the_gneech (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_gneech) wrote2008-10-05 10:41 am
the_gneech) wrote2008-10-05 10:41 am
Entry tags:
Red Hand of Doom Claims Another Victim
This time, it was "Hopper," ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jamesbarrett's animal companion wolf, who fell to two arrows from a Red Hand sniper. Technically speaking, tho, it wasn't the arrows that killed him, it was the vicious poison on them that added 2d12 damage (and would have added a Str drain a round later if he'd survived).
Last night's session picked up right where the previous session left off;lythandra's sorceress Mirima had been given a true resurrection at the cathedral of Pelor (the only one the high priestess was capable of casting), and during a lull in the battle the party caught their collective breath and consulted with Lord Jaarmath, who informed them how the rest of the battle was going.
Fortunately, the party's efforts against the dragon (jamesbarrett: "We got our butts spanked!") were not totally in vain. The Red Hand forces that had been planning to come around and through the south gate were forced to retreat and rejoin the western body when the dragon's attempts at setting the town on fire were thwarted. Unfortunately, that just meant that the invading horde from the west had more resources! Lord Jaarmath informed the party that the north and west gates were compromised and that the Brindol forces were going to reinforce the cathedral as their last stand, and told them to take four Lions of Brindol and reinforce the main street to the west to buy the defenders in the center of town time to set up defenses. He apologized for sending them to such a dangerous task with so few resources, but informed them that they were all the town had left — Immerstal the Red had fallen in battle, and Captain Ulverth was still defending the north gate. "Hold them off as long as you can — if it looks like you're going to be overwhelmed, retreat back here."
Hold them off the party did: three waves of hobgoblins with manticores, "blood ghost berserker" bugbears, and finally goblins riding bluespawn thunderlizards (instead of the usual worgs). This was a long slog of a battle, with a few harrying moments and a lot of scrolls and potions being used up, but ultimately the heroes were victorious. There were some casualties among the city guard (sirfox:"That guy was wearing a red shirt."), but other than using up resources the party suffered little damage.
The Red Hand forces pulled back to regroup at this point, and the party used the re-established telepathic link to report their success to Lord Jaarmath. He congratulated them and was in the midst of ordering them to return to help reinforce the cathedral when contact was suddenly cut off.
The party beat feet back to the cathedral square only to find the place a scene of panic. A sniper with deadly accuracy was picking off soldiers at will with viciously-poisoned arrows; the sniper had already gravely wounded Lord Jaarmath, buthantamouse used a scroll of delay poison and sirfox used a restoration to bring him around. He told them that before the mental link had been broken by the sniper's attack, Captain Ulverth had said that "something big" was coming from the north, and it was more important than ever to reinforce the cathedral — but that this couldn't be done while the sniper was out there wreaking havoc.
jamesbarrett sent Hopper to scout, but this turned out to be a tragic mistake. The sniper was savvy and experienced (actually a 6th level blackspawn ninja), and knew full well that there was no reason for a wolf to just be casually walking across the cathedral square — it must be either an animal companion or some kind of polymorphed spellcaster or something similar, and that made him a priority target. Two arrows later, Hopper was gone and Balgor had gone berserk with rage and began charging across the square at the general source of the arrows.
This, of course, made Balgor a priority target as well and the sniper began to pump him full of arrows. This allowed the other party members to spot where the arrows were coming from, specifically the upper floors of the coffinmaker's shop, and after a healing potion and another delay poison to get Balgor back in shape, they burst in the door and started pouring in (except forhantamouse, who used potions of invisibility and spider climb to enable Dreklin to make his way up to the second floor windows without being spotted).
Downstairs, the heroes found themselves blasted by lightning bolts from a pair of Red Hand war adepts, the sniper's bodyguards. The sniper knew full well that those two were basically a speed bump and that they'd quickly be defeated, and so he began preparations for ambushing anyone who made it up the stairs, except that Dreklin's move silently check was low and the sniper's listen check was high: the sniper realized that there was someone in the upper floor with him and immediately used his ki powers to turn invisible.
This began the battle of the sneaks — both invisible, Dreklin and the sniper kept shifting positions and listening for each other. Finally, the sniper made his listen check well enough to narrow Dreklin's position down to one of four squares. I rolled a d4 to see which square the sniper chose, and it was the wrong one, but close enough that when the sniper appeared, using his acid breath weapon, Dreklin still had to make a saving throw to avoid it.
At this point, the rest of the party burst in from downstairs, having dispatched the war adepts. Suddenly outnumbered, the sniper used his ki powers again to give himself displacement, but to his annoyance it never provided him any benefit (the badguys were having a bad dice night). Being ganged up on, the sniper began to make his way toward the window for an escape, using his ki powers to turn invisible again, but Balgor, in a moment of epic rage, attacked the square he knew the sniper was still in, managing to bypass both the invisibility and the displacement and land a solid blow.lythandra then used glitterdust to make the ninja visible again, and then all it took was a few well-placed shots from the rest of the party and down he went.
Balgor then killed the dead body some more, just to vent his frustrations.
Having taken out what turned out to be the toughest foe of the session, the characters went back out to the square, where the troops had begun assembling defenses as soon as the sniper's arrows had stopped, to see Captain Ulverth riding up on his horse, his troops close behind in something between a rout and a hasty retreat, which is where we ended the session.
