New session, new journal entry:
Prelude to Session 2:
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We don't play often, but when we do play, it's an all-day event. Our session yesterday lasted 9 hours!
We also added another member to the group. I'll call him Dan for convenience. Dan is fairly new to DnD and has a handful of gaming sessions under his belt and he already knows his stuff. He's the type that considers himself far too cool for geeky things like DnD, but at the same time he's a hardcore closet geek that loves gaming. He plays with a very casual mindset, likes simple fighters and knows how to play them, and wants to keep it that way. His current character is a human fighter 2 named "Handsome Dan" (hair type: majestic, skin: bronzed, is an ex-model turned warrior etc). He plays neutral so he can do whatever he wants.
Since we're now level 2, the sorcerer and I took another level of our respective classes. I went with stone bones maneuver so I won't die so fast and step of the wind because it seems situationally spectacular. I'm salivating at the WIS-to-AC bonus that I get this level because I already know how much I need it in this campaign. The crusader decided for something different: a cleric dip. I can only assume that it's because he dislikes the smashing role and would prefer more support as per his usual preference. Fluff-wise it works out fine -- ridiculously devout crusader of pelor decides to change his method of worship to a more clerical route. In this particular campaign, the dip choice proves to be quite effective, as you'll see. I should note, though, that the crusader won't start the session with any of his cleric abilities. He has a level in it, but he hasn't "learned" it yet.
The DM's World:
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I want to mention how the DM has built up his world. He talked to us at great length over the past two games that he's trying to convey a "heroic" setting as opposed to a "superhero" setting. He linked us
this article to explain what he's aiming for.
If the average human is a commoner with 10's in all the stats, then already the average adventurer is the cream of the crop, the top 1% of the population in terms of exceptional abilities. A guy with a 14 CON is big, strong, exceptionally healthy. To tie that in to this specific campaign, where (so far) the bad guys at the top of the food chain are bug bears, their race's average CON is 14, putting them waaaay ahead of humans in physical aptitude.
So at level 1-2, we're highly exceptional individuals. 3-5, he says, we're pushing the absolute limits of our abilities. By level 6 we're reaching the realm of superhuman. He wants us to struggle and feel the mortal danger of low levels before letting us taste the sweet success of higher levels. I really appreciate that style.
The Last Fight:
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We pickup right where we left off. Sorcerer, crusader and me have one more fight before we finally win our freedom. The day arrives and when we enter the arena, the bugbear announcer informs everyone that we will be fighting Grish, the reanimated version of the hobgoblin ex-prince. Pfft, one measely undead? We just took down an UMBER HULK! I'm not worried. We dish out some decent damage in the first round and things are looking great -- until its turn. The undead KO's me in one swing. Then he KO's the sorcerer. Then he almost downs the crusader. In a panick, the crusader waves his holy symbol at it -- which triggers his turn undead ability. Instead of turning, the undead is "cleansed," and Grish tells the crusader that he must deliver the envelope (the one that he gave to me before going splat). Then the crusader wakes up. It was a dream, but the crusader feels as if it was a divine mission given to him. And since he now feels a connection to his god and can pray for spells, it's a pretty convincing dream. Cool way to introduce his cleric dip.
Special Request:Spoiler
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So the crusader/cleric is now even more wrapped up about the might of pelor mumbo jumbo. Gravy. If you didn't know, people who constantly speak about righteousness and how great their deity is are just a hoot to be around. But we deal with it while waiting for our final fight. One day, however, we're requested to meet some visitors. We're left alone in a room with "stunning" hobgoblin women in expensive attire that have come to visit us. They don't speak common, but they act flirty and offer us wine. So yeah... They paid for our "company." Well, if we're going to pull this off then alchohol is a must, so we drink some wine. The wine knocks us out. Sweet mercy!
When we wake up, we're in the same room, the hobgoblins are gone, and we're naked. Success!
Or... is it? We find out that we actually look like hobgoblin women now. All of our equipment is gone, but the women left their dresses for us and two envelopes. We get clothed and read the first envelope, which explains that the wine was spiked (duh) and was mixed with a potion that granted us an illusion spell to make us look like them for at least a day. The women, somehow affiliated with the late Grish, had drank a similar potion to look like us for a bit longer than that and take our places to die in our next match. We were to take their carriage and deliver the letter that Grish had given us. Apparently, people really wanted us to deliver this letter personally and were willing to make enormous sacrifices to get it done. We're grateful to be free, so we decide to go along with it.
