Current mood:

all over the place

Here is another in my series of brief excerpts from Saturday D&D sessions. This time, I tried NOT taking notes from the introductory phase, and thus was able to gather some extensive notes from throughout the session before my arm wore out.

[The following RPG gaming-session account uses character names rather than the names of the actual players in order to protect their identities, so that I don't have to ask their permission.]

In my closing notes from the last report, I mentioned resting. Well, our resting place was discovered, not by the mindflayers but by an NPC who was theoretically neutral, insofar as he said that if we left he would not give us trouble. It took us a little time to decide, but in the end, we had no pressing need to continue in that dungeon at this time (at least, the more neutral-aligned characters managed to convince the goody two-shoes ones that since there were no more hostages to save, we should resume our greater mission). But, by the time we decided this, the NPC noticed that Omit's character had some traces of fiendish blood/ancestry, and changed his conditions. The REST of us could go, but the "Tiefling" (as they are called) could not. So we fought him until he was forced to run, then we left anyway. I mention all this only because GM was particularly non-plussed by the performance of this NPC in combat (even though he was "not supposed to fight us") and seriously considered doubling the number of pursuers. He did, however, relent on this of his own volition because that amount of enemies would not be considered "fair" within the rules.

So we pickup, a little ways into the D&D session, as a pair of Vrocks (vulture-looking flying demons with a variety of potent defenses, and all-around good damage-dealing abilities) have overtaken us and we begin to do battle. Verian Seth and Omit are lurking around the edges of the battlefield (the former remaining carefully invisible), while Azheron and Balcoth are hard-pressed by the Vrocks' attack. Balcoth uses his Figurine of Wondrous Power, which transforms into a full-grown elephant, obediant to his command.

GM: ...I thought it could only use its trample attack in a straight line. Ow. That's it, its life is over. Has "Stampy" taken damage yet?
Omit: Yes, he was hit a few times.
Balcoth: [Dismissing the damage] It's an elephant.
Azheron: I'm wondering if I should heal it. What's it at? [Peers over at Balcoth's records sheet]
GM: [Out loud, but to himself as he looks up the Vrocks' less-often-used capabilities...] Do they have Power Attack?
Verian Seth: [Hyperbole] Everything has Power Attack.
GM: They do...
Azheron: [Mumbled Stampy's remaining hit points to himself, but unfortunately out loud] ...48.
GM: It's DEAD.
Balcoth: [Give Azheron that "you traitor" look] ...putting up this big front...
Azheron: Sorry.
Balcoth: ...bitchslap you man.
Azheron: How many more uses does Stampy have left this month? [Ed. the Statue of Wondrous power that creates the elephant; it is not destroyed when the creature "dies" and can be used up to 3 times per month]
GM: None. He's all used up.
Omit: You should sell it while its cycling...
Balcoth: Can I trade him in for one that has cycled?
Omit: Then you could trade him back after you use it!

The chat continues on, more or less as normal, but with many deviations relating to the players' perception that the Vrocks recasting Mirror Image at will (each time creating 4-6 illusory demons that cannot be discerned from the real ones, resulting in many wasted attacks, resulting in a MASSIVE advantage for the monsters who could keep that up all day long). I didn't note all these arguments because they became increasingly... well... argumentative, and moreover not very humorous. Anyhow, Balcoth was beginning to suffer attrition-based damage, and Azheron was forced to stick close to him, attempting to heal him so he could keep trying to kill them.

GM: Did you take your damage from the spores? [Ed: btw, Vrocks continuously release damaging spores. As a free action.]
Azheron: Yes. I cast Divine Power on myself.
GM: Okay, the Vrock takes a five-foot-step and full attacks you. [Azheron suffers about 40 damage.]
Azheron: Yep, that kills me. Drops my hit points to negative 13 [Ed: down to -9, player characters are considered unconscious but alive, though they may still bleed to death. Once they hit -10, they are dead. In our campaign, there are no raise dead/resurrection type spells]
Verian Seth: [Grasping at straws]Did you count the temporary hit points granted by your Divine Power spell?
Azheron: [Nods yes] I didn't think we could beat them anyway.
Omit: What time do you got?
Azheron: 8-o'clock.
Omit: [Scribbling notes as usual] The last hit did 9 pts?
GM: Your action Omit.
Omit: Can I declare an action to shoot at the [Mirror] images?
GM: You mean ignoring the real one? No! There's no way to tell the difference.
Verian Seth: That would defeat the purpose of the spell. If you could tell the difference, you'd just ignore all the images and shoot the real one.

Omit ponders for longer than usual while Azheron feigns ripping up his character sheet and the rest of us try to figure out how we will survive without his healing powers...

GM: Omit? It's still your action...
Omit: I'm trying to figure out whether or not its worth using a 3300 gp item [Ed: at our level that a HELL of an expensive 1-use item.]. I'll shoot at the one on Balcoth. Yeah. I destroyed 3 images.
GM: Verian Seth?
Verian Seth: Let's see. That one [Indicates the Vrock that just killed Azheron's character] is currently not engaged...
Omit: What an assanine thing to say.
Verian Seth: Whatever, I'm just assessing the situation. You're the one who was recording his "time of death". I'll just turn activate my Ring of Invisibility, then move over here.

