I recently returned from the D&D Experience 2010 convention, where I played in The Paladin's Plague, the first Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) "battle interactive". Here's a description of what happened.
This is going to contain massive spoilers for the plot and mechanics of the event. If you think you'll ever play it and you don't want to be spoiled, don't read this thread.
Edit: doggonit, I typo'd the word plague in the thread title. There doesn't seem to be any way to change it, so just think of a "plauge" as a particularly lethal disease.
Part 1
Show
Let's start with the official description: "The leaders of Elturel are concerned about the plagueland a few miles outside the city, which has recently begun spewing out even more twisted monstrosities than usual. The paladins have put out a call for adventuring companies to send their best and bravest explorers to venture to the border, if not into the plagueland itself. The expedition's charter is to bring back any information about the horrors within and what might be causing the increase in Spellplague activity. This is a very dangerous assignment, but also one that offers adventurers the chance to make a name for themselves by braving one of the most dangerous and least understood threats in all of Faerun -- an active plagueland."
Also, ADCP 2-1 The Paladin's Plague chronologically follows immediately after the events from the SPEC 2-1 adventures, which entail helping the paladins of Elturgard with various tasks in preparation for the mission into the plaguelands.
By the way, for those who don't know, Elturgard (the country) is a theocracy ruled by followers of Torm. Elturel (the capitol) is a large city with one very important and instantly noticeable feature: a "second sun" that was placed in the sky as a gift from the god Amaunator. The "second sun" is called Amaunator's Gift, The Companion, and other evocative names.
The event began with groups forming and reporting to the coordinators for distribution to tables. I was playing Sseklah, dragonborn paladin of Amaunator -- a very appropriate character for this adventure. Sseklah wasn't a member of an adventuring company, so I looked for another group to join. I found some people advertising for "H3 need 1" (Heroic tier, levels 7-10) and joined up with them. As it turned out, that group also consisted mainly of Amaunator worshippers, so it worked out well from both a practical and a role-playing point of view.
The existing group's adventuring company charter was: must worship Amaunator (if a Divine character), or at least pay respects to Him, and no more than one character of each race could be a member of the group. Fortunately, they didn't already have a dragonborn! We later decided upon a name; behold:
The Morninglord's Many
Unfortunately, I didn't write down people's real names, and I'm terrible at remembering them. But, in real life, Brother Solinus's player was the father of Lynetta's player; Star's player and Silvana's player were husband and wife; and Ziz's player was friends with the players of Star and Silvana. Also, in real life, Star's player and Silvana's player were Indian, and Ziz's player was Chinese, so we had some actual racial diversity in addition to the in-game racial diversity. :-)
Mechanically, this group consisted of two strikers, two leaders, and two defenders. If I could have changed one thing, it would be to replace the warlock with a real striker, like a rogue or barbarian. Lynetta was a fine character, and the player knew what she was doing, but warlocks just don't output enough damage, nor do they impose the powerful status effects of a controller like a wizard or invoker. Come to think of it, a controller would've helped this group also, as you shall see.
Except for Sseklah at 10th level, all of the other characters were 7th or 8th level, so we decided to play the low-level version of the adventure. I think that was the correct decision. We were never truly in danger of anyone's PC dying, but we had a hard time chewing through the monster's hit points, and playing the high-level version only would have exacerbated that difficulty.
The adventure started with the PCs assembled in the Temple of Torm in Elturel. We were introduced to three important NPCs:
We were in the midst of receiving our final blessings from the High Observer prior to setting out on our mission when we heard a tremendous explosion outside the temple. All the Spellscarred PCs inside became limned in blue fire, and the temple itself started shaking as if in an earthquake -- church bells were torn loose from their moorings and crashed to the ground. The doors of the temple burst open, and a badly wounded young paladin arrived bearing grave news: the southern section of the city had been hit with a tremendous wave of spellplague energy, and various monsters were rampaging through the city, slaughtering innocent civilians.
Before the poor young man could tell us anything more, he succumbed to his wounds. All of his orifices (eyes, nose, ears...) had been leaking blue fire, and as the paladin finished his warning, he convulsed in agony as a tentacle erupted from his chest and his skull imploded, before he crumbled into ash. [The "flavor text" in this adventure was top-notch. And icky.]
At this point, we started our first encounter. Before I desribe that, let me go over a few things.
There were two mechanical elements of the battle interactive that weren't well explained. (At least, our DM didn't do a good job explaining them to us.) First, reinforcements. Apparently, if you thought your group was bad-ass enough, you could tell the DM you wanted the monsters to have reinforcements. I think you were supposed to decide upon this before the encounter began. I'm unclear how this is any different than simply choosing to play the high-level version of your level band.
Second, offering and receiving help. If your table mopped up the monsters easily, you could offer help to another table; or conversely, if your table was having trouble, you could request help. What would happen is that the table requesting help would decide how many monsters they wanted to disappear from their table and appear at the table offering help; the monsters would be appropriately leveled to the table where they appeared. For example, if an H3 table requested help and a P2 table took them up on it, then the monsters that appeared at the P2 table would be the (much tougher) P2 versions of those monsters, not the H3 versions.
There were a couple of other wrinkles. Each encounter was strictly timed, at 50 minutes. At the end of that time, the DM of each table would determine what degree of success the PCs at his table had achieved: failure, partial success, or total success. Those results (possibly plus other information) were reported to the event coordinators, who aggregated the results from all the tables to determine how the adventure would progress. You'll see examples of this effect in my write-up.
Encounter 1
Our goal was to rescue as many citizens as possible from the rampaging hordes of plaguechanged monsters.
