A Swordsage's Journal: The Gladiator Arena

[true_shinken]

No, cause that's STILL wrong.

Lets say you're asked to steal a package. Said package is being held by someone who doesn't want to give it up, obviously. The person who's asking you to do it is a rebel against a corrupt and tyrannical government, but is no better than the government. Now, there's no Good way to deal with this. Because every angle is bad. The best way is to go with the Lawful way and intentionally sabotage the rebellion.

There is always a good way to deal with stuff. And this whole thing is about money, anyway. Don't pretend it isn't.

[NineThePuma]

Yeah. I'm pointing out that for the crusader, there's no way to be Good in this scenario. It's an Evil vs Evil vs Neutral.

[true_shinken]

Yeah. I'm pointing out that for the crusader, there's no way to be Good in this scenario. It's an Evil vs Evil vs Neutral.

There are many ways to be good in this scenario. Why does he have to join one of the sides? He could start his own group.

[Dralnu]

Suppose two of your friends want to play Pro Evolution Soccer. You don't - you want to play Street Fighter IV. So your friends beat you until you faint. Would you find that acceptable? Would you say that's a reasonable course of action?

I love this analogy, it actually made me laugh out loud. My last post was just a joke by the way. It was a pretty evilish act. I'm sure I'd hit the evil alignment eventually if I keep this up. Also yeah, the crusader doesn't have to be over the top good, but I think that's just how he wants to play the character. It's all in good fun.

[Corrik]

Interesting read, can't wait for the next entry.

[Hazzardevil]

I actually quite like this. Also does teh crusader know about teh RKV? you could ask the DM to allow it for Pelor and see how it goes.

Intriguing plot, I must find a DM willing to use this sort of plot.

[Grendus]

I actually quite like this. Also does teh crusader know about teh RKV? you could ask the DM to allow it for Pelor and see how it goes.

Intriguing plot, I must find a DM willing to use this sort of plot.

I was actually thinking the same thing. Except for the deity requirement, it's a great divine/initiator hybrid class that would be a good fit for him.

Edit: but you misspelled it, it's RNW. Ruby Knight "Win"dicator.

[Hazzardevil]

What actually happended to this?

[Beowulf DW]

I love this analogy, it actually made me laugh out loud. My last post was just a joke by the way. It was a pretty evilish act. I'm sure I'd hit the evil alignment eventually if I keep this up. Also yeah, the crusader doesn't have to be over the top good, but I think that's just how he wants to play the character. It's all in good fun.

Just a question, then: Why did you call your character neutral in the first place?
All you've really done is evil. You don't even seem to be role-playing a descent from neutral to evil. You hit the evil ground running (evilly)...(is that even a word?).

[Dralnu]

What actually happended to this?

Everyone just got busy. Some of us ended up playing two sessions of my evil campaign located in my sig. We don't play D&D that often, it's usually once every couple of months. The summer time is when we crank out more sessions though.

Next session is scheduled this sunday!

Just a question, then: Why did you call your character neutral in the first place?
All you've really done is evil. You don't even seem to be role-playing a descent from neutral to evil. You hit the evil ground running (evilly)...(is that even a word?).

It wasn't my intention to play him straight-up evil. If I have done so then, well, my bad. I honestly don't mind crossing out "neutral" and writing "evil" on my sheet. I'd still play him the same way.


EDIT: AND WE'RE GOING TO LEVEL UP!

I'll try and see if my DM will let me take the sleeping tiger monk variant so I can eventually take Mo9 at level 8 (or can I get into it at level 7?). I don't care that it's a little "unoptimized," it looks fun in an Avatar style ass-kickery way.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Your character doesn't seem evil yet, but he's definitely borderline. If you continue having him act like this, then he will be evil.

[Dralnu]

Session 4:

Re-introducing:

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Up until this point, I have been referring to the PCs by their mundane classes. Fighter did this, Sorcerer said that. But this hardly does justice to the epicness that are the PCs, whose personalities and names demand to be shouted in the halls of legends. From now on, I shall be referring to the PCs by their names instead of generic class labels. I present to you:

Garth Bolstrum: Human Swordsage. Neutral, borderline evil. Likes to stab things with daggers and get paid for it. Stealthy and a good scout. Dabbles in all martial schools but favors Shadow Blade.

Handsome Dan: Human Fighter. Neutral. His character sheet describes his Skin: Bronzed and Hair: Majestic. Woo's any humanoid and beast he comes across with his staggering charm. Also likes to stab things with swords and get paid for it. Tanky and primary damage dealer.

Teddy Derwin: Human Crusader/Cleric. Lawful Good. Loyal servant of Pelor. Hates evil things and anything that goes against his moral code. Primary support and tank, able to heal like a mothertrucker both in and out of combat.

Fylo Goodleaf: Halfling Sorcerer. Lawful Good. Dislikes non-good things, but not to the same degree as Teddy. Primary blaster with a side helping of more blasting.

As you may notice, there's a small divide in the party. The good PCs have some degree of distrust of the neutrals and there's some arguments of the next course of action (which the good side usually wins). But when our backs are against the wall, we somehow find a way to be united and get the job done.

When We Level:

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After over two months hiatus, another session was announced. The DM also told us to bring our character sheets along with a level 3 sheet of our characters, as we would be leveling up during the session and he didn't want us to waste lots of time leveling up.

Suffice to say I was overjoyed at the idea of hitting level 3. Finally being allowed to take Weapon Finesse would shoot my craptastic +2 attack bonus up to +6 so I could actually hit things. I asked the DM if I could spontaneously dip into Monk after all those naked combats but he said that to take a level in monk I'd need someone to teach me the ways. I ended up sticking with Swordsage and taking Flashing Sun as my new maneuver.

Handsome Dan took a feat that lets him use his CHA to Will saves. This choice meshes well with his Distracting Blow feat. Now, not only will his enemies be distracted by his rugged good looks each time he attacks, but spellcasters will also be unable to charm such a charming man. I suggested Dan take Improved Sunder to lead him to some good Tactical Feats for level 6, but with no guarantees of even hitting that level he had none of it.

Teddy decided to continue advancing his Cleric levels, which is a solid choice considering how much undead we've been facing. Not only that, but it offers more support potential for the group, something we completely depend on in order to not wipe during every single combat encounter. Not sure of his feat choice.

Fylo had some trouble deciding on a feat and spell to take. He's too low level to make use of metamagic feats and the PHB is pretty dry on other sorcerer feats to take. I think he settled on Spell Focus and picked up his first AOE, Burning Hands.

Remember, we're not level 3 yet. Now, on to the session!

A Good Start:

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The hobgoblin wizard gave us some nice provisions for our quest. Dan now wields and +1 sword, I believe Teddy has a +1 full plate, and we all now wear a ring of protection +1 and have four healing potions on us. I was given a map of the area and a magical compass that points to our destination, which I use to lead the way.

