Post/Author/DateTime	Post
solbergb 10-18-07, 03:54 PM	This is part 2 of a Living Greyhawk adaption of Expedition to Demonweb Pit. Part 1 can be found here: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=937863 Cast of Characters. I don't know most of the exact builds, but will just give a kind of "role" as listing the PRC's doesn't actually show how the character is played. Several characters leveled in the last module. Unlike the RHOD cast, which is mostly Neutral, this party is entirely good and mostly lawful good. Four of the six charactes even have Aura of Good (cleric or paladin levels). Unlike RHOD also, all of us are experienced players and most of us have worked together before, often with these characters. Some of us even played and ran the original Q1 finale to the Giant/Drow/Demonweb 1st edition tournament modules. Olivia -L12 Human (Rhenee) Telekenetic themed Sorceress. She can trace the origin of most of her spells to about 3 (as an example, solid fog is just evards without a surface, according to her). Specializes in moving things around and battlefield control. Can do damage too, properly equipped. Weak on area damage. The only powerful spells she has out of the TK theme are oriented to magical analysis. Main improvement over L11 was addition of rapid metamagic, quicken spell and L6 spell slots. Kyndiah - L12 Halfling light fighter, who has a strong religious vocation with Avoreen. A very fierce little warrior, she uses a variety of divine tricks to power her attacks and isn't afraid to wrestle with medium sized or smaller enemies. Tuvok - L11 Human "Ninja" - he's very much like an Anime character, (no levels in Ninja though) - very powerful charge+cleave attacks, lots of mobility but somewhat fragile. He makes a lot of use of boots of big stepping+knight's move to surround an enemy with hostile melee types. He will sometimes grapple enemies. Major improvement over level 10 was the L3 paladin spell "find the gap". Kohan - L11 Dwarf Spike Chain Occult Slayer - He's a rare light armor dwarf. He's better at dealing damage than taking it, using hitpoints as his main defense. With level 11, he's now got 5 levels in occult slayer, making him immune to enchantment type effects. Ralin - L11 Dwarf Radiant Servant - A generalist cleric, preferences are offensive casting, buffing, healing in that order. Heavy armor dwarf. Major improvement over level 10 was the L6 spell slots, in particular "Hero's Feast", a vital spell in the demonweb, which is packed with fear effects and poison. Argent - L8 Human Radiant Servant - Medic/Support style priest, also heavily armored, preferring healing, buffing to other cleric roles. Slightly more survivable than when he was level 7, in his shiny new adamantine fullplate. This party remains very strong compared to the expected party level for the module, but the DM did find ways to challenge us this time around. One thing he did was take the drow and redo their statblocks, using feats and spells and sometimes even class level changes, trying to make the drow racial abilities harmonize better with the class abiliites and spells. (eg, if the drow had a cleric with area buffs, the minions had feats that let them drop spell resistance briefly without the usual std action - some thing from a Drow sourcebook). This is kind of a no-no in Living Greyhawk, but the players all agreed to it and it added to the fun. Equipment was kept at the same value they had before and only basic std stuff (statboost items, resistance items, +1 armor/weapons etc) was provided. With the monster type enemies he left the statblocks alone, not feeling he could tamper with them without changing te ELs.
solbergb 10-18-07, 04:12 PM	"Three" advised us to enter the Demonweb and locate a drow Sage, who he uses as a spy. She's not a nice person, but is more interested in her research than supporting Lolth and he has some books she needs to use as a bribe. We talked to our demon-hunter contact and she warned us of some unique risks in the Demonweb (the paths change, old maps are useless, if you cut through the web, don't enter the abyssal fog as it is very dangerous, teleportation type effects don't work there except via special transport gates activated by platonic solid keys, Effects such as plane shift also don't work, spiders are common, demons are common, odd bits of reality are "stuck" to the web)...and after all that we got advice on the currently open portal from the marketplace nexus to the demonweb. We arrive in the demonweb and start wandering around. We encounter several weak foes that the fighters kill, with spellcasters conserving resources, burning a lesser vigor or two, a magic missile, that sort of thing each fight. There was one monster that lurked at an intersection in the ceiling webs that tossed an enervation ray. We dispatched it quickly and with a little more brutal use of force, but were forced to burn an expensive restoration scroll - we didn't want the person affected to have to wait for hours to get his negative levels back. Along the way we discover a few keys that are only useful if you want to go to other planes of existance. We are focused on our task (and in Living Greyhawk, the adaption doesn't support side-trips) so we spent a couple hours with little to show for it. Finally we encounter a drow patrol. At last, someone who may know where this reasearcher lives!
