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Post by Scott on Oct 7, 2019 12:35:09 GMT -5
The main temple on level 4 of ToEE is a similar encounter.
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Post by Scott on Oct 20, 2019 11:06:11 GMT -5
Almost lost the party last night. They just barely managed to escape their first foray into the Temple. Trolls are killers. You knock them down, and a few rounds later they pop up behind you. The party was just about to be overwhelmed and decided to retreat at the last possible minute. They left their flying carpet hovering outside and hopped in and escaped. After a very long rest they returned. This time being cautious and using the magic they have access to. Sneaking in invisibly and silently they were able to stop the runners from alerting the forces below and quickly killed the troops that were stationed there. The two mass melees took up the whole night. Most of the big monsters are still alive since they were holding and paralyzing. Next session they descend into the lower level.
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Post by Scott on Oct 21, 2019 13:03:02 GMT -5
Just reading through the adventure and thinking how easy it would be for a party to beat the mountain giant and his troops and never discover the hidden areas of this adventure. Would you fudge it and drop some additional clues? You could bring run a Return to... adventure in the future based on additional info the party might discover, e.g. Eli Tomarast’s book. I’m curious to see what the party finds and how they handle it.
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Post by grodog on Oct 23, 2019 9:02:46 GMT -5
Just reading through the adventure and thinking how easy it would be for a party to beat the mountain giant and his troops and never discover the hidden areas of this adventure. Would you fudge it and drop some additional clues? The three or four times I ran this (all pre-college), the players never found the secret entrances to the Black Cyst, etc. unless I dropped clues (which I did at least once, but not every time). You could bring run a Return to... adventure in the future based on additional info the party might discover, e.g. Eli Tomarast’s book. Yes, I think that's the best way to go about it. If they also stay in touch with the gnomes, perhaps evil forces continue to return to the site, even after it's cleared, and Gwaylar and the clan elders begin to ruminate that the place has always been a home for evil, which may prompt the PCs to look at it more closely. I’m curious to see what the party finds and how they handle it. Indeed! Allan.
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Post by Scott on Nov 3, 2019 11:31:40 GMT -5
Last night we picked up right where we left off. The party members were catching their breath after the battle with the guards in the Upper Level. They had found two flights of stairs leading down. They picked the western stairs and Jastra went ahead to scout quaffing a dose of invisibility potion and wearing Elven Boots. At the bottom of the steps there were two norker guards. Slipping past them she discovered a giant troll lounging in a nest in a room across the corridor from the stair bottom. She returned to the party to inform them of what she saw. After devising a plan Jastra gave Ember, who also owns elven boots, a dose of invisibility and the pair descended ahead of the party. They slipped past the worker guards, Ember entering the giant troll's room, Jastra moving down the hall a short distance. Ember moved up to the giant troll's bed and, using Daoud's Wondrous Lantern, held him. around the same time Jastra created a wall of ice across the corridor preventing the norkers from going anywhere. The rest of the party started down the steps. Upon seeing the wall the norkers went running and screaming into the giant troll's room. Surprised to see Ember there. Their cries did alert two trolls in a connected room that came running in. The rest of the party had arrived. Ingo, a gnome accompanying the party, doused the held troll in oil and lit him up. The party killed the two trolls without too much trouble and torched them too. After the fight Corbek realized he may have been too hasty is telling Ingo to torch the giant troll after the found some spoiled treasure in the nest remains. They did get a few gems and coins for their trouble though. Searching the trolls' room they found typical troll filth. They missed the potions that were hidden in a water barrel. The stonework on the level had an unnerving effect pn the party. Black, or shades of purple, that seemed to writhe and swirl out of the corner of the eye, but nothing could be discerned upon direct examination. The party dispelled the wall of ice and headed south down a black corridor. To be continued.