As we approach our destination, however, we notice that all the villages within miles of the necromancer's cave have been burned to the ground and the residents have all vanished, with signs of things being dragged away. Continuing onward, we come across an ogre zombie hauling a large wagon filled with bodies. Obviously the necromancer has been busy since we've last seen him. We decide to follow the zombie and see where it goes. Sure enough, it leads us to our destination, a cave situated on a hill.

Guarding the entrance of the cave is a skeletal giant that I identify as an skeletal Ettin. It's a bit intimidating to take head-on, especially after those embarrassing bugbear fights. We instead decide to jump the ogre zombie heading out of the cave with an empty wagon. Teddy and Fylo wish to stop it from harming any more innocents. Dan and I wish to stab (in this case, slash) stuff.

We follow the zombie down the path and out of sight of the cave and then jump it. Teddy runs in first and attacks it, with me going in second. I attempt to tumble in and strike, but stumble and fail (+8!) and the zombie fractures my skull with its morningstar, dropping me into negatives. It then turns around and smacks Teddy silly, knocking him to an inch of consciousness so he decides to play dead. Dan and Fylo watch the massacre from the nearby bushes and decide not to engage. After the zombie defends itself, it leaves us alone and returns to its mission. We regroup and patch up our wounds, but the Heal check DC for our pride is too high.

"Scouting":

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After that disastrous attempt at taking on a lowly zombie minion, we decide the giant skeletal ettin may be a little too much to fight head-on. I have a devious plan:

Garth: How about we build a giant pit and lure the ettin into it?
Fylo: How will we dig a giant pit?
Garth: I have an umber hulk mandible, we can use it as an improvised shovel.
Teddy: That would take forever.
Garth: But zombies and skeletons are clumsy and can't climb! They can't even climb stairs.
DM: That's cows.
Fylo: Did you just confuse zombies with cows?
Garth: ...
Dan: You're a real space cadet, aren't you, Garth?

Teddy comes up with a different plan. He can cast Hide From Undead on two people. That way we can scout out the place while avoiding any disastrous confrontations. Teddy decides to cast it on himself and Fylo and they head in, while Dan and I start hunting boars.

Teddy and Fylo survey the layout of the cave. The place is pitch-dark, so they cast Light on their holy symbols and proceed forward. An initial tunnel winds its way deep underground, then splits in a three-way intersection with passage with a door ahead and two paths leading left and right. The place is bustling with zombie ogres, either pulling full carts of bodies or empty ones. The duo head down the left passage and end up in a room where carts are being unloaded and bodies are being handled by zombie bugbears, stripping them of gear and preparing them for animation. They then head into the right passage and find two ghouls, who quickly notice the Light and then notice the intruders. Teddy quickly raises his holy symbol and turns them, and then both the ghouls and our heroes run screaming in opposite directions!

Meanwhile, Dan and I have caught a boar and have begun roasting it. I turned its head into a stylish hat. But our delicious meal is interrupted when Teddy and Fylo return. After telling us what happened, we decide that we've lost the element of surprise and should instead gather up to full strength and try entering the cave tommorrow. We run away to find a safe place to rest for the night. We notice some zombie patrols during the night but none find our hiding spot.

When A Halfling Cries:

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We go back to the cave the next day, dispatching of a zombie patrol along the way. We employ a tried and true videogame tactic on the ettin skeleton: leashing. Teddy gets the skeleton's attention as the rest of us hide nearby. As the skeleton chases Teddy, we sneak into the cave, then Teddy casts Hide From Undead to lose the skeleton and meet up with us inside. It works without any problems. This is the first and probably the last time we successfully execute a plan! Huzzah!

Teddy casts Light on a rock and we proceed onward. As we turn into the intersection, a ghoul spots us, shrieking and running into the left passage. We give chase and Fylo hears a low grinding sound as we run. We end up in the room with the two bugbear zombies that completely ignore us as they work. No sign of the ghouls. We search the place for a hidden doorway, but no luck. We leave the bugbear zombies alone and go back to the intersection, deciding to go through the previously unexplored doorway.

Inside is a storage room filled with tools and mundane equipment that was likely removed from the collected bodies. We don't have time to search the place, however, because suddenly we hear the necromancer's booming voice commanding his undead to destroy us. Seconds later, there's the moans and movement of dozens of undead rushing towards us. We decide to close the door...

Seems they found us though, as the door starts getting bashed on. We hold it with our combined strength, but we're sitting ducks in this room. We formulate a plan. We probably cannot take the legions of undead all at once, but if we fight at the doorway, we can bottleneck them in the narrow tunnel and kill them off one by one. True Spartan stuff right here!

Okay, so we have a plan. We hold the doorway and kill them off in the bottleneck. Ok! We open the door and Fylo shoots a blast of Disrupt Undead and runs to the back wall. Yeah! The first zombie coming down the tunnel rushes straight for the halfling, and the DM asks who is taking attacks of opportunity. All of us, of course! We all attack it as it charges past us into the room and kill it before it can attack our sorcerer. YEEEEEEAH!

...

Wait, what?

So, remember that plan about blocking off the doorway to make a bottleneck? You know, the tactically smart choice when facing a swarm of undead? Yeah, we all got caught up with the idea of AoO's that we decided to line up beside the door as the first zombie ran in. By the time we realized our mistake, it was too late. The room was filled with undead! And they're all gunning for the halfling first because he's in clear view. Aaaand he forgot to cast Mage Armor.

At this point the halfling is weeping. That, or bleeding from his eyeballs due to the brutal undead lynching. Whichever.

This Could Get Messy:

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So now we're being attacked by two dozen undead: mostly zombies, some skeletons, and even two ghouls for funsies. The room is literally covered with them. The halfling and I are fighting side by side with our backs against the wall, while Teddy and Dan are lost in a sea of undead somewhere else in the room. Fylo summons his mage armor and starts blasting the undead, but he's taking hits that he simply cannot afford. I'm fighting the skeletons surrounding me with a morningstar, but with my piddly +1 attack bonus and my abysmal rolling I simply cannot land more than three hits the entire battle against their 14 AC. Teddy attempted to turn the tide with some greater undead turning, but I guess Pelor doesn't pay much attention to level 1 clerics because it. Never. Worked. He did, however, save us all from certain doom with his clutch crusader healing abilities. But special shout out goes to Dan in this fight. Never has Power Attack and Cleave looked so damn good. Even going sword and board (legions of undead, remember) he was still clearing at least half of the enemies by himself.

Things aren't looking good as the battle rages on. Despite our comfortably high AC's, we're still getting hits just from the sheer number of undead claws and bites flying at us. We're all battered, but poor Fylo gets it the worst. A brutal swing knocks him to -9HP as we hear the halfling scream. Teddy tries to heal him with Martial Spirit + Crusader Strike but misses his hit. Uh oh.

