Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Session #38: The Ruins of Hampstead

In this outing, the party made their way to Hampstead, finding a destroyed ruin infested with ghouls. I used a new approach to skill challenges, treating them more as prolonged, roleplay-style sequences of skill checks. They set out to head to the river and find Mr. Harwick's wife on the other side. Along the way, they discovered a pair of landmarks in western Hampstead - a wizard's tower, and a chapel with a number of spires. Their trip through the ruins resulted in them nearly navigating through them without incident, but Vorgym failed a Streetwise check and led the party right into a pack of hungry ghouls.

This encounter was fairly quick; the party had to escape the ghouls, as the sounds of battle drew more and more ghouls to the scene. Cyrus absorbed most of the damage the ghouls dished out, but had to use a number of healing surges to get his health back up; this would be important later.

Arriving at the river, the party looked to cross the bridge and engage a small group of ghouls. It seemed easy enough at first, then a number of aquatic ghouls known as lacedons infiltrated the party's lines and began to attack them. They tried to drag a number of characters into the water, nearly sending Cyrus over; Amnon was actually dragged into the water, and only managed to escape thanks to ranged coverage from the rest of the party.

Between the healing surges lost in traversing the ruins and the healing surges the lacedons took from the party, healing surge economy ended up being a serious problem in this encounter, and the session in general. Cyrus ran out of surges, and ended up at -21/70 hit points by the end of the encounter. The party eventually managed to escape the ghouls and cross the bridge, but were very beat - Vorgym's bold gambit to rescue Cyrus left him weakened, and Cyrus was left unconscious.

The party had to again navigate the ruins; they lost a few more healing surges along the way, and managed to find a house which they could fortify for an extended rest. The party did their extended rest here, and we ended the session for the night. See everyone next week!

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