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Post by Scott on Nov 3, 2019 22:46:26 GMT -5
A short distance down the corridor the party took a side passage west into a series of rooms occupied by norkers and ogres. They were in an out of the way section of the dungeon, so the noise didn’t attract any attention outside of the immediate area. In one area they discovered a row of 9 doors. 7 were empty norker lairs, one held two humans, captured Kettites, survivors from a border patrol captured by the humanoids. In another cell they found a chained mountain dwarf, “Teldroll Storis”. The party took them all with them. Soon after that they stumbled into a more heavily occupied section of the dungeon and had to retreat. It was the right decision, but it always surprises me how often players don’t recognize it as the right decision. Out of spells, low on hit points, faced by more waves of monsters, and they’re debating on whether it would be a good idea to retreat.
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Post by grodog on Nov 22, 2019 14:57:38 GMT -5
Any updates, Scott?
Allan.
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Post by Scott on Nov 22, 2019 16:28:13 GMT -5
Had to cancel last week. The clerics couldn’t make it.
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Post by Scott on Dec 1, 2019 13:36:46 GMT -5
More adventuring in the Temple last night. Most of the lower level monsters have already been killed. Guarding the entrance to the Upper Level this time were four gnoll archers just inside the entrance, two ogres east of the entrance, and a troll west of the entrance. There were also four norkers at the top of the steps ready to run down and alert the rest. Several party members again floated in invisibly over the door guards and quickly killed the norkers before killing the rest of the guards. The party again chose the western staircase. More norkers and a pair of ogres were on guard here. again the party was able to kill them before they could alert the other denizens of the Temple. The basic strategy is Jastra sneaks ahead, invisible and silent. Uses her wand of frost to block the monsters from running, and then the party picks off the monsters several at a time. Jastra started out with two potions of invisibility, each can be broken up into 8 small doses. She's almost out of potion and the charges on her wand are running low. Using this same strategy they isolated and killed the gnolls guarding the stairs to the Dungeon. The party then went on to explore the chapel. This is where there are several errors on the map and text. They are all like once bitten, twice shy about touching things, so they avoided the weird effects in the chapel. In the sanctum they were afraid to go near the moldy fallen tapestry, so they avoided the brown mold, but they missed one of the better treasures in the adventure, th beads of force. In the vestry they did find the secret door to the inset area. Found the robes, etc. They then went back to the sanctum and did another search for secret doors there and found the other secret closet. And in here the found the other secret door to the larger room with the shaft entrance to the Undertemple. The avoided it for now. They found the revolving door at the north end of the room, and went through to the forgotten room. Plasolder went through first to the next room and found himself alone with three trolls. He tried to keep spinning through back to the secret area, but a troll ripped him out of the revolving door and all three pounced on him. One by one the party members came through to help him. They killed the trolls, but did take some heavy damage. The took a break here, and the clerics dished out some healing. This is where we called it for the night.
Other than the annis, the remaining monsters have moved to the Dungeon to make their last stand.
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Post by grodog on Dec 1, 2019 17:11:09 GMT -5
Sounds like some good tactics on the part of your players, Scott! How did the finding of the secret doors into the Inset Area go?---they just lucked out on searching that wall section and made the roll, or used a wand of secret door and traps detection, etc.? Also: please remind me about the map/text errors, if you would. It's been awhile since I dug into WG4 in earnest Allan.
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Post by Scott on Dec 1, 2019 17:47:51 GMT -5
Just standard secret door searching. My nephew, Mike, the cleric Corbek has been playing with me since he was 9 years old. He's 28 now. He's very familiar with old school dungeon delving. He always searches for secret doors, at least once, if the area beyond the wall is unmapped, often multiple tries if he has a reason to believe there is something there. There are regular instances of, "Search again. Search again. One more time." If there's an elf in the party he will ask the elf to search with him. So there is almost always two searching and one with an increased chance to locate. In this case he searched the north wall of the sanctum, and didn't find anything. He searched the north wall of the vestry and found the secret door. Then he went back to the sanctum and searched the same wall section and found the other secret closet. I think in the second closet he searched for secret doors again almost as a joke, because he was very surprised when he actually found one.