Understanding that his ally is in serious trouble, Dan saunters into action, taking 6 AoO's from the zombies surrounding the dying sorcerer in order to enter his square and pour a healing potion in Fylo's mouth. The first three miss as the DM mentions he'd need a 19 just to currently hit the fighter. Then he rolls for the potion pouring. He raises the DM screen.

19, 19, 20.

With Dan almost dead already, this looks really bad. Then comes the damage.

1. 2. 1.

DAN LIVES!!!!

The fight keeps going. Fylo regains consciousness from Teddy's crusader healing and busts out a dagger. He hacks away at a zombie. FYLO THE WARRIOR! Unfortunately, doing so provokes zombie wrath and he promptly gets dropped to negatives. This happens at least two more times during the fight.

Eventually we kill off all the undead, including the two ghouls. As the dust settles, I'm the only one who isn't teetering on the brink of death. We use up all our potions.

The place is silent. Phew. We calmly collect some mundane gear from the storage room; shovels, pickaxes, longswords, etc. We then set out to find that jerk necromancer that tried to kill us. We thoroughly search the entire cave but there was nothing. We're convinced that there has to be a secret door somewhere, but our highest Search is a +1 and we simply cannot find it by conventional means. So we turn to the unconventional. We start breaking crap and scraping the walls until eventually we find a secret door hidden in the wall of a hallway.

MVP Familiar:

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We dig a hole under the doorway big enough for a halfling and Fylo goes through into a 20ft. wide pitch-black hallway on the other side. With some lights, he spots two heavily armed zombies. They also spot him. They stumble forward and the sorcerer hurries his ass back through the hole. The secret door grinds open.

Out of spells and battered, we still charge in for a fight. I flip over the zombies for a flanking position and we start wailing on them. Unfortunately for me, my positioning makes me the first clear target for the necromancer, who runs into the hallway screaming random gibberish about "The Book" and firing a Searing Ray right at me that luckily goes wide. I decide to engage him head-on while the rest of my party deals with the zombies. After missing two attacks on the full-plated cleric and narrowly dodging another ray and a hand glowing with dark negative energy, I decide maybe solo'ing this guy isn't the wisest idea and retreat to the back of my group.

The zombies go down along and we're left with a very angry cleric of Nerull. Like, a few screws loose type of angry. We get some hits in before he moves forward, casting a spell that explodes in a burst of intense sound that paralyzes both me and Teddy and knocks out Dan. The only one who can still fight is Fylo, who has no more spells and has backed away to a safe distance. The cleric moves up to kill me, when suddenly a dagger flies past and cuts his cheek. Flyo proves that EVEN A GOD CAN BLEED!

Angered, the bloodied necromancer rushes after Fylo and fires off another burst of sound but the sorcerer covers his ears in time. In utter desperation, Fylo charges with a dagger. Not only that, but he also flings his tiny viper named Eddie (of "Epic of Dave" fame) into a charge as well, knowing every little thing counts now. And both hit! Fylo stabs the cleric's kneecap while the viper latches onto his forehead!

Now, despite being tiny, Eddie is still a viper. Thus, his venom is still very potent if you fail your save. The DM rolls the cleric's save.

1.

He takes 3 CON damage. With a viper still latched to his forehead and injecting venom, the CLERIC MOTHERTRUCKIN' DROPS! Yeah, seriously. That just happened. Next time you forget to use your familiar, remember this.

Since the necromancer is going to die to poison/bleeding any moment and we need some immediate healing or else our crusader will drop, Teddy smashes in his skull for some sweet divine invigoration. Pelor 1, Nerull 0.

We quickly find the Book of the Dead after that, get some loots but not much, and leave the cave. As we step into the daylight, we feel a sense of accomplishment and experience. WE GAIN A NEW LEVEL! Woo! We eagerly swap to our new level 3 character sheets.

To The Mines Of:

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We start heading out when our wizard employer scries on us and tells us to wait for one of his messengers. Sure enough, a hobgoblin rider eventually shows up. He likes to withhold information, including his name, so we call him Bob.

Bob tells us that the wizard is pleased with our progress but we need to accomplish two more tasks: acquiring diamonds and a piece of the dead hobgoblin prince. The map and magical compass will lead us to both destinations. Bob takes the Book from us and then produces a box with an evil spider. He says that one of us must be the carrier of the spider and warns that it will be rather unpleasant. I look at it and pet it. It looks back at me with an "expression" as if it's looking down at me as its lesser. I think it's cute, so I take it and call it Whiskers. Bob then places a ring with three gems into the box and the spider "wears" the ring. Whiskers is blinging up! Later that night we find out that Whiskers is a bonafide spellcaster, as he cast a Message spell after doing a little spider dance. Smart lil' guy!

We decide to go to the mines of somethingorother since it's closer than the gladiator arena and we can get diamonds there. With my knowledge of the area, I know that the mines are under the control of a stone giant named Lax, who has slaves work the mines for him. This is the same place that Teddy sent the villagers to for shelter at an ancient temple of Pelor. We head out in that direction.

We eventually reach the mines and meet with this Lax fellow. We do some smalltalk and he tells us that business is in trouble lately because his mining tools are getting worn out and the nearby villages that he used to trade with for his supplies have recently been burned down, its inhabitants either gone or sought refuge in his town and "work for him" now. We explain that the culprit of this was a jerk necromancer and we crushed his skull in for it. Lax likes us now.

We tell him what we want. Five diamonds. When he asks what type, the spider crawls out of its box, picks up a pen, and writes down the order. Four "regular" diamonds and one specific, more expensive diamond. We're all a little surprised. What a smart lil' guy! We talk some business. Since we have no money, we decide to pay with services. Lax could solve his equipment problem by setting up his own smithy with his new dwarf "workers." I'm a highly accomplished smithy myself, so I can oversee the entire operation and teach them what to do. We settle down in the area for a while so I can do just that and lax pays us four regular diamonds for the effort.

Lax tells us he will give us the last, special diamond if we can do something else for him. Apparently his nephew, Edwin, was fooling around and got caught by bugbear slaves and is now in the gladiatorial arena that we used to be in. The stone giant doesn't care about Edwin, but the wife nags and nags about it. If we can rescue the adolescent stone giant, he'll give us the diamond. We agree, and off we go!

Like The Italian Job:

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As we journey to where our adventures began, the wizard scries on us and tells us once more to wait for Bob the messenger. Bob meets up with us again and asks for our diamonds. He takes them and uses some magic to turn them into diamond dust. He produces four potions and puts the dust in each of them. The spider gets in on the funky action too, leaving his box once more to do a little dance that changes the color of the potions and causes one of the three gems in the ring he wears to disappear. Odd.