Now, I failed to note the exact details of how it started, but inevitably (given that he is dead and has nothing to do except work on his next character) someone has gotten Azheron onto the topic of his many character deaths throughout this campaign. Regardless of whether one considers him to have been unfairly persecuted or simply absurdly unlucky (or somewhere in between), it is a simple fact that the vast majority of deaths in the campaign up to this point have been Azheron's characters...

Azheron: What about the time I spawned without gear? [In the instance to which he is referring, his "new" character was inserted into the campaign as a prisoner who was to be rescued from an orc camp. He was subsequently freed by the other heroes, but although his class, a "Soulknife" functions better than most without gear, notably not needing any sort of weapon, he still died in the resultant battle]
GM: You can't complain to me about that; you were killed by orcs with NEGATIVE to-hit!
Azheron: There were about 20 of them, and I had no armor.
GM: It's not my fault you forgot your Protection from Arrows [Ed: spell that was already cast on him, but was forgotten by all until after he died, and it was deemed "too late", rather than try to backtrack through multiple rounds of large-scale combat and reduce all the damage he had suffered from arrows.
Azheron: There was also a +4 level orc druid!
GM: +3 level...
Azheron: Oh, my mistake.
GM: Anyway, we should get back to the battle that is still going on...

There was actually a lot more discussion of various Azheranian deaths, but this is another subject that has been repeated a few too many times for those involved, so I didn't take notes. It also may be a bit touchy. But Balcoth wasn't about to let go of the GM-bashing quite yet, since it was looking less and less like we'd be able to overcome the regenerating mirror-images of the two Demons.

Balcoth: Its ridiculous that they can just keep doing that. If we even get close to hitting them, they can just recast and we have to start over.
GM: Well you always have a chance of hitting the correct one, but you could always just CLOSE YOUR EYES, in which case you can't see the images and it's just a 50/50 chance like attacking an invisible opponent [Ed: you can only attack invisible creatures if you know what map square they are in, however that is not a problem in this case because the images do not hide their map-location]
Balcoth: Friggin gay... totally negates fighters...
GM: It takes an ACTION for him to recast it, so he's doing nothing during that round! And you could defeat the spell just by closing your eyes!
Verian Seth: Doing nothing except expelling spores for an automatic 1d8 damage. Plus, at the rate Balcoth is cutting through images, the Vrock only needs to cast it every second round. Heck, even if it had to recast twice out of every 3 rounds, it would still net a profit; it gets to act unimpeded for one round out of every 3, which the mirror images eat most of the fighter's actions EVERY round. Forever.
GM: Look, Balcoth and the Vrock are well matched; you are VERY hard to hit, and it has natural defenses. Is he going down Azheron?
Azheron: [Still sitting next to Balcoth, but remembering the earlier gaff about Stampy's HP] He has 307 HP. [Ed: in case you are wondering, that's more than twice Balcoth's max HP, so it was obvious to all that Azheron was being sarcastic.]
Balcoth: [Much more pleased by that version of reality] ...you're getting it. You're getting it...

Balcoth has one enemy pinned down, although it is gradually edging around him, hoping to get nearer to the "softer" targets presented by Omit and Verian Seth (if he would ever stay visible long enough to be attacked). Throughout the battle, Verian Seth was taking advantage of the ability of players to "ready an action", which meant that he could make his attack on the enemies' turn after they declared their actions, thus allowing him to re-invis on his own action. The other players were not thrilled with this, since he was only taking a useful action every second turn, but he had been running on empty for power points since 2 fights ago, and still badly needed to rest. However, despite Balcoth's valiant efforts and Verian Seth's... cautious... whatever he was doing, one demon was free to attack Omit and the other was going to be able to by the next round...

Omit: How much damage did I take from the last hit? [GM repeats the last in the series of to-hit and damage numbers] Okay. I'm going to use my scroll to summon an elemental. Use Magic Item check... yep. Simulated Caster-Level check... yep, I made it. Okay, it takes up 4 squares by 4 squares on the map...
GM: What? What spell are you casting? What level?
Omit: It's a level 9 Druid scroll.
GM: When did you buy that?
Omit: It was back at that city when they gave us a 10% discount on all items to help with our mission. It's worth 3875 gold normally.
Verian Seth: Don't mess with "Bruce Wayne".
Balcoth: It's good that you keep this stuff...
Omit: Yeah, by the way, we really need to get to a city to restock soon. So I summon an Elder Air elemental. Oh, looking in the book it's only 3 x 3 squares.
GM: What's it's DR? [Ed: damage reduction, in other words its resistance to physical attacks. In the case of elementals, they do not normally have very large DR numbers, however they also lack the usual special weaknesses that would penetrate that reduction.]
Omit: Ten-slash, but it doesn't really matter. I'll have the elemental use it's whirlwind special attack.
GM: Ugh. What's the Reflex save DC?
Omit: Difficulty is 28. Then they get a new save every round to escape.
GM: They have a chance... not a good chance... nope, they both failed.
Omit: While trapped in the whirlwind, they suffer a -4 penalty to their Dexterity.
GM: So they get a new save every round, but they're at an additional -2. So they can't make it. How much damage are they taking?
Omit: 2d6 per round.
GM: ...ignoring their Demonic damage reduction.
Balcoth: Can I hit them while they spin by?
GM: No! They are spinning way up in a towering maelstrom of sand and debris. You can't whack at them with your axe.
Verian Seth: Can I target them with the Wand of Ego Whip? [Ed: Technically it's not a wand but a dorje - the psionic version of a wand. And technically, as with all charge-based items in this party, it was borrowed from Omit, who really was running out of tricks by this point...]
GM: NO! Don't have line of sight.
Verian Seth: But its a mind-effecting psionic power. It's mentally targetted.
GM: You still need line of sight and line of effect. The whirlwind blocks all vision.
Verian Seth: Fine.
Balcoth: I could burst my Dust of Dryness pebble into it.
Omit: So it would be a wet tornado?
Balcoth: Well, could I toss some caltrops into it?
Verian Seth: [Noting that Azheron had excused himself from the room momentarily...] Have you noticed the really big-money scrolls only come out after Azheron dies?

