Nope!
Ah well… I guess that once we get going, I can have minions in heavy armor to serve as our meat shield. Player Six should maybe contemplate a full on wizard, would be useful for us I’m sure.
Oh man, this week’s Episode should be a good one!
((Title inspired by a typo made by** FinnAgain** during the session))
When we left off, our unlikely heroes had but a few hours left until the noble girl would be sacrificed. Even more worrisome, they had even fewer hours before Jenks the Archivist turned into a slobbering, hairy, disgusting wererat who could quite possibly attack the rest of the party. Hoping to avoid this fate, the party decided to hurry on down to fight the evil Drow.
Nope, I’m just kidding. With the clock ticking, the party decided that now would be a good time to settle their philosophical differences. Once Vrai, Khel, and Jenks all came to an agreement (Which basically amounted too, “I won’t kill you in your sleep if you don’t kill me in mine”), they headed down into the ancient dwarven mines.
They climbed down the seemingly endless stairs, passing dozens of collapsed passages and dead ends. Finally, they found themselves before a small hole leading down, with a rough ladder cut into the wall. Vrai asked Jenks to pull a bat out of his Bag of Tricks, but Jenks pulled out a cat instead. Not one to waste an opportunity, Jenks decided to send the cat down the hole. This involved pushing the clawing and scratching cat into the hole and waiting for it to hit the ground. Based on the splat, the party determined that the hole went down about one hundred feet. The hole was too small for Schelty the spider, and Meeps volunteered to keep her company while the others carried on.
Not wanting to follow the cat’s example, the party tied two ropes together and proceeded to climb down using both the ropes and the ladder. At the bottom, they found themselves in a small chamber, carved with various religious hieroglyphs. A successful Knowledge (Religion) check allowed Jenks to list off useless information while the others investigated. On the Northern wall, they found a carving of Jubilex, with two red gemstones appraised at 1000 Gold Pieces for eyes. Vrai decided to yank them out, and got zapped with negative energy. Luckily for him, negative energy heals him, thanks to the Tomb Tainted Soul feat. When the gems were removed, the door opened, revealing a narrow hallway. The party followed the hallway, found another secret door, and entered an even narrower hall.
When they were about halfway through the hallway, two trap doors at the ends opened up, and a pair of gelatinous cubes slipped into the hallway. The party dispatched them with relative ease, with the exception of Vrai, who was paralyzed for eighteen rounds. Once he woke up, the party carried on. The next hallway featured pit traps that dropped fifteen feet into pits filled with gelatinous cubes. In one of these pits, the party found one of the Drow’s victims who was paralyzed, but still alive. While they debated methods of retrieving the poor man, Jenks had an idea. He pulled a weasel out of his bag and, as the others stared in shock, tied it to a rope and lowered it into the pit. The ooze, smelling fresh food, shifted, freeing the man’s arm. Phaistos managed to pull him out, and he was revealed to be a man named Calven, a Swashbuckler of some skill (And a PC).
Once Calven agreed to assist the others in their attack on the Drow’s lair, the party moved onwards. They came to another demonic-eye-door. Vrai recognized the gems as Red Onyx, gems that are attuned to negative energy and can basically be used as batteries. Once he pulled the new gems out, the door opened, revealing a huge crater, open to the night sky nearly three thousand feet above. Pools of acid line the floor; on the other side stood an altar, where the Drow mage was preparing to sacrifice the maiden; in the way stood two massive gelatinous cubes. Just as they entered the crater, the full moon rose in the sky. Jenks turned into a wererat, although he succeeded on his Will Save and kept control. The party charged ahead, and managed to close the distance to the Drow before he could act.
The next round, the Drow cast a powerful spell that summoned an arrow made of green energy which burned with acid, which he shot at Phaistos. As the arrow of acid burned him, Jenks made himself useful by identifying the spell as Acid Arrow, invented 173 years ago by a man named Melf. While the others contemplated choking Jenks to death, Jenks cast a Hold Person spell on the Drow. Surprisingly, he failed, and Phaistos carried on his recurring theme of dispatching incapacitated characters by coup de gracing the Drow. With the Drow dead, the two huge oozes collapsed just as Khel completed his summoning spell. Needless to say, Khel was very disappointed.
Earlier, Vrai wiped off his old-man disguise and revealed himself to be a young, handsome Elf. Now, he rushed up to the noble girl and introduced himself. While she was quite taken by her Elven savior, his naked wererat Archivist, lizardman Druid, and half-Drow Rogue companions were less appreciated. She didn’t have a problem with the human Swashbuckler, however. Together, the party looted the cavern and prepared to head back to the surface.
And that’s pretty much where we left off! The final fight went waaaaaaay to easy, mostly because Jenks was introduced so late in the game and hadn’t wasted all of his good spells yet. With no more mid-dungeon introductions, not to mention encounters that are planned for a five member party from the start, future boss fights should go a lot less smoothly.
“Save or die!!! Ah… I see you choose die.”
I believe you mean “NOT Suprisingly, [Jenks] succeeded, and Phaistos carried on…”
Jenks’ Awesomeness Tally- one dead cat [not a proud moment], One Ooze whipped to death, Weasel Fishing, and then one assist with a held Drow. And now he’s recovered his Spell book, stolen the Drow’s Spell Book, and has become permanently afflicted with Lycanthropy- even if it’s just a WereRat.
Not bad for his first adventure!
Now, because of this, we’re going to meet the next boss with roughly 957 badguy minions in attendance. “You would awfully like to be able to attack the orc chief, but there are currently 17.3 acres worth of minions to dispatch. You can still cast Hold on the chief, if you really want.”
How would you know? Dread Necromancers don’t get ANY Divination spells!
Dread Necromancers don’t get any of most spells.
A short intermission:
Party Bard
By Billy Joel
It’s getting late in the tavern now,
Adventurers shuffle in.
There’s a hooded man in the corner
Got a quest that he wants you to win.
He says, "Guys this here is Frandinkledy,
He’s a low-level lute-playing bard.
He can handle himself in a swordfight or two,
And he can be your secret card.
La la la de de da
la la de de da da dum
Sing us a song, you’re the Party Bard
sing us a song tonight
Well, we all want +1’s to our damage rolls
And you’ve got us feelin’ alright
As the lone good guy on this team, I just want to state I was against the “cat experiement” and that the weasel survived it’s fishing lesson.
The Cat Experiment was actually a Cat accident. I didn’t realize the hole was pointing down. I thought it was like… on a slope.
Well, as we’ve now learned, both cats and rats can be fucking lethal.
We’ve also learned that killing Vrai on the first round is a good idea, because if not he’s got enough tricks to heal himself that even his tiny 7 HP buffer is enough to keep him alive if he gets proper casting off.
Except that I didn’t kill you in the first round… and still managed to kill you in the end with my Ball/Cure/Animal Combo in our Hypothetical Library Fight.
But it WAS damn close. But you still got beat by a librarian 
Yeah… talk to me when I have my minions. 
Actually, my DR2 (bludgeoning, magic) would’ve blocked the rat, and the cat.
Just sayin’.
- Your bad for not remembering
- Coup de Grace.
DR goes away for CDG?
No, but it’s an autocrit. Which still doesn’t pierce your DR, but you have to make a Fort save anyways.