Bob tells us to drink the potions. Since he refuses to give any other information and we kinda have to, we drink it. Nothing happens. Bob journeys with us to the arena.

That night, I have a horrible dream of bugs chasing and stinging me. I wake up and notice there's a gaping swollen hole in my leg and friggin' Whiskers is squirming around inside. Bad Whiskers! I thought he was cool but now he's invading my personal space. I pull out a dagger and want to cut him out, but the group thinks that annoying the magical spider may be a bad idea. I put the dagger to Bob's neck and demand some information, but he laughs and said I knew what I was getting into. True enough, but I warn him if I get harmed during this mission, he's getting dead. He agrees. So we leave it alone for now, though I'm not happy about it at all.

Bob leads us to some catacombs that goes underneath the gladiator arena. We go deeper and deeper until the hobgoblin tells us that what we need lies straight ahead, and he'll keep watch outside. We move forward in the darkness until we hear iron gates slamming down behind us. Trapped. Almost like someone knows we're here. We keep moving forward to another set of iron gates that open for us. Yeah, someone knows we're here.

We go through the gate, through a tunnel, and into the daylight. The place is awfully familiar. Then, in a booming voice, an announcer shouts, "Brought back from the dead for your entertainment, team GarthTeddyFylo and an extra!" The crowd roars.

As Fylo points out, we've been set up. Crap.

And the announcer continues, "And in the other corner, a stone giant that only needs one more victory to win his freedom, Edwin!"

Double crap.

Don't Fear The Reaper:

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The good-aligned PCs try to talk Edwin out of fighting. After all, we ideally want to rescue this kid. Edwin ignores us and hurls a boulder our way. With diplomacy not working, we move to attack.

Fylo starts things off with his new and improved magic missiles. Edwin retorts by throwing a boulder at the halfling that instantly kills him. Craaaaaaap!

We rush in and start wailing on the young stone giant, but his formidable defense (23 AC!) is quite daunting and I miss my first attacks. He quickly drops Handsome Dan next. Teddy hits him with Vanguard Strike, giving me the clear to go nova on him. I try my Burning Blade + Flashing Sun combo and roll a 1 and a 11, just barely hitting him with one attack but still dealing a nice 17 damage. He responds by crushing my skull in with his fist, and proceeds to do the same to Teddy. Fail.

As all fades to black, we hear the crowd cheer as the announcer shouts that Edwin has earned his freedom.

But that's not the end for us. We suddenly wake up in a room, naked on top of a heap of bodies. To add to our confusion, the spider crawls out of my leg and tells us in Common, "Well done."

End scene.

Closing Thoughts:

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The potion we drank was a delayed Raise Dead spell. So we're back to level 2.



Very clever, clearly planned. My DM side loves it. My player side is still somewhat annoyed. I really hate being stuck at +2 attack bonus and don't like the idea of having to put up with more sessions of being a waste of space in fights.

On the whole, I thought this session was awesome and filled with crazy moments. The fact that a lowly familiar took down a high level cleric is just amazing. Had lots of fun.

Teddy is rocking. We simply could not have lived through any of those fights without his healing. Crusader is very potent, and cleric is unquestionably great. Dan is dashing. Naysay Fighter all you want, but right here Power Attack + Cleave is dealing the vast majority of damage in every fight and he's connecting with his hits too. Fylo is our only ranged damage dealer and the only one who can guarantee damage as well. Disrupt Undead is an MVP cantrip here. I think he can find a solid niche in AOE damage, something we desperately need in this massive fights. As for me, I feel pretty much useless at these levels. I'm rolling horribly bad the past two sessions, but in general a +2 to hit is just awful. I'm relying on Shadow Blade Technique and Sapphire Nightmare Blade just to hit things, then I'm basically out of maneuvers and have to waste an entire round doing nothing to recover them. It's pretty bad, especially in these very long type of fights. I'm hoping it gets better.

I'll have to rethink my maneuver choice for next level. Flashing Sun is basically a bad Wolf Fang Strike for me. I might take Hatchling's Flame instead. Swarms of zombies beg for some decent AOE ability.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Let's see, is there anything in my campaign this cool?

Oh yeah, once, we fought a bunch of sky pirates on an out of control falling airship. One of the party members made Molotov cocktails and used them against the pirates.

That's about it.

[Torvon]

Cheers. Still reading your updates eagerly :)

[Dralnu]

Glad you guys enjoy reading it! When I was finished writing it up I was afraid I wrote too much.

I got two ToB questions if anyone's familiar with the mechanics:
1) Are stances still active when paralyzed?
2) Flashing Sun, a level 2 desert wind maneuver, looks way worse than Wolf Fang Strike, a level 1 tiger maneuver, for a swordsage (the only one who can take it anyway). One's a full round action and one's a standard action for basically the same effect. Am I missing anything?

[Lateral]

Yeah, you're missing something- Desert Wind sucks.

[true_shinken]

Glad you guys enjoy reading it! When I was finished writing it up I was afraid I wrote too much.

I got two ToB questions if anyone's familiar with the mechanics:
1) Are stances still active when paralyzed?
2) Flashing Sun, a level 2 desert wind maneuver, looks way worse than Wolf Fang Strike, a level 1 tiger maneuver, for a swordsage (the only one who can take it anyway). One's a full round action and one's a standard action for basically the same effect. Am I missing anything?

Flashing Sun is a lot better later on. At level 2, Wolf Fang Strike is just better. At level 8, with full TWF feat, Flashing Sun allows for 5 attacks. Huge difference.

Flashing Sun is flurry in maneuver form. Take it if you have enough bonus damage.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Yeah, you're missing something- Desert Wind sucks.

Are you kidding? Burning brand gives you reach, and burning blade and searing blade scale with level.

[true_shinken]

Are you kidding? Burning brand gives you reach, and burning blade and searing blade scale with level.

Leaping Flame is a good counter as well.

[El Dorado]

Very cool. Thanks for the update.

[Mayhem]

Great Journal

[Dralnu]

Session 5

And We're Back!

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So we just got brutally murdered and resurrected, naked on a pile of corpses, with a talking spider climbing out of my leg and congratulating us. After spending a moment to take this all in, I go for the logical course of action.

I try to squish the damned spider.

Unfortunately, my recent resurrection has left my dizzy and I end up tripping over myself instead. The spider ignores me and transforms into the hobgoblin wizard that sent us on this task: dear old Whatshisface. He continues to praise our efforts, which has convinced everyone in the world of our demise and has allowed WHF to bypass all security and enter this area, whatever this is. The old guy is in a really good mood. He produces a table from a magical bag and begins setting up alchemical equipment on it, along with the Book of the Dead, all while muttering how the plan is nearly complete "after all these years" and other senile gibberish.