We make our way out of the stadium, get into the carriage awaiting us at the entrance, and are on our way. The driver is in on this mission. He tells us that he works for Grish's family, reads but doesn't translate the envelope (jerk!), and tells us that we must deliver it to a specific address. Fine. As we ride through goblinoid lands, we notice a human being dragged in a net by a bugbear and complaining that his beautiful face is being bruised in the process. The good characters in the group feel bad and tell the driver to pay for the purchase of the slave, which he reluctantly does. And so the fighter joins our group. He too was captured and was off to be thrown into the gladiator stadium. He decides it's better to stick with us since if he set foot in this goblinoid territory by himself he'd be just enslaved again. Hooray, the group is complete!
The driver eventually stop at the edge of a forest and tells us this is as far as he can go, also hinting that there's a reason why goblins can't undertake this mission that we've been selected for. We try to ask him some questions but he drives away. The potions wear off around this time and we look like our normals selves again. And so our fearless heroes, one beaten up handsome prisoner and his three cross-dressing accomplices, venture off for their epic adventure!
You Gotta Do Better Than Goblins:Spoiler
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We're at the edge of a forest with nothing but the dresses on our backs. We have an address and nothing else. We assume that we should head in the same direction that the carriage was going before dropping us off, so we start heading in that direction. Days pass with little excitement. We catch some rabbits and want to cook them but then have to debate about whether it's smart to make a smokey fire in middle of goblinoid territory. I suggest that we actually WANT attention, because we can potentially ambush someone who investigates and get him to show us where the hell we're supposed to be going. Fighter (neutral) agrees, crusader (lawful good) and sorcerer (chaotic "good") disagree so we don't do it. It doesn't really matter, because the next night we see a band of goblins pass near our sleeping spot, and then the following day we get ambushed by a different group. They've been sent by the gladiator's administration to bring us back.
Eight of them, four of us. They're armored, we're in dresses and high heels. They didn't have a chance. I even got to use my Step of the Wind stance to catch a fleeing goblin through undergrowth!
By the way: Unarmed Attack + Burning Blade = SHORYUUUUUKEN! :smallcool:
We end up having two hostages -- the one that tried to flee and one that got KO'd. Gear upgrade! I get a small morningstar out of it but the armor is too small to fit any of us. No shadow blade weapons so I'm stuck with +1 to hit and 1d6 damage :(
Epic of Dave:Spoiler
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The battle left us with two hostages: one awake, one KO'd. The awake one speaks Common and can lead us to the address on the envelope. I tell him that if he behaves then we won't harm him. I like this one and we eventually rename him Dave. I revive the other one and ask whether it speaks common. It doesn't seem to, so I punch it in the face to see if I could make it speak normal. It still doesn't, so I knock him out. Dumb goblins.
So, what to do with them? We want to keep the common speaker alive, but the other one seems useless. If we let him live he'll no doubt go back to where he came from and get more troops following us. We can't bind him since we have no rope and taking him with us just isn't worth the risk. He also just tried to kill us, which hurt our feelings if anything. We want to kill him.
Of course, the crusader forbids killing the evil goblin. Lawful dumb ftw! While the sorcerer tries to change his mind, me and the fighter sneak off and kill it. Crusader gets mad but the fighter smooth talks him back to indifference.
I spot Dave sneaking away during the commotion. When I shout at him, he gives me a frightened look and runs through the undergrowth, AGAIN! Not the smartest fellow. I catch him via Step of the Wind stance again and haul his sorry ass back to the group and give him a good scolding. I tell him that if he does it again, I PROMISE to end him in the most painful way imaginable.
We head out again with Dave leading the way (with a morningstar spike in his back). We're eager to make friends with the newbie in our group. But first, we must break him. This is how we named our lil' buddy:
Me: What's your name?
Dave: My name is Rahksu--
Me: -- IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS! *unarmed strike*
Dave: My nose! Why?!
Me: You're a funny goblin. You'll be Dave.
Everyone: "Dave" is a good name!
Dave: Please don't hurt me.
