating cloud swarms in on them and vaprourous tentacles lash out with painful results. A battle rages on the edge of the pool as Uthal and Kordan are locked down and hit with a storm of psychic damage and the rest of the team is battered by semisolid tentacles from another dimension. Things look uncertain for the heroes for a time but they gradually gain the momentum and blast the thing out of existance.

Uncertain of what else might be lurking in this horrid place, Uthal spurs Dragon, leaps into the middle of the pool and drives the great iron spear into the Pool of Twilight...

The shimmering runes winding up and down the shaft disappear in a blast of silvery light as the pool screams and the winds of limbo roar around the party. There is a massive explosion and darkness...


... and the heroes awaken on the shores of the lake still wondering what just happened but knowing they have ended the threat of the Pool for good.

Oh, and the moon is in a different phase from when they entered the pyramid the night before.