I help him set up, to make up for the fact that I just tried to kill the high level wizard and everything. We're almost done setting up when he turns and fires a lightning bolt at Fylo, which narrowly whizzes over the halfling's short head and incinerates some strange beast that was shambling over to us. The wizard tells us that these are beasts that eat the corpses piled in these rooms, sort of like walking recycling bins. With a smirk, he then tosses the three-gem ring (now with only one gem left) that he was previously wearing in our direction, announcing that he has fulfilled his end of the magical contract that binds us.

Of course, since the ring is shiny, we all jump to catch it. With my boss reflexes, I'm clearly going to catch it -- but Dan, annoyed with his gorgeous yet slow body, decides instead to punch me in the face to knock me off balance, because, "If I can't have it, no one will!" It takes the handsome thug a moment to realize the ineffectiveness of his action, as Fylo easily catches the ring instead and begins conversing (aka plotting) with Teddy in Elven as usual so that us neutrals can't listen to what they're saying. Dan and I reconcile, realizing that we must band together or be stuck as third wheels to the goodies in our party.

WHF's tolerance of our presence ends the moment he's done setting up his little lab. He bids us farewell, telling us that if we stick around any longer he'll simply dispose of us. We leave, but I decide to be an idiot and stay a little longer to make sure he's all set up. I eat a lightning bolt on the way back to my group for it. The blast instantly knocked me unconscious. Had I not made my save, I would've been instantly killed. Woops! With no holy symbol to channel his spells, Tedy can seal my wounds but not revive me, so he picks me up and we leave in a hurry.

Even Climbing Rope Is A Struggle:

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I would've skipped this part had it not been a classic proof that even the most trivial obstacles are epic challenges for our dear heroes. You'll see what I mean.

After stumbling naked through some poorly lit halls we see another pit filled with corpses. Natural sunlight pours down into the pit from above, signalling a way out but also revealing one of the creatures the wizard had killed earlier. The large unnatural beast had no eyes but observed its surrounding by moving two barbed tentacles around, aiming them like sensory organs as it happily munched on corpses. As we approached, it stopped eating and aimed one of the tentacles in our direction, which prompted us to halt and watch it watch us. The DM did an hilarious impression of this creature, holding a "barbed tentacle" up as it cautiously continued to eat. I honestly didn't even want to act because the scene was too priceless.

Eventually Dan was the one to act, moving forward and trying to intimidate it. The creature, somewhat nervous, tried to intimidate back, but ended up just flailing around corpses in a comical manner. We were still in a standoff though, nobody wanting to move any further. But suddenly Dan has another idea! TWO IN ONE ENCOUNTER! He picks up a corpse's dismembered arm and tosses it down the hall, which the beast merrily chases after like a dog chasing a ball. We take the opportunity to make a dash for the pit and look up at the light, where lo and behold, Bob leans over the edge looking back down. He throws down a rope and we try to climb up as fast as possible. Dan goes first and begins climbing with great speed and finesse, but Fylo isn't so lucky; the poor guy loses his grip halfway to the top, fails to catch himself, and falls all the way down into the pit, knocked unconscious! I think he's setting a new record for number of blackouts per level. The beast starts running back in our direction.

Teddy springs to action. The cleric uses a spell to enlarge himself and saying a quick prayer/apology to Pelor, he launches another corpse at the beast to keep it busy, picks up the little sorcerer, and granny tosses him up to Dan before dismissing the spell and climbing the rope with me over his shoulder.

Us heroes climb out of the pit, naked and tired, into the sunlight of the outdoors. Through trials and tribulations, we managed to overcome the great task of climbing a rope out of the pit. The fulfilling experience has left us with a sense of accomplishment. Bob then asks us if we got a piece of Grish's body, which was the point of entering the pit.

...

Screw it, we level anyway. LEVEL 3 BABY!

Progress:

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Bob is not happy with our mission report. We were supposed to retrieve Grish's body, though he admits that we'd have no way of locating the body amongst the thousands down there anyway. He has no clue what the wizard meant by him "fulfilling his obligation" and sees his actions as treachery, but can't do anything about it because he knows the wizard can kill us all. Still, we have a job to do:

1) Retrieve the Book of the Dead Complete(?)
2) Get a special diamond from Lax, the stone giant who owns a diamond mine
3) Retrieve a piece of Grish's body

Well, at least we "saved" Lax's nephew, so that diamond is as good as ours. We head back towards the mines with Bob accompanying us to help fulfill the mission. He gives us some crumpled clothes so we don't prance around naked and a couple weapons. Hooray!

We learn more about Bob on the way. Apparently his real name is Pricks. How fitting.

Pricks tells us more about why he's on this mission. Grish was next in line to be the ruler of his hobgoblin tribe. One day, Grish had a vision that he would be killed and then restored to life. He wanted his followers to carry out the resurrection. Pricks clearly isn't in charge of this mission but merely a loyal follower. The wizard, WHF, was paid to help accomplish the tribe's goals but seems to have decided to do his own thing. Pricks is also very suspicious of all the events that led to this point. Someone from the tribe must have betrayed Grish to his rivals and orchestrated his enslavement and death in the arena. Even our breakouts from the arena and subsequent missions were not supervised by anyone that Pricks personally knew. The whole thing sounds like a conspiracy theory. Adventurer translation? Whatever, let's kill stuff for loot.

Goblins ambush use on the road, which was surprising because we presumed that everyone, including the arena administration this time, would think (correctly) that we had died. We dispatch them quickly, taking their weapons and armor. Pricks searches their body and finds a Wanted scroll with his ugly mug on it. It turns out that he's the one being hunted now. If he was annoyed before, now he's furious. He's certain that a traitor is trying to get rid of him because he knows too much. Personally, I would LOVE to get rid of him, as I still had a promise to fulfill from the previous session and him accidentally crit'ing me with an arrow in the fight didn't soften my view of that Pricks. For the record, each night watch I contemplated murdering that damned Pricks, but I figured that Pricks might still be useful in our travels and can be disposed of when that use runs out. It'll make the painful murdering all the sweeter.

A few more day's travel brings us back to Lax's mines. The giant is incredibly grateful for returning Edwin and thus stopping his wife's nagging. He gives us the diamond we wanted, this huge honking gem the size of the halfling's head. Teddy uses some diplomacy while the giant is still in a good mood, trying to get the "workers" he previously sent this way (the villagers from the ghoul encounter) freed, but his Diplomacy 1 rolls basically amounts to "Aaaaaaaaay!" and ends up insulting the wealthy and powerful slavedriver. Still, he agreed to storing anything we don't want to take on our travels, so we keep the really expensive diamond with him. It was time to retire for the night.