solbergb 10-18-07, 05:53 PM	To understand what happens next, you have to understand that our party is almost totally ignorant of drow. We have a lot of Kn Arcane, Religion and Spellcraft. Very little of anything else, in particular Kn Local or Kn Nobility. When playing Olivia, I had to firewall a lot of my own knowledge of Drow, especially "Vault of the Drow" type drow. Olivia had noticed in the first adventure that the drow raiders were commanded by a woman, and she's wearing legendary Drow armor, disguised as a drow female (she's about the right height and build anyway, with somewhat lighter bone structure, pointy ears, black skin and white hair she fits pretty well) The entire party was under undetectable alignment and the halfling was also disguised as a drow. (halfling also had hat of disguise, which can be used to make yourself look taller. She looked like a kind of short drow) So to the patrol, we had a commanding drow female in legendary armor on a phantom steed, with a drow assistant, plus two human and two dwarf servants/slaves (drow "slaves" are often expendible bodyguards). Olivia addressed them in Oerth Common (rather than elvish or undercommon, neither of which she speaks). They were I guess startled into responding in kind, perhaps assuming I was using that language for the benefit of my slaves. I can't quite reconstruct the entire conversation, but Olivia took a commanding approach, kind of like how Duchy of Urnst Suel Nobility treats everybody else. It went something like this. "You there! I require directions to the <drow researcher's name>". (they asked why I wanted to know) "I do not have to share my mission with lessers. If Lolth wanted you to know, you would know." (so far my bluff checks and intimidate checks were holding up ok. But Drow are a factional bunch, and they probably wanted to be sure I wasn't working for a rival family, so they asked who I served) "Who do you serve?" "We serve Eclavadra of house <whatever it is>" ok now here I had a problem, as I actually know that name from 1st edition play and way too much about her faction. If I'd had my wits about me I would have said something disparaging about her standing with Lolth compared to mine instead of what I actually said, which was a holdover from several experiences in lands run by a chaotic evil deity. I figured since these guys were just wandering around instead of in a stronghold that they were out of favor with Lolth so.... "Eclavadra? <sniff> That heretic? You would do better to serve me!" Now as it turns out, that might have been an ok response 20 years ago when Eclavadra was following an elder elemental god, but at the moment she's switched back to Lolth......as we found out next. "Our mistress is the Right Hand of Lolth!" (a very brief battle occurred, where most of them got evards, the cleric got silenced and the one with freedom of movement was butchered with our fighters. In spite of Olivia's orders to "take one alive" we barely succeeded in doing that with one of the lesser minions) We woke the guy up and demanded to know where the researcher was. He then, of course, lied and tried to trick us into heading to his stronghold, but his skill at deception was not as good as our two paladin and occult slayer's ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. At that point Olivia lost patience. "Tell me where he is or we'll cut a hole in the wall and toss you into the fog!" The drow did not fear death, indeed he expected it (and he was not mistaken). He did however fear having his soul eaten by the fog. This time he gave correct directions.
