Exile: World as Dungeon [3.5]

[Telok]

I reduced the Living Spell from Scintillating Pattern to Prismatic Spray, this dropped it's spell level by one, caster level by two, and overall lethality by 20% to 30%. It still killed the psychic warrior outright, drove the artificer insane, and royally screwed the party. See, the rogue lassoed the psi-war's unconscious body (LifeShield reduced to a +3 shield saving his life) and was going to pull it back along the bridge but the sorceress grabbed the rope and yanked sending him and his dropped Okawaru relic mace into the pit. The rogue got him up and used a healing belt on him, but the mace was gone. The sorceress sucked some hits and Con damage by moving and casting within the Living Spell's reach, transferred the damage to her familiar and lost her powers again because that killed it. The artificer's blast rod and a single digit HPs psi-war finally killed it. The artificer's last sanr action was to Inflict Moderate Damage on himself and render himself inert.

Three rounds after the fight (healing belts) the psi-war manifested Ectoplasmic Form and went into the chasm after his mace. Nobody else had the ability or the will to follow. Several hundred feet down he entered the lake on the lower level of the crypt and activated his Spellsight Spectacles, spending five rounds to locate and home in on his mace. This is when the Evolved Vampire Giant Octopus showed up. It missed with it's first attack and the psi-war delayed to let it grapple him so he could Hostile Empathic Transfer (he still had less than half his total HP). Obviously he didn't know that it was undead. Four tentacles hit, he lost eight levels and took 2 to 9 damage each time after the ectoplasmic form's DR. He died, and stayed dead because he has Smite out instead of the LifeShield. Not that it would have done him any good.

In death he took both loot and knowledge away from the party. Here's the list.

Spoiler

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Money: 28,446 Exile dollars, 59,065 gold, 37,285 silver, 18 pounds of adamantite, 8 pounds of gold nuggets.
Poisons: fire elemental essence, 19 shadow essences, 19 black adder venom, 2 vargouille poison, 2 medium spider venom, 4 oil of taggit, one insanity mist, and 2 unidentified giant wasp poison.
Potions: 17 Mage Armor, Swimming, Shield of Faith (+3), Water Breathing, Energy Resistance (fire 10), 8 Lesser Restoration, Remove Paralysis, 5 Cure Moderate, 4 See Invisible, Bear's Endurance.
Armors: +1 Called bronze full plate or Heavy Fortifiaction, LifeShield (heavy +3 Deathward & Revifiy), +3 Called battleplate, half-plate or Displacement & Mindarmor & Speed, Fire Shield (buckler with resist fire 20 and 5 charges a day).
Weapons: Blessed Mace of Okawaru (1/day Spiritual Weapon CL 5, 3/day GMW [+4, 4rounds]), Crystal Bow (stores 5 psionic power points, when fired it will activate Force Screen at ML 5 if Force Screen isn't already up), Blurstrike sai, Bloodstone short sword, Smite (anti-giant minor artifact), large Lucky deepcrystal Goliath greathammer.
Augmentation Crystals: Greater Fiendslayer, 3 Lesser Arrow Deflections, Greater Screening, Greater Lifekeeping.
Other: Boot of Agile Leaping, adamantine hacksaw, 7 Belts of Healing, Ring of the Ram, Toxic Gloves, Cobra Necklace (+2 natural armor and poison related d20 rolls and casts Neutralize Poison once a day), Spellsight Spectacles, Eternal Wand of Ebon Eyes, maps, letter of Mayoral favor (pass into the Castle to see the king), Glow Globe (like a runestaff for light spells), Dragon Tooth Knife (non-magic 1d4+5 base damage and 20 x3 criticals), Piercing Crystal (CL 20 Dispel Magic Barrier/Wall).

He's been looting dead party members and hoarding stuff (even worse he wasn't using it!). Now it's lost.

The remaining two members argued and fought and got lost (the psi-war had the compass and maps, plus they couldn't remember which way they came until I relented and had them roll Int checks) for a week before they got back to Fort Emerald. They waited four days for a supply wagon going back to the Castle (forty miles by road at 1/3rd normal speed and they couldn't get in without a letter of recommendation from a city mayor or fort commander), then they bought a hand cart and hoofed it through Almaria to the Tower of the Magi. It was November 20th by the time they got the artificer healed and restored. Then they went to Mertis to visit the psi-war's friend, the original gnome sorcerer. That sorcerer is now a 6 HD centaur sorcerer due do deaths and reincarnations, so he's retired. This was a good time to bring in replacements so I decided he was running an adventurer's half-way house. Two adventurers were recruited and the gnome-turned-centaur offered to help the party if they brought back the psychic warrior's body.

The new recruits are a spellthief/wizard/human paragon/unseen seer/something else build with Master Spellthief, the Acid Splatter reserve feat, who has Sniper's Shot and Listening Lorecall memorized and a Dread Necromancer 8/Devotee of Kikubaaqudgha 2 (human). The spellthief is from the player of the psi-war, since he was our DM for years before this campaign started and this character isn't an arrogant bastard (his description) he's going to play it smart. I have high hopes for this to curb the constant meatgrinder that this game has become because of the total lack of character I.Q. and self preservation instincts. He's also the only person in the group with access to darkvision now. The DN on the other hand... It's the gnome sorcerer all over again only with necromancy. Devotee of Kikubaaqudgha requires sacrifices of people with character levels three times a year (May 23rd, Aug 26th, Nov 2nd) and every time you go up a level. The sacrifices must be performed at a consecrated altar and there's a DC 15 Kn:Religion check to correctly pronounce the god's name. It does have d10 HD and full BAB, 3/5 casting advancement, and a few nice necro goodies. It's also going to be a problem for him because there are laws against undead (not against necromancy, against undead) in Exile. Still, if he makes it three more levels the Erinye Death Knight is a fun bonus.

Everyone is human now except for the warforged artificer. He promptly took command and decreed a test dungeon to get everyone used to each other. The nearest thing was for them to go into the Honeycomb and look for the lair of Athron, which they proceeded to do. Since they didn't have the psi-war's partial map of the Honeycomb maze it took them almost a week to find the place. They have currently performed mostly badly against five fire drakes (half Int standard salamanders with a non-reach bite) encountered singly or in pairs. The rogue used the Imperial Crystal Ball in combat (don't ask) and flubbed the password (naturally, they gave those coded documents to the commander of Fort Emerald last month) which resulted in a Babau showing up in the middle of combat. Luckily the rogue had evasion and the artificer had fire resistance because the sorceress used four fireballs to kill it.

We had to stop there. There's still a few light defenses and a Wall of Force before they meet Athron, who I have to stat up now because they may be stupid enough to attack her. It's the 27th of November now, people bitten by salamanders include the spellthief (once, but he got a double sneak attack out of it), rogue (thrice, and he's supposed to be ranged), artificer (once), the DN's medium earth necromental cohort (five times), and the sorceresses fire mephit familiar (twice). Tactics. Need. Work.

Edit: To illustrate the loss of knowledge and maps thier "mapping update" that I do has gone from this

to this