We learn as much as we can about our destination from our new best friend, which sadly isn't much since he's never been there before. Each "city" in these lands are sizeable self-governed hobgoblin kingdoms, each with their own rules and customs. The rules are cruel and strict, but if we keep to them (and find out what they are for that matter), we can walk free amongst the goblinoids, not as full citizens, but better than slaves. Break the rules, however, and we'll be enslaved or killed without hesitation. Sounds like a nice place.
We're not sure how successful our efforts of friendship are, but we try nonetheless. The crusader tries to preach to Dave the goodness of Pelor, I try to beat him senseless until he's my buddy, and the sorcerer randomly offers up his snake familiar for Dave to play with. We're best buds!
Unfortunately, we have an incident on the road to our destination. Dave cracks. He holds the snake familiar in a death grip and then pulls out a knife that he presses against it (we never searched him). He warns us that one wrong move and the snake gets it. Understandably, we're all pretty upset with him at this point. We try talking him down:
Crusader: Dave, you don't have to do this.
Dave: Back off or else the snake gets it!
Fighter: You think I care about that snake? I'm gonna kill it first then I'MA RAPE YOU BITCH!
Somehow our diplomacy isn't working. No matter -- an arrow whizzes by and takes Dave out. 400ft. behind us are humanoids beside horses. Nice snipe!
Initially I assume that these humanoids are friendly, but the hail of arrows quickly convinces us otherwise. Turns out they were five hobgoblins, and these guys were a lot tougher than the goblins we've been knocking around.
This fight is noteworthy because it's the first time that the crusader really showed off his cleric dip. He casts Enlarge Person on himself. At first this seems very impressive -- our tank just got bigger. Then we realized that without any armor or shield, his AC is 10 in this form. And he's a really big target. He gets KO'd fast. The sorcerer eventually goes down to arrow fire too, but me and fighter manage to finish the remaining two hobgoblins and end the fight. Searching the bodies yields wanted posters of us, some silver pieces (keep in mind these are our first coins this entire campaign), and a well-deserved gear upgrade. We have a selection of armor from leather to scale mail and everyone ends up picking up one of the hobgoblin's weapons, which is fairly diverse. I finally find Shadow Hand weapons; a shortsword and a dagger. Back at full offensive capacity! Of course, acquiring horses is pretty baller too!
I go back and get Dave's corpse. I'm furious with the little bugger. We gave him everything and then he goes off and tries to backstab us! Worse yet, I promised him sweet painful agony if he ever crosses us, and then he went ahead and died so I couldn't carry out my promise! I decide that I'm going to bring Dave along to the city and get a cleric to raise him so that I can carry out bloody vengeance. The party disagrees with my idea of bringing a rotting corpse into the city. "Not practical," they say. Party poopers.
With a heavy heart, I leave Dave behind. And thus ends the Epic of Dave. :smallfrown:
Relax! It's Just a Spooky Town:
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We no longer have a guide, but we know that we're already on the main road heading towards the city and pimped out with sweet new horses, so we stick to it. Eventually we spot a village up ahead just as the sun sets. As we enter, we notice that no lights are on and not a soul is stirring on the roads. There's a dreadful silence. The horses get restless. Something feels wrong, but we don't know what. Darkness falls.
It's night and we're tired. We decide to "investigate" the inn first and take a better look around in the morning. Maybe there was a reasonable explanation for everything. We hear faint scurrying sounds now and then, sometimes a flicker of movement in the darkness. Creepy, but we're still sleepy. Adventurers need their beauty sleep. I'm not even sure if there's mechanical penalties to being sleep deprived, but Handsome Dan doesn't want dark circles under his eyes!
We put the horses in an empty stable and then enter the inn. Also empty. We check the keys behind the counter. Rooms 1-6 are empty but 7-14 are taken. We go upstairs and check the empty rooms. The beds aren't made but otherwise they're empty. We check room 7. It's locked. We knock, no response. We hear something move inside and decide to act, breaking down the door. Suddenly, an overwhelming smell of rotting meat assaults us. Inside are dozens of human body parts cut up and placed in stacks on the floor. The window's open. Nothing else is inside. Whatever was here is already gone. Then the sorcerer shouts, "the stables!" Yeah, it'd suck if this thing went and killed our pimp rides. We bolt towards the stables.
Thankfully the horses are safe, but EXTREMELY agitated. It's decided that this place sucks. I hear scurrying movement in front of us while at the same time the crusader hears movement behind us. Not good. We decide to get the hell away from here, sleep somewhere else, and come back in the morning.