solbergb 10-18-07, 06:02 PM	Armed with correct directions we found a place with many tunnels, an altar to Lolth and a very expensive-looking silver statue (most of the value in the artwork). After working out plans to carry it off (a few tenser's disks being the main thing, but enlarge on the fighter when going through the portal to carry it briefly) and a scan from Olivia's detect secret doors wand (which we used everywhere mildly interesting) discovered a passage! the passage lead to a blank wall. Auravision determined it was magic. Analyze Dwoemer revealed it to be an illusory wall, and also revealed that behind it was a drow and tiefling that seemed unaware of us. We burst in, but in a moment of good sense considered that the drow might be the person we're looking for and used subdual damage only. We woke up the drow and she was annoyed, but was willing enough to accept that we were 'just being careful' as long as she got her books. She kept to her deal and told us the following. 1. Lolth is having a big important meeting in 3 days 2. To get to the meeting you have to go through the black gate 3. The gate has a guardian, to bypass it you need a key, a password or to destroy the guardian. 4. Whomever is in charge of Eclavadra's Fane has a key. 5. She thinks the normal guy is out of town, and nobody especially powerful is currently in the Fane. (well, powerful compared to Eclavadra, who is epic, or her usual lieutenant, who is nearly so) 6. She happens to have a teleport key that would take us inside, and would find it amusing to see who would win if we attempted to use it. After talking it over, we decided that facing a powerful gate guardian that probably doesn't have any treasure is an inferior option to attacking a fane of drow equipped with magic weapons/items. From a "drawing attention to ourselves" standpoint - busting up a gate guardian may just mean stronger guardians next time. A drow lead assault that wipes out drow, steals their stuff....would probably just be seen as a rival taking advantage of the currently "weak" defenses. The researcher agreed to let us use the teleport key, but only after stashing it on her still unconscious tiefling friend. This lets her honestly say if questioned: 1. they got the key from the tiefling, not me 2. they attacked my home and knocked me out our whole visit could be spun as just to get the key to attack the Fane, covering her illicit trading of information for books.
solbergb 10-18-07, 06:30 PM	We worked out our retreat plan, buffed up and went through the portal. All three of our fighters were enlarged (although Kyndiah was only medium sized). Otherwise the buffs were the usual suspects (righteous wrath of faithful, recitation, prot evil, shield of faith, etc) We found ourselves in a large tower, with two very surprised guards. They got swatted by Tuvok, Kohan headed upstairs, Kyndiah opened the ground level door, both clerics ran outside, and Olivia, still on her Phantom Steed, rode out and used "chain open/close" to open the doors to the next tower (and quicken grease on entrance to one, when she found it was stuffed with powerful-looking but armored drow)....then scooted back inside the main tower with the huge movement of her steed. These drow were very alert and very well trained. Perhaps use of the transport portal set off some alarms. They sprung into action and our assault immediately ran into trouble (an oddity of the initiative rolls had all the drow, every single bunch, all in the middle....so a few of us went, then all of them, then the rest of us) The grease was dispelled after many attempts by low level drow clerics. An arcane archer zapped our clerics with a sculpted grease, trapping them in slippery, 20' wide area. With all the fighters and Olivia inside the tower, our clerics Ralin and Argent got hammered. They were hit with multiple sound bursts, unusually powerful magic missiles from some warmages on the roof, were missed (mostly...gloves of arrow snaring I'd loaned to Argent stopped one arrow, armor did the rest) by missile fire and then the high priests weighed in, dropping flame strike after flame strike. After about the third one, Argent cast delay death on himself....his cloak of elemental protection was helping but not quite enough. Ralin with his extra levels, dwarf constitution and prot energy fire(30) was still standing when the smoke cleared. Ralin had managed to get off a holy smite right before the first cleric unloaded that killed two warmages and a couple archers, damaged some clerics but failed to affect the flamestriking cleric he was trying to interrupt. Because of delays due to readied actions, the arcane archer got a chance to imbue a sculpted color spray, but both Ralin and Kyndiah made their saves. Tuvok and Kohan used spider climb and their great height to quickly ascend to higher levels of the tower, picking off some stragglers on the way. Olivia did a complicated action to rescue the clerics that was hampered somewhat by silence spells cast on the front half of the first floor of the tower. (she drew the silence spells with a quickened spell then backed off to a place with sound and cast enlarged servant horde, which pulled in both clerics and shut the door). Kyndiah meanwhile had shot up a heavily buffed half-demon drow with that demon slaying bow we got in the prior adventure. Later she was a targeted by a lot of dispel magics, as the only visible target. Most of her buffs were removed. All of the drow now had line of sight to the courtyard. Anyone who had been visible had been targeted by suggestion spells backed by Unsettling Enchantment, and had penalties to saving throws. Around this time the tide started to turn. Olivia got an evards off on the roof (ride the horse out with readied action, cast the spell, ride it back inside....the drow clerics silenced the entire lower level plus all courtyard facing windows....but not the air over their heads). Kohan and Tuvok reached the top of the tower and started drawing fire from the arcane archer. A round later, the clerics finally got out of the silence and one woke the other up. Olivia got most of the clerics