Session #68: Lair of the Fangs, Part 3 - Anathema!

This was a short session, which we also had to postpone from the original time due to some absentees.

The entirety of this session consisted of the party's battle against a yuan-ti anathema, a conglomeration of snake swarms around a massive yuan-ti, and a pair of snake swarms. The anathema was created by Vak'shasz the Sly Tongue, the high priest of Zehir and main public point of contact for those looking to hire the Fangs. Amnon managed to interrupt this ritual with a slide, and the anathema was summoned half-finished (causing it to start at bloodied). This turned out to be quite beneficial, as this was a difficult fight for the characters, primarily due to the snake swarms - when the anathema connected, however, it hit HARD, and it was more or less responsible for Vorgym going down. Deckard dropped as well in this encounter, leading to a healthy use of our new injury system.

Eventually, the characters won out, and decided they had to extended rest, so they left the lair and rested in the sewers. Fortunately Deckard was able to prevent their wounds from being infected, but 2 of them woke up feeling not all that well (Vorgym & Amnon) - as such, they are each one healing surge down. In addition, Vorgym now has to roll a saving throw every time he takes damage: if he fails this saving throw, he will begin taking 5 ongoing poison damage (or 10 if this happens while he is bloodied) until he saves, as the poison of the anathema now courses through his blood. Deckard has a less potent version of this, as the snakebites he took cause him to take 5 poison damage the first time he is bloodied in each encounter. We had to stop here, as time had run out for some players.

Session #67: Lair of the Fangs, Part 2 - Grasema & The Bridge

In this session, we finished up the encounter from last session with the characters winning out. They then built themselves a small army using the petrified victims in the statue garden.

Next, they faced off against Grasema, the Oracle of Zehir & leader of the medusas, along with her guardian naga. The fight proved pretty easy at first, and the naga didn't get to do much - until it turned into a bone naga and began dazing and doing heavy damage in a burst around it. Fortunately, the damage was dealt to Grasema as well, and this encounter proved to be fairly easy in the end - though Shivra was petrified as part of the fight.

The characters feasted here, regaining surges and a daily power, and headed to the eastern wing of the lair after shutting off the water flow into the main exchange. There, they had to cross a bridge with a side-winding viper etched onto one side of it, and a group of snaketongue cultists & a yuan-ti on the other. The assassins ambushed them here, as they tried to cross the bridge, which led over two pits of vipers; the bridge proved to be the most difficult part of the fight, as the illusions were difficult to detect and the party didn't figure out the trick at first. Vorgym & Deckard in particular were heavily damaged by the pit's vipers, but in the end the characters made it across. We ended the session there.

Session #66: Lair of the Fangs, Part 1 - The Statue Garden

This session ended up starting an hour late, as Traver was a bit late, and we had some pre-session discussion to have. Just to recap, our subscription to D&D Insider runs out September 26th; we will be splitting the new 1-year subscription 5 ways, so the cost should be $14.28 per person. I will be checking with the group weekly to see where we're all at on this, and once we've got it together I'll renew the sub. Our last session before the expiration is September 23rd, so we need to have the money together by then! Additionally, we talked about what we want to do with getting a new player (or players), and the possibility of starting a new campaign in my custom campaign setting after this adventure is done. I'll be sending out some info on that campaign setting this week so you guys can better make a decision on that.

Now, on to the recap - we started with the party heading toward the yuan-ti abominations after determining this was their only way in. Shivra failed a Stealth check, and as such the abominations knew they were coming, though they couldn't see them in the darkness; we roll initiative. As they approached the abominations, Cyrus set off a footchopper alarm trap, causing an alarm bell to be rung, and a scythe blade to sweep out and chop at Cyrus & Vorgym's ankles. Vorgym managed to avoid the blade, but Cyrus was taken down by it. Thereafter, the party engaged the abominations & their leader, a yuan-ti berserker named Uhlaash. This was a very easy encounter for the group, and Uhlaash never really got to take advantage of his powers due to his being dazed for the duration of the encounter. The party recovered a crank with a square-shaped peg on its non-crank end and headed inside.

Inside they found a large exchange, with raised drawbridges to the east and the west - each drawbridge appeared to be tied to a nearby dais. The dais by the western drawbridge had a square hole in it, so they put the crank's peg in the hole, and lowered the drawbridge. Inside they traveled through hallways of terrified statues (which were implied to be victims of the medusas that no doubt lurked here) until coming upon a larger room, a "statue garden" of sorts, well-lit by sunlight from the grates high above and with a large golden doorway shaped like a female medusa's head serving as its only other exit. The characters were not alone in the statue garden, however - a pair of medusa spirit charmers and four medusa bodyguards awaited them.