At this point the sorcerer's player has to leave and the DM picks up control of him. It's around 10pm and we've ridden out of the village and get a good mile between us and whatever the hell was running around in there. We find a place to "sleep" (we're a bit terrified so it's uneasy resting at best) and the crusader takes first watch. They attack within the second hour.
We're suddenly attacked by a co-ordinated ambush on all sides. Six humanoids with bloody canine teeth and bony decaying frames rush towards us with claws and bites. The crusader and I are hit by their claws and bites during the fight and told to make fort saves, which we both roll miserably on and become paralyzed. The fighter handles the remaining two undead. A couple seconds later we get unfrozen and realize that the sorcerer is gone.
The crusader informs us that those creatures are ghouls (knowledge check) and gives us a quick rundown on them -- possess a feral cunning higher than an average human, eat corpses, can paralyze and transmit ghoul fever with their bite. This news is especially disturbing because both the crusader and I have been bit, meaning the disease might be incubating in both of us. I quickly devise a solution:
Me: Are there any head ghouls?
Crusaders: Yeah, ghasts.
Me: So we just need to put a wooden stake through the ghast's heart and the disease will vanish!
Crusader: That's not right at all.
Me: LET'S DO IT!
Crusader: You're an idiot.
Me: And you're lawful good!
The sorcerer needs to be rescued, if he's still alive that is. Waiting until morning would lower our chances of success. We head out immediately for the village again. Time to slay undead!
We sweep the perimeter of the village first this time. The sounds of scurrying movement and shadows moving in alleyways and rooftops means that we're not alone. We come across a barn with barred windows and a line of zombies standing in front of the closed entrance, ghoul corpses around their feet. Very strange. We find a blacksmith shop that also is barred in but empty and we leave the horses in there. We're ambushed by more ghouls but handle them fairly well. The crusader's turning ability is awfully useful.
The barn looks awfully suspicious so we go back there. We massacre the zombies guarding the entrance mostly because of a wicked turn undead roll by the crusader who stopped a dozen ghouls from ambushing us from behind when we engaged the zombies. We break down the barred door, ready to face the evils inside...
... And see around a dozen civilians cowering in a corner behind an angry cleric. "What are you doing?!"
Oops.
I Am Village:
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The cleric casts Hold Person on the fighter, since he broke down the door. We're about to explain ourselves when he fires a Searing Ray at us, which whizzes past and strikes something behind us. Turning around, we see it -- dozens of ghouls moving towards the entrance. Oh dear.
The crusader tries to turn undead. It sorta works, but isn't enough. Then the cleric steps in and raises his holy symbol -- of Nerull. The ghouls start ripping each other apart and the stragglers are mopped up by the zombies. That's how it's done!
The door gets repaired and we have a chat with this cleric. Apparently the cleric is here to find out why the ghouls are massing in such large numbers here, as it's generally unheard of for ghouls to do this without instruction (too little food and such). He rescued as many civilians as he could but can't leave the barn. The ghouls watch the building at all times, and the moment that he'd leave, they'd swarm inside and kill everyone. So he wants us to play detective. If we help, he promises that he'll cure us of our disease. The fighter needs more persuasion.
Fighter: What's in it for me?
Cleric: If you need incentive, here.
He offers up a gold coin, and when the fighter reaches for it, the cleric casts Contagion on him.
Cleric: There. Now you do this for me or you die a painful death to Slimey Doom disease.
Fighter: Jerk.
We wait until morning, because the ghouls keep to dark places indoors during the daylight. Very "I Am Legend" vibe. When dawn comes we start investigating.
We head over to the Inn. After some stupid decisions on my part that led to ghouls jumping me, we decide to check out the locked cellar. We hear movement down there and muffled cries. Jackpot! We bust down the door and easily dispatch of a couple ghouls down there. We find infected villagers and the sorcerer locked in a room. They're conscious but very weak and look dazed. There's also an altar in the center of the room emiting a cold and dark aura. Atop the altar floats a dark open book, pages slowly flipping of their own accord. Since it's very clearly evil, I try to destroy the book with stabbity death. No dice, it's immune. I close it instead. That works, and the book one-ups me -- it locks itself in its adamantine casing and I can't open it even if I wanted to. The infected villagers now stare at the book in my hands and line up behind me. Weird. We here massive movement upstairs. I guess the ghouls know we're here!