Safe in our guest quarters, we had time to sit down and figure out what to do next. After some terrible spellcraft and knowledge rolls and some DM prodding, we figured out that the ring is a Ring of Three Wishes. Then we had to figure out what to do with said Wish, which had us stumped even longer. Finally, with some not so subtle DM prodding just to get things moving again, we realized that we could use Wish to get Grish's intact body and then find a Cleric capable of the Raise Dead spell, which is fairly rare but not impossible to find. We performed the Wish with no complications and stored the body in Lax's vault. The stone giant also tipped us off that he's heard of a cleric powerful enough to perform the spell. The cleric is rumored to reside at an old temple of Pelor not too far from the mines, the same temple that Teddy was thinking about when he sent the villagers over this way. Teddy knows some stories about the temple itself, but that would be something he'd need to fill here.

So now our mission looks like this:

1) Retrieve the Book of the Dead Complete(?)
2) Get a special diamond from Lax, the stone giant who owns a diamond mine
3) Retrieve a piece of Grish's body
4) Find a cleric that can perform Raise Dead on Grish's body

We bid farewell to Lax and head back on the road, restocked and relatively healthy. Wow, progress!

Move over, Napoleon!

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We get jumped on the first night heading toward the temple. Hobgoblins. Heavily armored and clearly elite warriors. Utterly terrible rolls from everyone let them get a surround on our locations. Darn.

I've detailed some of our previous notable battles, so you guys should be getting an idea for how we think. This time I wanted to show you an illustrated example of our tactical genius. This is how the battle started:

Brown guys are the advancing hobgoblins. Let's pretend you're in our shoes and they're moving towards you. There's no time to draw up a plan. You've got a couple seconds to act. What do you do?

Got something? Okay, good. Now here's what we ended up doing: Dan goes first, charging the northwest group. I follow Dan to give him support. Fylo then rushes towards the eastern group and unloads a cone of fire on them with his new spell, Burning Hands. Teddy moves east to give Fylo support. Pricks is left to handle the three remaining hobgoblins because, well, nobody cares about Pricks.

So now it looks like this:

Yup.

And so the battle starts. Dan and I are doing well in the northwest group, and surprisingly so is Pricks in his 3on1 situation. Fylo, unfortunately, is not doing as well. As the DM put it, "You ran in front of them and basically announced, 'Hey! I'M A WIZARD!'" The fire spell, while awesome and catching their clothes on fire and horrible burns, did not kill the elite hobgoblins. It made them mad, and they stabbed the halfling in retaliation. The sorcerer repeated the spell the following round. As Fylo later put it, "I figured that if the first fire spell didn't kill 'em, the second one would."

It didn't.

Fylo was stabbed more until he dropped, again. To make matters worse, a mist had begun moving towards us from the south at an alarming speed, transforming into a hobgoblin. The new enemy moved towards Teddy, who froze in place, and whispered something in his ear. Next thing we knew, our cleric was fighting with the hobgoblins, attacking Pricks.

The battle raged on. Dan and I dispatched of the hobgoblin in the northwest and were moving back towards the center. Pricks was in a rage, hacking down hobgoblins and dodging Dan's blows. Fylo was bleeding out. And then...

Closing Thoughts:

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... And then Dan and I had to leave the session early before the fight finished, unfortunately. Apparently the fight finished shortly after the two of us left. Our characters were set to normal attacking because no one could figure out how the hell to use my character, though Dan was simple enough. Teddy will have to fill in the rest of the fight.

Well, we're level 3 again. I'm loving my +6 attack bonus and was consistently hitting things all session long. I took Hatchling's Flame as my new maneuver but haven't had a chance to use it yet due to friendly fire issues. Level 3 gets me over the "useless" hump and now I'm loving the swordsage. I have yet to land a double hit Wolf Fang Strike + Burning Blade nova, but when I do, it will be glorious! Desert Wind looks like my favorite school. I'm already drooling over the Death Mark maneuver for when I get it.

Not sure what Teddy and Dan took when they leveled up, but I assume they stuck with what they originally took. Fylo learned Burning Hands and Eschew Materials feat on account of all the times that we're stripped naked.

Final note: I think it might be fun to start tracking how many times Fylo gets knocked into the negatives. I think we're averaging at least 3 per session.

[Rhothaerill]

Just read through this whole thread. Fun game!

[Dralnu]

Session 6

Prelude:

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Last session wrapped up shortly after Dan and I left. Prix took a beating while dishing out double he received. Teddy was commanded by the vampire (an elf, by the way) to use his "special abilities" on Prix instead of mundane (and failing) swings with his sword. This command entitled Teddy to another saving throw, which he passed, but he still carried out the command -- he used his special ability called Turn Undead, rolled a 19, and sent the vampire screaming into the forest.

Shortly after the fight ended, Prix's rage finished and our hobgoblin guide drops dead. Teddy takes his greatsword and vows to finish the mission in his honor before we all book it in the opposite direction of the vampire, knowing that the guy will be mighty pissed with us once the turning duration wears off. That was the end of Session 5.

We have a new player joining us. His character is William Sweet, a veteran human bard who is well known across the land for his concerts. Unfortunately, the years have not been kind to Sweet, and he's now quite the alcoholic. He'll be making his debut later in this session. For the record, this player also plays the drow scout in my evil campaign (see sig).

Run Away!:

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We run as fast as we can in the opposite direction of the vampire until Dan's failed Fort save forces us to stop. We've made some good distance, but hardly enough on account of the whole the undead never rest thing. We're running through plains, but there's still undergrowth and patches of trees, so I hide the group as best as I can and we wait. Not long after, a pack of wolves arrive, sniff around the area, but don't seem to notice us and continue on their way. Teddy mentions that vampires can summon wolves to do its bidding, so it's likely that these were its scouts.

Anything Else Would Be Boaring:

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With the crisis averted and all of us not looking too great after the last battle, we decide to buckle down for the rest of the day. We don't have any food, so I decide to use my expert Survival skills to hunt down a boar for us to eat, like Dan and I did earlier when we waited outside the necromancer's cave.

I go into the wilderness alone and find a boar munching on some vegetation. I sneak up near it very sneakily with shortswords out, but unfortunately not sneaky enough because it notices me. We both freeze for a moment, staring at each other. Then it charges me and gores me. What the hell?! I just wanted an easy "and you come back with a new boar hat," like before!

As the DM explained, boars aren't cute lil' piggies that a pre-pubescent child from Lord of the Flies can solo with a pointy stick. Boars are serious business and require groups of people to properly hunt. It's one of the things that I neglected to brush up on with my knowledge: nature. In short, I was in for a real fight, and the little bugger drew first blood.

With some low rolls on my part and some high rolls from the boar, the overgrown pig managed to drop me and hobble away. My party managed to find me before I bled out and carried me back to camp for some healing in the morning. I wasn't allowed to go back and hunt it in the morning either, as my party told me that it's "done enough." Instead, I forage for some berries and other mundane things that can’t disembowel me. Sigh.