The battle began, and Cyrus was quick to charge ahead and engage the spirit charmers. The rest of the party dealt with the bodyguards, attacking according to their marks. The spirit charmers began to free their petrified victims and send them against the party, which they did out of fear more than any sort of loyalty or belief that they would be set free. The battle seemed to be going smoothly until a pair of yuan-ti assassins jumped the characters. These proved to be very nasty enemies, capable of dealing vicious strikes to enemies they are hidden from, blinding their targets to enable this vicious strike, and using blinded enemies as human shields against attackers. Matters were complicated by the fact that Cyrus was permanently petrified (at least, as far as the characters know at this point) by the spirit charmers' glare attack, and Vorgym was brought down by an assassin's death strike. Deckard expended life blood harvest, one of his major daily healing powers, to get Vorgym back up, and as it stands, the party has the enemies under control at the moment, thanks to Amnon's visions of avarice spell. Vorgym has managed to take down an assassin, Shivra has managed to take down a spirit charmer, and the tide of battle seems as though it may be turning, but with the ever-present threat of petrification by the spirit charmer, the characters are by no means assured victory...

Session #65: The Arrival in Vulkannen

This was our first session at our new time, Sunday 2-6 Pacific. Sal didn't make it.

We finished up the encounter with the Fangs of Zehir under Tovin & Alesia Gravelstoke's command, with Cyrus riding in on his liondrake, Shir, to help the party as Hefeweizen was spontaneously knocked unconscious. Cyrus informed the group that Lady Millenbras had asked him to come help them, as she thought they may be in danger. Thereafter, the party learned from Shivra that Baroness Valarde wished to see them - as such, they decided to head to Vulkannen, seeing as they'd need to go there to deal with the Fangs anyway.

They were immediately taken to Valarde upon arriving in Vulkannen, and they learned that she had a number of problems in Vulkannen - Dythan's Legion is throwing its weight around; citizens are disappearing from the streets in the Hub, the traveler's district and main entry district into Vulkannen; the Drow Quarter is nearly in open revolt; and now a group of adventurers have come to her city. Valarde admitted she'd been following the party's progress and knew they would be coming to Vulkannen soon, though she didn't seem to explain why she knew that. She also admitted she'd considered destroying them before they could cause any trouble, but decided they would be much more useful as assistants. She refused to explain what jobs she would need them to handle, but instead asked for them to agree to help her - in exchange, she would give them access to the lair of the Fangs of Zehir, allowing them to deal with that problem quickly. They agreed, and Valarde removed Shivra's collar at last.

After this discussion, the party was lead into the sewers by Kiaron, the captain of Vulkannen's guard; he led them near the entry to the Fangs' lair, then headed off as they sized up the entry - two yuan-ti abominations, large serpent-bodied humanoids, stood guard over the entry, wielding nasty-looking bastard swords and large shields. We stopped there.

Ch-ch-changes, Part 2: Speeding Up Combat

Something I've noticed, and something you guys may have noticed as well, is that combat takes a long time in our sessions. Many, if not all, of our combats last upwards of 10 rounds, and our average encounters seem to last a minimum of 2 hours. In my opinion (and maybe you guys will disagree with me here), this is way too long - these numbers are reasonable for major set-piece combats, but not for every single one. To that end, I've come up with some things I'm thinking of implementing at the table to speed things along.

- Timed turns: 90 seconds for each turn, to be exact. I've been doing some research into the matter of lengthy combats in 4th edition, and this seems to be a popular suggestion. I haven't timed the average turns in our games, but I believe they tend to take upwards of 2 minutes - going from memory, oftentimes the first 20-30 seconds of someone's turn seem to be spent in silence as they decide what to do. I think combat would be a lot faster if we set a time limit on turns to cut down on this - it would help us focus on what we're going to be doing, giving us incentive to have a decision made on what to do before our turn comes up. On paper, this might seem like undue stress or pressure to put on everyone, but really this is just a means of encouraging everyone to focus their attention more effectively, and 90 seconds should be more than long enough for this to happen; this is a number we can work with if need be. This is one thing I'm really considering strongly.

- Halve hit points OR double damage on both sides. This is another popular suggestion: you simply halve the hit point totals of both the PCs and the monsters, or alternatively, you leave hit point totals the same, but double all damage results. In both cases, combat will be sped up by the fact that things go down quicker. The drawback here, though, is exactly that: things, including the PCs, go down quicker, and combat is going to be more deadly in this situation. Personally I'm not sure about this one, as I can see a single critical hit from a Brute-type monster taking a character from full hit points into negatives.