In the module the text just skips area 19. It goes from area 18 to 20. Between area 20 and areas 21 and 22 there is supposed to be a wall with doors, but it isn't clear on the map. The northern most curving line should probably be the wall, but it's not bold like the other walls and there are no doors shown.
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Post by grodog on Dec 28, 2019 0:07:31 GMT -5
Any holiday games yet, Scott?
Allan.
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Post by Scott on Jan 26, 2020 0:17:26 GMT -5
Finally back at it tonight. The lower level was almost deserted, all the survivors retreating to the dungeons. So there was a lot of exploring unoccupied rooms. The party did fight the annis though. They heard them complaining about all the work with a successful hear noise check, and took them by surprise in hag form with a kick in the door approach. The party debated on going down the steps, or the shaft in the hidden area. They opted for the shaft, so down to the Undertemple they went. They went to the room that would take them to the Cyst, but didn’t figure anything out. The shadow demon room was a chaotic mess, with everybody in the party failing a save vs fear and running in different directions. At one point the demon had one party member cornered, the demon had 2 HPs, the party member had 1. A lucky initiative roll sent the demon back to the Abyss. The party found the room with the weird trees and fruit. Plasolder got lucky and picked the fighter tree and ended up with a 19 strength. Corbek and Jastra both tried the purple tree and got Con bumps. The rest of the party picked wrong class trees and took damage. Plasolder got greedy and tried the purple tree and lost a point in everything. This was where we stopped for the night.
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Post by Scott on Jan 26, 2020 16:45:29 GMT -5
We had such a long gap between games I think it affected the party's play. The clerics forgot they had any spells besides cures. In our prior session the party found the horn, the robes, torches, etc. I don't think any of that stuff crossed their minds last night.
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Post by grodog on Jan 27, 2020 22:24:43 GMT -5
We had such a long gap between games I think it affected the party's play. The clerics forgot they had any spells besides cures. In our prior session the party found the horn, the robes, torches, etc. I don't think any of that stuff crossed their minds last night. That's a bummer! Allan.
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Post by Scott on Jan 28, 2020 6:43:09 GMT -5
Yeah. They were moving along pretty well, and the long break was like a feeblemind spell. Maybe Pelor will have to show up in a vision before they head back in.
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Post by Scott on Feb 23, 2020 13:04:44 GMT -5
2/22/2020 Session Report After resting and recovering in their base cave the party set up for the Temple again, sending in Ember's serpentine owl in to make sure another ambush hadn't been set. The coast was clear. The party decided to return to the Under Temple to investigate further. They started blowing the Wailer for Tharizdun (the horn they found earlier) all over the place. The eventually touched one of he inverted pyramid symbols on the wall in the right room which invoked the circular glow on the floor. They blew the horn again and the entrance to the Black Cyst was rose from the floor. They were all decked out in the robes and carrying a torch or thurible. Michael/Corbek was taking the lead on most of the investigation and he was crying the thurible with the incense that parted the gray vapors allowing entrance into the black column. Down to the Black Cyst they went. They made it to the room with the stone block and the black figure. They figured out the opening of the secret door pretty quickly, taking damage from blowing the freezing horn, but most of the night was spent trying to figure out how to open the chests in the secret room, and messing with the key holes on the stone block. Multiple auguries and a divination were cast. They eventually figured out the chest opening trick on accident. Corbek asked Plasolder what the glyphs on the chests said, nd he answered, "Tharizdun", and the chests opened. They were the able to open the secret space on the stone block and found the treasure therein. Corbek cast a find traps spell and saw that the box was covered with traps. They scooped the stuff into a bag of holding and headed for the surface. upon removing the items from the bag the poison needle traps were triggered, but the two clerics were able to minimize the damage. They didn't mess with them again last night. They went back into the Temple, down to the dungeon level, and immediately made their way to Groorg and his last stand guard. They were able to kill them pretty quickly with some big damage, big area of effect spells. Unfortunately much of the treasure the mountain giant brought down with him was destroyed as well. That's where we ended it.