I'm now contemplating dipping ranger for favored enemy: boar. No joke.

Of Undead and Sweets:

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With our map in hand, we continue onward to the temple of pelor where reputedly we can find a cleric powerful enough to raise our corpse back at Lax’s mines. As we near our destination, however, we spot patrols. Zombie patrols. We hear galloping coming from behind us and manage to duck into bushes just in time for a cloaked figure on horseback to ride passed us. We get a glimpse of his face as he rides by; it’s the elf vampire we faced earlier. Well, there goes our sad hope of finding a sanctified temple of light, goodness, and lollipops.

We slowly advance to our destination, carefully avoiding patrols along the way. We’re pushing through the undergrowth when we hear digging nearby, along a familiar voice: the vampire. I scout ahead and peer through the bushes. Humanoids are standing by a ransacked graveyard where zombies are busy digging up the final few graves. In the background is the ruined entrance of what was once the temple of pelor, clearly vandalized and even sporting a shiny new symbol of Nerull on top of the doorway. Two tied up captives, a hobgoblin wearing a holy symbol of Pelor, and the famous human William Sweet, are being held by hobgoblin guards and cloaked figures as they watch the vampire start tossing out bodies from an average-sized bag. I recognize the bodies as the hobgoblins that died in our last battle, including Prix. The vampire instructs the pelor-loving captive to raise the bodies, explaining that if he isn’t useful to them, they’ll just capture and use the other cleric that is on his way to them. He complies, producing a scroll and invoking the divine powers from it. The cleric makes some epically poor fumbles with the incantation as the scroll sputters with power. The spell still works, better than intended actually, and it raises all the dead at once… except it kills the cleric in the process. This annoys the vampire, and he mentions that now they must go with their backup plan, aka Teddy. After a couple seconds, the woozy newly raised get to their feet, including Prix. When our guide realizes where he is, he flips out and tries to attack the vampire, but is quickly dominated with a gaze.

The vampire then interrogates the captive bard. It seems that him and his associates have been turning the ruins of this temple upside-down in search of “Sandal’s Heart,” some object of great power. They can’t find it anywhere and the vampire wants the bard to tell him where it is. Thankfully, William Sweet knows quite a few things on this subject. DM STORY TIME!

Some Backstory:

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Unfortunately, I don’t remember everything the DM said for Sweet’s bardic knowledge checks, so this is the gist of it unless the DM himself wants to add the missing info:

On Sandal:
Long ago, these ruins were a shining temple of Pelor. The greatest champion of this temple was a hobgoblin named Sandal, who was an immortal. Legend has it that the most minor healing spells could heal his most grievous wounds, a miraculous ability that he relied on so he could fight bravely on the battlefield against the forces of evil and get patched up by his allies after. A magical item dubbed “Sandal’s Heart” was the reputed source of his strange power. Eventually, when he died, his body was interred in the temple and his Heart was offered to champions of pelor, who may temporarily borrow it to aid them in worthy missions. Modern scholars (us) still debate whether the title of “immortal” was justified if the guy died of old age, and shouldn’t instead of been called “invincible,” or just “ the guy who’s really efficient at healing from stabs.”

On the Temple:
Many heroes throughout the ages were interred here, not just Sandal. Because of this, the Temple was also a repository of super awesome artifacts that the heroes carried in life. All of these could be borrowed by a worthy servant of Pelor to aid in a sanctified mission.

On the Unfriendly Vampire:
Long ago, when the Temple of Pelor still stood, there was a kingdom of elves located around this area. Some of these elves embraced vampirism, and in time their numbers grew large and powerful enough to take control of the entire kingdom. These vampiric elves began expanding their influence and conquering their neighbors. The neighboring goblinoid tribes decided they’d have none of that, so they united all the tribes together to take down their foe. The most important battle was fought at the Temple of Pelor and drove back the elves.

The combined might of all the goblinoid tribes made them into the new superpower of the land, and they utterly crushed the elven kingdom, enslaved the living elves while ruthlessly hunting down the vampires. This explains why the hobgoblin metropolis we visited earlier had a huge population of elf slaves (nice tie-in, DM!). After the elven kingdom was demolished, the newly formed goblinoid nation began conquering everything else, which leaves us in the world we’re in now.


William Small knows all this from his travels, tales, poems, songs, whathaveyou. But he doesn’t know where Sandal’s Heart is!

The Power of Nerull Compels You!

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Sweet doesn't know where Sandal's Heart is, so instead he tells them the next best thing: a lie. The vampire sees through the lie immediately and gives him a smack, reminding him that after spending days searching through the Temple, his patience is nonexistent. Sweet changes tactics and nervously sings a ballad about Sandal. It doesn't work either. With an irritated sigh, the vampire instructs a "neophyte" beside him, another cloaked elf, to dispose of the bard, and mounts his steed once more, stating he has an errand to do. Suddenly, the vampire looks directly at me (or through me) and grins before riding out of the clearing. Since I'm a master of stealth, I think nothing of that weird moment and assume all vampires randomly grin at undergrowth every so often.

The neophyte starts dragging the helpless bard over to the bushes for disposal while all but two of the newly raise hobgoblins head into the temple. Unfortunately for the newbie, he picked the wrong bushes to off someone. As soon as he sticks a blade in the bard's back, I jump from behind and stick two fiery shortswords into his. For the record, I wanted to attack him before the bard got stabbed, but oh well. No harm no foul. The elf neophyte is dead and the bard's bleeding out. Sweet gets healed back to consciousness by Teddy, we make some hasty introductions, and we convince the confused bard to join our cause. After all, it's either join us or try your luck avoiding the vampires, hobgoblins, and zombie patrols.

Realizing that our enemies will figure out that something's wrong if the elf doesn't come back, I don his clothing, including his splint mail and holy symbol of nerull. I emerge into the clearing and do my best impersonation of the elf. The ruse ends up not working. I think the hobgoblins got a "this guy murdered us yesterday" bonus modifier to see through my bluff. Unable to fight very well in splint mail, I run away from the angry guards while my party rushes in to dispatch them. Interestingly enough, the zombies stop digging and begin attacking the hobgoblins as well. t seems that they were under instructions to protect me -- or rather, the elf that I now resemble. I can't help but cackle and raise my holy symbol of Nerull as my minions destroy the foes. Yes, yesssssss!

Unfortunately, my new zombie pals don't actually take orders from me, and certain party members decide to destroy them as they may become a liability. One such party member even wants to take away my new holy symbol because it's "evil," but I manage to hold onto it. Party poopers.