- Any ideas you guys might have. I've presented a couple ideas here, but maybe you guys have an idea I haven't considered. If so, please, suggest it! Alternatively, maybe you don't think encounters are taking too long; that's valid as well. Whatever your opinions, I'd like to hear them, so that we can figure out how to go forward on this. Thanks for reading, and see you Sunday.

Ch-ch-changes, Part 1: The Injury System

Okay guys, this post is to inform you about two things: the injury system I discussed implementing, and a discussion about speeding up combat. I'll be breaking this up into two posts for easier reading.

First of all, the injury system. Here are some of the main points:

- There are two types of injuries: minor injuries, and major injuries.
   * Minor injuries can be inflicted when the character is reduced to a negative hit point value, and, while they do hamper the character, they do not impose a major handicap on their capabilities. When the circumstances required for a minor injury to be sustained are met, the player rolls a saving throw: on a success, no injury is sustained, but on a failure, a minor injury is sustained. If a character succeeds on this saving throw, but meets the requirements for an injury to be sustained a second time, they roll another saving throw, this time with a -2 penalty. If these circumstances are met a third time, the character sustains a minor injury, and is not allowed a saving throw.
   * Major injuries are inflicted when the character fails 3 death saving throws, or is reduced to their bloodied value in negative hit points. These injuries impose major handicaps on a character's capabilities. When the circumstances required for a major injury to be sustained are met, the injury is sustained; the player is not allowed a saving throw.

- A character can have multiple injuries at once, but can only sustain one type of injury in each encounter. The type of injury sustained will be either determined randomly (in most cases) or assigned (in cases where it would be the only injury to make sense).

- The process for recovering from an injury depends on the type of injury. If it is a minor injury, the character must make an Endurance check during an extended rest; if the check is a success, the injury is healed, and if the check is a failure, the injury remains. Major injuries are more difficult to recover from, and the character must succeed on a more difficult Endurance check to reduce the injury to a minor injury, and another for the minor injury during their next extended rest. Optionally, a single ally trained in Heal can make a Heal check in place of this Endurance check; such an activity requires constant vigilance on the ally's part, therefore this particular ally can only do this for one of their allies per extended rest.

- Though this injury system will be used in most cases, it will not entirely replace death. A character whom an opponent moves specifically to kill, by delivering a coup de grace for example, is dead. Situations a character would not be able to survive, such as being melted, disintegrated, etc. will still kill the character.

My intent with implementing this system is twofold. One, it will add an element of realism to encounters by inflicting demonstrable damage to characters in a way more significant than simple Hit Point loss. Two, it will greatly reduce (though not eliminate, as stated above) the possibility of character death, while still making the prospect of dropping into negative hit points, failing too many death saves or hitting negative bloodied value a palpable threat.

Please let me know what you think when we come together on Sunday.

Session #64: The Fangs Return

In this session, the characters each resolved their respective trips - Amnon to the Tower of Heiserrah, Shivra to the Thieves' Guild in Vulkannen, and the rest of the group back to Falconia. Amnon reported on Orcus' death and the origin of the Doresannic shards to his master, the Archmage Sirilis Starsburden, who didn't seem interested, much to Amnon's chagrin. She seemed quite distracted with her research into the shard, and remarked that she was close to a breakthrough. She advised Amnon to continue looking for the other members of the Clawed Gauntlet.

Shivra, hoping to have her collar removed, went to pay her debt, only to learn that Baroness Valarde herself had requested they hold off on removing the collar. Shivra went to see the Baroness, and learned that she has need of the party's services - in exchange, she promises to remove Shivra's collar, as well as make her leader of the Thieves' Guild.

Vorgym, Deckard & Hefeweizen reported back to Sir-Commander Wolfswift, and learned that while they had been gone, Lady Francesca's manor had been attacked. She was badly burned in the attack, with her right eye & left hand completely bandaged, with burnt areas and other areas of her body bandaged as well. She told them that the Fangs of Zehir had attacked the manor, and that they knew Amnon was alive. She urged them to head after him immediately. Hefeweizen, who had headed to see his sister at Lady Millenbras' estate, told the Lady of what had happened at the steading, and of Orcus' demise. Concerned, she remarked that she would need to leave immediately to consult with a friend at the Tower of Heiserrah. Stefan was taken off to be bound to the knife ritual, and Sangria remained at the estate - her attraction to Vorgym becoming all the more evident.

The party all came back together on the road, where they were ambushed by the Fangs of Zehir - they had been waiting to ambush the group in the hopes that they would be able to confirm that all of them were, in fact, alive. This group, a squad of medusa assassins, was led by two more members of the Gravelstoke family, Alesia & Tovin. We had to stop midway through his encounter, as time ran out.

Remember guys, D&D is Sunday 2-6 Pacific/4-8 Central/5-9 Eastern this week. See you then.