The battle of Brindol rages on...
-The Gneech
jamesbarrett's animal companion wolf, who fell to two arrows from a Red Hand sniper. Technically speaking, tho, it wasn't the arrows that killed him, it was the vicious poison on them that added 2d12 damage (and would have added a Str drain a round later if he'd survived).Last night's session picked up right where the previous session left off;
lythandra's sorceress Mirima had been given a true resurrection at the cathedral of Pelor (the only one the high priestess was capable of casting), and during a lull in the battle the party caught their collective breath and consulted with Lord Jaarmath, who informed them how the rest of the battle was going.Fortunately, the party's efforts against the dragon (
jamesbarrett: "We got our butts spanked!") were not totally in vain. The Red Hand forces that had been planning to come around and through the south gate were forced to retreat and rejoin the western body when the dragon's attempts at setting the town on fire were thwarted. Unfortunately, that just meant that the invading horde from the west had more resources! Lord Jaarmath informed the party that the north and west gates were compromised and that the Brindol forces were going to reinforce the cathedral as their last stand, and told them to take four Lions of Brindol and reinforce the main street to the west to buy the defenders in the center of town time to set up defenses. He apologized for sending them to such a dangerous task with so few resources, but informed them that they were all the town had left — Immerstal the Red had fallen in battle, and Captain Ulverth was still defending the north gate. "Hold them off as long as you can — if it looks like you're going to be overwhelmed, retreat back here."Hold them off the party did: three waves of hobgoblins with manticores, "blood ghost berserker" bugbears, and finally goblins riding bluespawn thunderlizards (instead of the usual worgs). This was a long slog of a battle, with a few harrying moments and a lot of scrolls and potions being used up, but ultimately the heroes were victorious. There were some casualties among the city guard (
sirfox:"That guy was wearing a red shirt."), but other than using up resources the party suffered little damage.The Red Hand forces pulled back to regroup at this point, and the party used the re-established telepathic link to report their success to Lord Jaarmath. He congratulated them and was in the midst of ordering them to return to help reinforce the cathedral when contact was suddenly cut off.
The party beat feet back to the cathedral square only to find the place a scene of panic. A sniper with deadly accuracy was picking off soldiers at will with viciously-poisoned arrows; the sniper had already gravely wounded Lord Jaarmath, but
hantamouse used a scroll of delay poison and sirfox used a restoration to bring him around. He told them that before the mental link had been broken by the sniper's attack, Captain Ulverth had said that "something big" was coming from the north, and it was more important than ever to reinforce the cathedral — but that this couldn't be done while the sniper was out there wreaking havoc.jamesbarrett sent Hopper to scout, but this turned out to be a tragic mistake. The sniper was savvy and experienced (actually a 6th level blackspawn ninja), and knew full well that there was no reason for a wolf to just be casually walking across the cathedral square — it must be either an animal companion or some kind of polymorphed spellcaster or something similar, and that made him a priority target. Two arrows later, Hopper was gone and Balgor had gone berserk with rage and began charging across the square at the general source of the arrows.This, of course, made Balgor a priority target as well and the sniper began to pump him full of arrows. This allowed the other party members to spot where the arrows were coming from, specifically the upper floors of the coffinmaker's shop, and after a healing potion and another delay poison to get Balgor back in shape, they burst in the door and started pouring in (except for
hantamouse, who used potions of invisibility and spider climb to enable Dreklin to make his way up to the second floor windows without being spotted).Downstairs, the heroes found themselves blasted by lightning bolts from a pair of Red Hand war adepts, the sniper's bodyguards. The sniper knew full well that those two were basically a speed bump and that they'd quickly be defeated, and so he began preparations for ambushing anyone who made it up the stairs, except that Dreklin's move silently check was low and the sniper's listen check was high: the sniper realized that there was someone in the upper floor with him and immediately used his ki powers to turn invisible.
This began the battle of the sneaks — both invisible, Dreklin and the sniper kept shifting positions and listening for each other. Finally, the sniper made his listen check well enough to narrow Dreklin's position down to one of four squares. I rolled a d4 to see which square the sniper chose, and it was the wrong one, but close enough that when the sniper appeared, using his acid breath weapon, Dreklin still had to make a saving throw to avoid it.
At this point, the rest of the party burst in from downstairs, having dispatched the war adepts. Suddenly outnumbered, the sniper used his ki powers again to give himself displacement, but to his annoyance it never provided him any benefit (the badguys were having a bad dice night). Being ganged up on, the sniper began to make his way toward the window for an escape, using his ki powers to turn invisible again, but Balgor, in a moment of epic rage, attacked the square he knew the sniper was still in, managing to bypass both the invisibility and the displacement and land a solid blow.
lythandra then used glitterdust to make the ninja visible again, and then all it took was a few well-placed shots from the rest of the party and down he went.Balgor then killed the dead body some more, just to vent his frustrations.
Having taken out what turned out to be the toughest foe of the session, the characters went back out to the square, where the troops had begun assembling defenses as soon as the sniper's arrows had stopped, to see Captain Ulverth riding up on his horse, his troops close behind in something between a rout and a hasty retreat, which is where we ended the session.
The battle of Brindol rages on...
-The Gneech