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Post by Scott on Mar 8, 2020 10:34:34 GMT -5
3/7/2020 Session Report The party had made it back to their base camp. They had set watch shifts and settled in to sleep. Plāsolder was on watch with Teldroll when he saw the dwarf trying to surreptitiously stash some of the loot they had just brought back under his cloak. Teldroll then headed towards the cave entrance stating he needed to relieve himself. Plāsolder jumped to cut him off and asked him what he was doing. The dwarf lied again and said he just needed to take a piss. Plāsolder started calling the other awake. Teldroll cursed, pulled his axe, and charged the fighter, trying to make it out the cave entrance. Plāsolder managed to keep him from escaping until Ember approached, and with Daoud's Wondrous Lanthorn she held him. Afterwards the party discovered that Teldroll had stashed traveling gear just outside the cave, and was trying to make off with the gems they had found in the Black Cyst. The party debated on what they would do with the thief. They decided it was too dangerous to let him go, or keep him prisoner, so they killed him and threw his body off a cliff. The spent the next day healing and trying to decide if it was worth going back to the dungeons, or if they should just head back to Gnome Vale since they were pretty sure they had accomplished their mission. The party decided to make one more foray into the dungeons. The next morning they headed back to the Temple and descended to the Dungeon Level. The decided to explore east first. The meandering passages had them questioning the ability of the dungeon's architect. They encountered, and chased off several boggarts. Corbek the cleric had gotten into the habit of specifying, "I check the ceiling" before entering rooms, looked up as they were entering an odd shaped room with a pool, and saw a mass of tentacles dropping on him, a grell. Corbek took some damage, but resisted the paralyzation. He called for Ember to, 'use your lamp'. She did and the grell was held. The party had seen some hints of the "Precious" effect associated with the lanthorn, and now it took over. Ember snapped, believing the party was plotting to kill her and steal the lanthorn. They argued for a few minutes and then it escalated to combat. Ember was going to use the lanthorn on the party, but she lost initiative, and then failed a save and was held. The party took the lantern and wrapped it in a sack, but wasn't sure how to handle Ember. Corbek tried a remove insanity spell, and that seemed to bring Ember back. Plāsolder had been hanging on to some water breathing potions, and decided to drink one and explore the pool. Amongst the bones on the bottom he found a decanter and brought. The party moved on. The western branch of the dungeon was primarily crypts. In one they encountered, and quickly destroyed, a beefed up coffer corpse. In another, as they entered a crypt, a small face, resembling a bulldog, emerged from a statue and stared at them with gleaming red, but sad looking eyes. The party paused for a moment, but then continued to explore the crypt. The face transformed into a 4' tall, broad-bodied creature with pointed ears, huge fangs, and long, gorilla-like arms tipped by 6 inch claws. The party braced for a tough fight with this intimidating creature, and then it belched a cone of fire on them. The guardian deamon was tough, but the party just overwhelmed it with numbers. The treasure it was guarding included ten 5,000 GP gems, two 10,000 GP gems, gold and platinum molding, and six potions of longevity (old and likely to cause reverse effect). The party felt they had exhausted the Temple's possibilities, so they returned to camp and rested the night. The next day they headed back to the gnomes. They made it without incident, and that's where we called it.
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Post by grodog on Mar 8, 2020 12:14:15 GMT -5
So, assuming the party moves on to new adventures at this point, Scott, how much of the module would you say they'd discovered vs. left on the table?
Allan.
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Post by Scott on Mar 8, 2020 18:55:28 GMT -5
There were a few rooms they skimmed past, and a few items. they missed, the beads of force being the most notable. The stunjelly ignored them. But for the most part I think they cleared it out.
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