in the courtyard into an evards (the high priests had free movement going and were unaffected). Then the party got unstuck. Tuvok and Kohan cleared the entire roof suddently and brutally, with a couple crits from Tuvok and full attacks from Kohan. Tuvok, who had been losing 10hp a round due to Divine Sacrifice finally got an area heal from the clerics, who up till then had been rescuing themselves. Olivia changed her base to the top of the tower and started chopping at the grappled drow clerics with sculpted whirling blade. The next round, the drow managed to dispel the evards, just in time for Tuvok to leap down in the middle of them. The clerics circled around him hitting him with multiple cause wounds spells....and learned how futile that is when facing a pious templar with Mettle. Then the drow cohesion fell apart. One warrior, who we decided had been hiding behind a door because the DM forgot about him, snuck off out the exit. Many of the surviving clerics, instead of attacking, chose to go invisible. The high priests were still fighting though, loosing greater command spells and wracks....to no effect. (this party has very high will and fort saves). Olivia activated her Dragon Mask to track the invisibles and started chasing them down with her steed and whirling blades. A couple drow jumped off a pit into a bunch of spiders to escape us. Only the high priest had sufficient Favor with Lolth not to be eaten. She and the lone warrior were the only survivors, as Tuvok killed those who fought and Olivia hunted down those who fled, including chasing one last guy through a secret tunnel right to a gate to a place called "Ehrili Cinu" (spelled wrong) We later discovered that gate went to one of the largest Drow cities on Oerth and were glad we didn't experiment with it. We looted and left in a hurry, stopping to pick up the large silver statue from the Lolth shrine. The demonic drow had the key we were looking for. That encounter was in theory CR18. Our party is a strong 12, probably ~13 when under short duration buffs. We had surprise and knew what we were up against, they had no idea of our abilities or how to stop us, so this was probably more of an EL+4 encounter for us than the numbers state (and sure enough, our weakest party member would have died without delay death, and Tuvok got himself into trouble). They had the potential to really mess us up, but a lot of the spells were dropped at the wrong time or on the wrong target. A silence spell cast on Olivia's phantom steed, for example, would have really cramped her ability to contribute. Fortunately we got our baby cleric under full cover before a dispel landed on his delay death. Had we approached by the front gate, we would likely have been mauled. I don't recommend a normal party attempt this approach unless they're careful to use the terrain against the drow (fort up in a tower, clear it out, attrit the folks outside of it until strong enough to attack).
solbergb 10-18-07, 06:42 PM	We returned to Three after fencing our loot, and he said that now we knew "what" (Lolth's conference) but we needed to know "when" and "why". A follower of Orcus (invited to the conference) was willing to share the information, as it was not inclined to go along with the conference goals. Unfortunately to meet him, we had to go to this major demonic city in the Abyss. In many ways this city was similar to the dimensional nexus we'd been using as a base. Anything a demon could want could be purchased there, so merchants that didn't belong were common. A demon lord had decided the route to power was to hold one place stable enough that trade could occur (a quite lawful idea for a demon actually) They just needed a proper license. Within the city planar travel does not work, but teleport type effects do. The meeting place for this servant of the Prince of Undead was a tavern in that city. We are provided with a merchant pass and a password. Ok....so we go through the portal and discover it is one-way. There is a Hezrou that tries to bully us, but we defeat it with "diplomacy" (well, bluster, bluff and a valid merchant pass, and speculations about how the Prince of this realm would feel about those who violate his rules). (turns out that demon was very wealthy and we would have done better to kill it. Oh well.) We decide to hire a guide, after interviewing a few. These are demons down on their luck, usually with an affliction of some sort (we settled on a Vrock that was merely medium sized and with wings that were broken). Our main question was "do you know the best way to return to our plane" (and instructions). Only after we were satisfied that they could guide us OUT did we ask the guide to get us to our tavern. Again, we had undetectable alignment up and Olivia and Kyndiah were disguised as Drow. This proved useful at the gate, which was warded by some kind of vampire tree that can detect good aligned creatures. Our guide got us safely to the tavern and Olivia used innuendo with the bartender to get directed to the "diplomat" we were supposed to contact. She did this by speaking in "threes" like the guy who sent us in the message forwarded. Once at the door, she used the password to get the party in. The "diplomat" was a bone naga, and had very interesting information. 1. Lolth was putting together a demonic cabal, with her at the top, a pact to share power. Such a pact would have the strongest magical bindings, as demons are too chaotic to keep their word without powerful incentive 2. Provided a map to where they are meeting and a more precise time. 3. Provided a password to the black gate. We felt kind of sheepish at all the work we did to get a key...until the Naga spoke the word. It was something horrible and evil, so evil in fact that Tuvok almost felt forced to attack the Naga - but luckily a little fickle finger of Fate from Olivia allowed him another chance to resist the impulse and he got control of himself. I don't think we'll be using that password. As we were leaving, a Lamiah spotted us and started screaming about spies in the city. We didn't know what gave us away but we were in very big trouble.