The crusader wants the book so I give it to him. The villagers now follow him. Seconds later, ghouls pour down the staircase. The crusader tries turning them, but instead they cower in horror where they stand. He moves forward but they don't attack. The book's doing it. We head out of the inn, and all the ghouls close to us are cowering in awe. Further away we see a mass exodus of ghouls leaving the buildings and running for the hills. It seems they're afraid of the book now.
We're about to bring back the book to the cleric when I bring up a concern: the cleric is pretty darn EVIL. I mean, his god is friggin' Nerull! Do we want to just hand a book of ultimate evil to him? I don't and the party agrees. Unfortunately, I have to bring up the counter-argument: if we don't hand over the book then all the infected villagers will die. More importantly, I may die. That sucks. The crusader decides (since he's holding the book hurrr) that we'll tell the cleric that we fixed the problem and that he needs to heal us as he promised, but we're not giving him the book. I know that this won't fly but I'd rather not turn into a ghoul, so I agree.
We go to the barn. Sure enough, the cleric decides not to heal us until we give him the book. He lied. We then have a moral dilemna: hand the book over or not? The cleric points out that if we don't hand over the book, the infected ones will turn into ghouls and then kill all the remaining villagers. If we do hand over the book, he promises to heal everyone and be on his way. He says that he's not an evil person, just interested in studying undead, and that the book would be much worse off in an undead's hands than his. On the other hand, we've now established that he's a bit of a liar, though our sense motive checks say that he seems sincere. On the other hand, as he points out, he can probably kill us all on a whim. Darn.
So we hand over the book. He opens it, looks it over, and then hands it to a zombie servant. If I was more good I'd have tried to take it from the zombie and run, but hey, neutral here. True to his word, he spends the next couple of days healing everybody of their disease, then bounces. We call it here.
Session 2 Closing Thoughts:
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I really like how this guy DMs. Plot and direction feel a little wonky sometimes but his delivery is phenomenal. Not too serious, not too casual, good descriptions, good mood. He can wear different NPC hats without any issue of cracking up, something I really struggle with at times when I DM. His improv skill is amazing and fluid.
Forcing us to be so deprived of gear, giving us little nibbles of mundane equipment only to tear it away and force us to fight in dresses and high heels, it raises the challenge in a fun way and makes me really appreciate when we find something valuable. When the cleric held out a gold coin to the fighter, it was the first time that I really appreciated its value. I think all too often we horribly undervalue gold and only think of how many hundred thousand gold pieces is required to purchase our next fancy trinket. Dragon's hill of gold coins? Pfft. It kind of sucked that I spent most of the session gimped without any Shadow Hand weapons, which is a requirement for my weapon focus and Shadow Blade feat, but it made me savor my power boost when I finally got my hands on them again.
I asked the DM if we could've killed the cleric. He said that it was a Cleric6, had minions, and was as wealthy as you'd expect for a level 6. I don't think we would've won.
As for the characters, I'm still loving the swordsage. Stone Bones and Step of the Wind have already earned their spots, while WIS-to-AC means that I'm currently +1 AC higher than anyone else, sitting at 19AC and a bonafide tank (though 15hp is still low). I love the versatility of the class and now have a full understanding of all my abilities, which means I don't slow down combat at all. I've been missing hits waaaay too much though. Level 3's +1 BAB and Weapon Finesse should fix that. Until then I just have to put up with it.
The crusader's change to cleric seems okay. I think he'd be stronger as straight crusader in most cases, but with the campaign's change to heavy undead, having Greater Turning is ridiculously good. I'm very eager to see how he moves the build ahead in the future. Maybe keep switching between the two classes?
Sorcerer still seems fine. He's our only ranged attacker and magic missile is still an MVP spell right now. He hasn't been bothered with fighting naked either. I pointed him to some neat sorcerer spells like Wings of Cover for the future.
Finally, the fighter has been holding his own very well still. He doesn't care for complex things like spells, but he knows how to swing a sword and he's always fast to do things in combat. Power attacking with a greatsword and cleaving keeps him as the most consistently high damage dealer and he also has the highest hp right now. Since he likes keeping things simple, I'm going to suggest to him to try going barbarian for level 3 and beyond. Pounce is simple, rage is simple.
We didn't level yet. Argh. I really want Weapon Finesse. I guess it'll have to wait until next session.