Omit assures all that he didn't think the situation was desperate until Azheron was lost. It WAS an extraordinarily expensive item, and not to be used lightly...

Omit: Anyway, they [Ed: the Vrocks] are f***ed. Can we just say that they're dead an move on?
GM: What do you think I'd say to that?
Omit: You would compliment my efficiency?
GM: Up yours!
Omit: Up mine?
Verian Seth: Didn't you say these guys were sent to kill me?
Azheron: As usual, whenever you say something is meant to kill Verian Seth it kills me. Next time, you should say you are trying to kill me?
GM: Verian Seth isn't on the radar anymore... [Stares menacingly at Omit] How much longer is it going to last?
Omit: The total duration is 23 rounds.
Verian Seth: Can we rest now?
GM: [Not actually yelling, just 'mock-yelling'] IT'S ONLY BEEN LIKE 4 HOURS SINCE YOU BROKE CAMP!
Omit: The odds of them surviving 23 rounds of this are... well, its very unlikely.
GM: [Just did the math in his head, comparing 23 x 2d6 with the demon's HP] Can we talk about this? "We'll generously forego the destruction of your summoned creature! We can tell you the location of a secret treasure!"
Verian Seth: Omit is like an engine for converting gold into XP...

Anyhow, we didn't get much further. What we did get was bogged down in a discussion of our need for healing. Azheron had made his last few characters with the intention of providing the party with divine healing - not because he wanted that role, particularly, but because nobody else in the party could heal. After all this, he was going to make his next character something different, which no-one blamed him for, but it brought up the issue: what would we do without a magical healing specialist?

Verian Seth: We're okay without a cleric.
GM: I'm providing you guys with a hench healer. I'll just Deus Ex him in along with Azheron's new character as soon as he's ready, because you are going to need the help.
Balcoth: Healing is good.
Omit: Wait, is he going to take a share of the Experience and treasure?
GM: Of course.
Omit: Then forget it. We don't need him.
Verian Seth: We'll manage without one.
Balcoth: Can I just hire him myself?
Omit: Tell you what, I won't give him any of my XP or treasure, and he won't heal me or interract with me in any way.
GM: It doesn't work that way.
Verian Seth: Then we don't want him.
GM: You need to have a healer. I put all this effort into the campaign, I don't want it to all go to waste.
Azheron: Aren't you the one who was always trying to convince us that we didn't need a cleric?
GM: That was in the EARLY levels. Things are different now.

According to Omits careful notes, GM suggested that a cleric of any nature was unnecessary and/or advised against having one on twenty-seven occasions, the most recent of which included when the majority of the party was level 10, and even when certain PCs first turned 11, often disuading Azheron's continued and selfless selection of divine-casting classes.

Verian Seth: Look, we'll just run it like Survivor island. Azheron won the immunity challenge, so he doesn't have to become a cleric. So other than him, the next person to die has to make a healer.
Omit: I'm up for that. Sounds good.
Balcoth: Can't I just pay for the cleric myself.
GM: Look, he'll only take a half-share of the treasure and XP.
Balcoth: He'll take HALF the treasure! Screw that!
GM: No, a half-share...
Verian Seth: There are 4 of us, so effectively he'll be stealing 1/9th of the total.
GM: You guys will have full control of him in combat, and I'll just control him the rest of the time. It'll be a nice outlet for me to RP with you guys.
Balcoth: Aw f***.

So we are stuck with the healer (and that was the SHORT version of that discussion). The best I could do was to make him myself so that GM wouldn't have to, because if GM built our hench-healer he'd end up with Charisma 12 or higher, 16 strength and memorize god-knows what. GM is going to roleplay him, but actual control (combat and casting decisions) will be passed around randomly to a different PC every week. This assumes that he doesn't mysteriously die in a gorey heap of useful magical items. "Hey! An Amulet of Natural Armor; I was just thinking how much I'd like one of those..."