solbergb 10-18-07, 06:52 PM	Maybe an iconic four person party could just dim door or teleport out of trouble here, but we had six and at most Olivia could only take 3. We jumped out the window, then we busted out a coulple scrolls. Invisibility sphere got us to the wall, with silence and chained levitate getting us over it (Vrocks on the wall see and hear really well, but are spaced maybe 80' apart. We were able to thread the needle). Away from the wall we moved as fast as we could, with slower party members on Tenser's discs, but pursuit was quick. Luckily the terrian was pretty rough, so we got out of sight of the wall, and also luckily, the pursuers were not a flight of Vrocks (they don't seem to leave the city) but were some kind of fast ground creature that could track us somehow. We made a stand and stuck to spells that would not draw attention (eg, no Flame Strikes) from a distance. Pursuing was a pack of Lamias and some kind of weird flying creature that none of us could identify. (it kind of looked like a Yuan-Ti Abombination -human top, snake bottom, but with mirror images and lightning bolts and magical flight). All we knew about any of these creatures is that its touch drained wisdom. Tuvok and Kyndiah intercepted two Lamiah, Olivia caught a couple in solid fog (and a third behind it) and quicken-magic-missiled away some of the mirror images, Ralin dropped a holy smite on the lamia stuck in and around the fog while Argent cast recitation. The next round featured some lamiah getting killed by Tuvok and Kyndiah, and then a complicated combination with Olivia stripping remaining images with quicken magic missile, Ralin hitting her with targeted dispel (readied) and as she fell to the earth, Kohan tossed at the snake creature with TK (along with some arrows that mostly bounced off ineffectually). A round later, all enemies were dead, but another creature was closing fast. It looked like a giant zombie dog, but much faster. Olivia attempted to stick a scroll of command undead on it, but it had spell resistance. It then charged into a blender....being stupid it attacked the nearest, heavy armored target and then found itself in step+full attack of everybody.
solbergb 10-18-07, 07:02 PM	With no other enemies pressing, we headed to the river of salt...the only escape route we knew. If Olivia could just get 10 minutes of time she could summon Phantom Steeds for everybody, but the pursuit was still too close, and converging. We arrived at the River of Molten Salt and a hag there could indeed "call" a ferryman that would take us to our nexus plane. But she demanded a "fresh" soul as the price. We bargained to let her have a soul from one or more of the next batch of pursuers to catch up with us. She agreed. Next up was a couple of weird giants (later identified as Abyssal Giants). Olivia promptly stuck one in a solid fog, while the rest of the party huddled together in a strange "storm of law" spell (I forget the name, but it hurts chaotic creatures that enter). The free giant showed a cool power, throwing a rock at the clump of PC's and having it explode, affecting all of them (no save...) The fogged giant had the earth open up under him, and he fell (slowly) out of the fog...it is the fastest way out, falling damage is reduced by the travel through the fog, but you can go more than 10'. Olivia fogged the exploding rock giant, while the party converged on the gorge that the other giant had dug out. This was executed very well...the giant found himself surrounded, prone and pounded on, while its return attacks kept hitting very high armor classes. Meanwhile Argent used stone shape to make a ladder, assisting those who went into the gorge from getting out. By this time, the first giant had escaped from the first fog cloud, only to be enmeshed in another one in his gorge. He chose to just walk out of that, but the delay allowed the party to move to the other side of the battlefield. We didn't execute the attack on him as well. We discovered they are immune to fire (fire seeds). Acid as well (acid flasks). We got it prone again, but after some missed AOO's it picked the one "soft target" in the party within reach - Tuvok. On the first swing, we discovered a new power of the monster, as it critted. We learned that aside from the big wads of damage and an increased crit multiple (I think), their swords do 4d8 vile damage during a crit. Tuvok was just barely standing after that hit, so he got a delay death before the monster wound up for the followup....which did in fact "kill" him. That was the last gasp for the giant, he did not survive to act again. Tuvok was revived, the hag got her "fresh" souls and the ferryman was "called" before more pursuers showed up.