We're Getting Better:

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With the guards dispatched and no signs of reinforcements, we venture into the main temple. Things are going well until we enter a huge chamber with rows of pews flanking both sides. Sweet tells us this chamber used to hold great ceremonies to Pelor. Moving our way from inside the chamber are all the hobgoblins that we killed yesterday. We see them, they see us, and we duck back out of the chamber to quickly formulate a plan. We decide that we'll hide by the doorway until the hobgoblins draw near, then Fylo and I will blast 'em with fire before ducking back out of the chamber and fight at the doorway, using it as a chokepoint. Sort of like our previous agreed tactics except, y'know, we'd actually stick to it this time. And we actually pull it off! Well, sort of.

The hobgoblins approach the doorway. As soon as they're all in range of my Hatchling's Flame, I let it rip on them. Unfortunately, Fylo's Burning Hands only reaches half the distance of my fire ability, so he cannot hit them from his position when I attacked. So he decided to move into range to do it. Though the hobgoblins ate two fire spells to the face and look severely burned, they're still standing, and they're mad. Dan charges into the thick of things. The usual shenanigans ensue: We barely defeat our opponents, Fylo and I get knocked out, and Teddy gets pissed that he has to spend all his spells patching us back up as best he can. Still, I think this fight was a vast improvement.

Baby Come Back!

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We're all hurt, tired, and in no real condition to continue exploring the temple, considering the next nasty surprise may be our last. We leave the temple grounds in search of a place to safely rest and recuperate. As we're looking for a spot to settle down in the nearby forest, a pack of wolves block our path. They watch us from a distance, not engaging, but clearly herding us back to the temple. Teddy tells us that these are probably minions of the vampire. Unsure of whether or not we could take them on in our current condition, we grudgingly return to the temple, and the wolves park themselves at the entrance. Next time, wolves. Next time.

Deadliest Manhunting Catch

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With the wolves at our backs, we delve further into the Temple. Everything is thoroughly turned over and desecrated. Statues are smashed, there’s gaping holes in the walls, all the furniture is broken up. There’s a scratched mural of Sandal on one of the walls, holding up a holy symbol that shines a blinding light. Teddy senses fate.

Teddy: I hold up my holy symbol up the same way. Do I look just like him?
DM: Considering that he’s brown and furry and you’re pink and relatively hairless… No.

We go through more hallways and pass by some rooms, possibly dormitories. We enter one of them. The room is fairly clean and shows signs of recent use. Fylo detects magic and announces that there’s magic in the area. Illusion magic. Then we hear footsteps. There’s someone in the room! We shout for whoever is in here to show themselves and stand in a tight pack at the doorway to block the only exit out. Fylo greases the floor outside of the room for good measure. Teddy announces that he is a servant of Pelor!!! No response. Silence in the room.

We’re getting tired of waiting. I tell our invisible buddy that if it doesn’t show itself within 10 seconds, it’s getting a face full of fiery death. Nada. Just then, we hear something slip and fall behind us. The cheeky bastard managed to squeeze through us without a peep but fell on the greased floor. Not it’s day. Then Fylo lights up the exit, along with the grease, with a wave of fire. Now our buddy is writhing, on the ground, on fire. Certainly not it’s day! We want this mystery figure interrogated, so we start kicking it for nonlethal damage while it’s on the ground and on fire. I smell the start of a new friendship. That, or burning flesh.

Our new friend isn’t down for the count yet though. No sir! It drops its cloak, which was the only thing on fire, and disappears again. We’re about to blindly give chase down the halls when Dan hears the faint clinking of armor against the floor. Buddy is trying to crawl away! Nooooo, buddy! Quick thinking Dan pulls out a grappling hook, hurls it down the hall, and then drags the metal hook back towards us along the floor. Thunk! He snagged something big! We cheer as he reels the catch in, while it’s screaming in pain. When dragged back onto the flaming greased floor, we all put the boot to him until he stops moving. Hooray! We caught Buddy!

This is something I’d never have imagined occurring, ever. It was some glorious mix of Deadliest Catch, Manhunter, some other awesomeness, topped off with a healthy dose of fire. Things are always better on fire.

He Wasn’t Using It Anyway

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Buddy’s invisibility wears off and we see that it’s an elf wearing the exact same outfit as the neophyte that I killed earlier. We don’t have the means of waking him up from his booting-induced concussion for interrogation, so we decide to carry him with us while we explore the rest of the Temple. We eventually reach a huge room filled with statues, which Sweet informs us is the burial chamber for heroes of the temple. This was the end of the road. Like the rest of this place, it’s been thoroughly ransacked. The base of each statue would have held artifacts of the depicted hero in the olden days, but now there’s only smashed-in holes. We’re convinced that if Sandal’s Heart is still in the temple ruins, it would be here.

We find a statue depicting Sandal. His statue is still intact. After some searching, we notice that there’s a small hole in the base of his statue containing three scrolls. (Forgot what spell these scrolls had, will add in later). Upon closer inspection of the statue itself, we notice that the holy symbol its clutching in one hand is metal, not the stone of the rest of the statue. The statue’s eyes are closed. We thoroughly inspect the chamber but find nothing of note. The group ponders whether the statue was facing a certain direction or whatever and keeps searching the place again, but I’d have none of it. I knew the answer to this puzzle right off the bat. I walked over to Teddy and tell him to use his greater turning ability in front of the statue. Light radiates from our cleric’s holy symbol as he invokes the power of his deity. The statue’s eyes open and it releases its grip on the holy symbol, which falls to the ground. Bam!

As Teddy picks up the shiny new holy symbol and relishes the obvious power of his deity radiating from it (it also granted him an additional Greater Turning), the rest of us inspect the statue again. The hand that released the symbols now glistens. Touching it reveals that it’s cold and sweaty. There’s more to this statue after all. We eventually convince Teddy to try greater turning again on the statue, hoping that, if this statue is actually Sandal himself, it will free him from his stone prison. Using the new holy symbol, Teddy does his thing again, and this time the entire chamber fills up with a blinding light, the likes we’ve never seen before. As the light fades, we see Sandal… and he’s still a statue. Ah well.

Sadly, at this point I had to leave the session early again. I was told the jist of what happened and will either write it up soon or get someone who was there to fill in what I missed. It was epic.

[raxies94]

Why is this so epic?

[chando]

This is GREAT! =)

[Reb46]

I've just read the whole journal, it's very well made, keep it up!

[Hazzardevil]

It's amazing how much or little Bardic knowledge can overcome isn't it?
Once again, great journel entry.

[Dralnu]

It's amazing how much or little Bardic knowledge can overcome isn't it?
Once again, great journel entry.

Yeah, what a sweet DM tool. I wish I had a bard in the campaigns that I run. Or just Knowledges. The PCs in my evil campaign have none of that at all.

Glad you guys like the journey so far. I added the second part of the session, now with 100% more grappling hook!

[Rejakor]

That 'Buddy' thing, right there, epitomizes DnD.

That is how the game should be played.