solbergb 10-18-07, 07:08 PM	That was the end of our session. What remains to do is brave the black gate, find the demonic conference and figure out a way to disrupt it without getting TPK'd. On the downside, a lot of the stuff in the first layer of the web is still alive and we may have to fight it. On the plus side we have all the teleport keys that were possible to find, so we'll have some interesting strategic mobility within the web. If we can zap Lolth somehow, it will all fall apart. It might also be possible to somehow play the other demons off against each other, but that's a risky tactic, as we know little of them and powerful demons are awfully good at detecting lies. Still, they might be paranoid about a new group appearing suddenly and by surprise...they will all likely assume we're sent by somebody they distrust. Regarding this section - a party that wanders the whole web will find more encounters than we did. We were mission focused and as a result we missed some opportunities for xp and treasure. In a home campaign this would not be as important. In Living Greyhawk, those xp and gold are gone forever. We didn't mind that much though. Better to remain true to the story than "farm for gold" especially after knocking over the Fane. We all felt the pursuit scene in the demon city was not very well thought out by the module author. It's unavoidable (we did nothing to betray ourselves and took the right precautions) and really....a flight of vrocks should have swooped down from the walls and killed us in short order....or even if you buy that invisibility in a crowded town is good enough to get to the wall, once it wore off a much faster pursuit should have occurred. Sure demons are chaotic etc. There's a city in the Bandit Kingdoms though, whose city walls are defended in a pretty similar way as described in the module. A party escaping the way we did would not likely have survived. So it is a bit of a railroad, followed by encounters that don't really take into account the capabilites of the party vs that of the pursuers. (had I had rapid spell, I could have had phantom steeds up for everybody, and nothing is going to catch up to us, short of anticipating where we are going next and teleporting there. Quite a few level 10ish parties will be able to teleport the whole party directly out of contact. Luckily our party was kind of inept at fast movement so the encounters didn't seem totally wrong) In general we're enjoying the mod. There are a good mix of combat vs roleplay opportunities - and noncombat roleplay with truly evil people in a society where THEY fit in is actually pretty fun. Some encounters were hard enough to challenge a very strong party, but we could see how a weaker party could still accomplish the main goals by simply taking another approach or having a different mix of abilities. (for all our power and decent social skills, our holes in knowledge skills have bit us repeatedly. Having a druid or bard instead of a second cleric would have also given different options, etc)
Gryllmyre 10-18-07, 07:09 PM	Attacking the Fane, now that's ambition :) Reaching the bone naga without stealth was impressive. The arrangement of encounters almost forces it. Stupid chaotic demons... I do agree about the pursuit to the wall. I was trying to figure out as a DM how I could flesh it out a bit in steps so that the PC's can try to give themselves some advantage during the pursuit as it develops. Instead the book just says "Uh, they get chased, yeah, and they better be fast".
solbergb 10-18-07, 07:21 PM	Well, in a way we used stealth. Just not the "sneak around" kind. We used disguise, we researched the rules of behavior, we got a local guide, we had magical wards to cover our identity and alignment and our party is strong on bluff and decent on other social skills. We also tried harder to avoid the kind of conversation we had with the drow patrol. What you can get away with in the Demonweb is different from what you can get away with in a city where everybody is potentially hostile.