Mechanically, this meant moving the citizens across the map to the Temple of Torm. As a minor action, a PC could attempt a skill check (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, or whatever you thought up) to get one or more citizens to take a move action (shift, move their speed, run, and so forth). The difficulty of the skill check depended upon how close the PC was to the citizens and how many citizens the PC was trying to influence. PCs could also use forced movement, teleportation, or the like to move the citizens around. However, left to their own devices, the citizens would only stand in place and cower.
The citizens were "mega-minions": they could take two hits before being killed. Initially, 6 citizens were visible on the map. The monsters consisted of 4-5 artillery minions, 4-5 strikers, and 2-3 brutes.
The encounter began with the artillery monsters winning initiative. Each of them blasted a citizen, bloodying several. Surprisingly, Sseklah was the next to react. He rushed forward from the temple's entrance, double-moving 10 squares into a clearing between several buildings, where he was near all of the wounded citizens. Sseklah then spent an Action Point to use Invigorating Smite on a nearby striker monster, hitting it and healing all of the wounded citizens ("bloodied allies within 5 squares"). [I was pleased with this action, as it was both heroic and tactically advantageous.]
The way the map was configured, it was possible for the PCs to form a safe corridor in the middle for the citizens to use. We employed several different dazing effects to allow citizens to move past monsters without provoking Opportunity Attacks. Unfortunately, we ignored the artillery minions for too long, and they managed to kill one of the citizens before we could do anything about it. [A controller PC would have been helpful to blast away multiple minions in a single action. As it was, we had to kill them one by one.]
In addition to the 6 visible citizens, there were other citizens hiding in various buildings. At some point I realized that although the PCs were in no particular danger, we just weren't killing the monsters fast enough to save all the citizens. So, our table requested help, and gave away a striker monster and one artillery minion. That was kind of embarrassing, but necessary. In the end, we managed to save 11 of 12 citizens, which was considered a success.
----------
In between each encounter, the organizer would narrate what was happening in the overall story. We learned that although we collectively had saved many citizens in the immediate vicinity of the Temple of Torm, the southern fifth of Elturel had been completely destroyed by the spellplague attack, with over 4,000 dead. [Given the population of the city, this was a catastrophic loss.]
----------
Encounter 2
We were charged with the mission of heading into the destroyed southern section to see what was going on, and to rescue anyone if possible.
Along the way, we noticed the spellplague had warped the city itself, fusing buildings and people together into grotesque amalgams. Pockets of terrain and elemental energy from elsewhere had been interspersed within the city.
We encountered a patrol made up of 3-4 former paladins and guardsmen who had been changed by the spellplague into terrible monsters. This was on one end of a very large map, with the southern wall of the city at the other end. Atop that wall were 3 plaguechanged elf archers who peppered us with arrows throughout the fight. There were some areas of fog and trees in between us and the archers, where several PCs sought cover.
Defeating the ground-based enemies wasn't too difficult, but when we tried to spare a guardsman's life by knocking him unconscious instead of killing him, it turned out that he was too far gone. As he dropped to the ground, his body exploded with blue fire, blasting everyone nearby for automatic damage (no attack roll) and knocking us back. We eventually figured out (Arcana and Insight checks) that only some of the corrupted people could be saved; the others had to be killed -- not knocked unconscious -- to prevent them from exploding when they lost consciousness.
After taking care of the ground pounders, we ran across the map to the wall. Fortunately, there were some ropes dangling down that we could climb. Star simply fey stepped to the top. Lynetta used a pull effect to drag a couple of the archers down, but they made their saves to fall prone at the edge of the wall. Eventually, we beat them into submission, enduring some pain from another one that exploded when we misjudged whether he was capable of being saved. Still, we succeeded in our mission.
----------
Looking out over the wall, we saw a strange and terrible sight. Where the southern gates of Elturel had once stood was now a massive crater filled with chaotic spellplague energy. The great army that had been camped outside the walls, ready to assault the plagueland, was completely obliterated. Worst of all, dozens upon dozens of pyramid-shaped monoliths floated above the ground, blue fire streaming among them. The line of monoliths stretched all the way to the plagueland (a few miles away), and it appeared that those monoliths had been used to transmit the energy that had blasted the city.
Clearly, we couldn't give them time to charge up for another such attack.
----------
At this point, Tirangal (the mage who was "unusually interested" in the plagueland) proposed a ritual that could transform The Companion into a weapon against the spellplague. If successful, the ritual would cause The Companion to lose its anti-undead properties, but Tirangal considered that acceptable.
Sseklah considered it totally unacceptable. In his view, tampering with a holy gift from Amaunator was blasphemy. Although the ritual might very well work and make it easier for us to beat back the plaguechanged monsters, in Sseklah's views, the ends do not justify the means used to achieve them. He voted against casting this ritual.
At our table, only Brother Solinus also voted no. Lynetta was more than willing to see this blasphemous ritual cast (what can you expect from a tiefling warlock?). Ziz was a pragmatist and thought we needed all the help we could get. Shockingly, Silvana also voted in favor of the ritual. [I seriously questioned the player about whether her PC would do that, but she said yes.] Star cast the deciding vote... in favor. [If there had been a tie, my vote would have counted as the tiebreaker, because the players had previously chosen me as "table leader".]
During the voting, a couple of players stood up to make impassioned speeches either for or against the ritual. I thought the player of the Spellscarred PC, who argued against the ritual, made a particularly compelling case: he said that he was already afflicted by the spellplague and knew all too well its dangers; he didn't want anything to do with altering The Companion to attune it against the spellplague, for fear of what might happen.
In addition to voting for or against the ritual, each PC also had to decide how many healing surges he would semi-permanently give up to fuel the ritual in the event it was cast. At our table, most characters chipped in one or two surges. But Star said he would contribute none! So not only did he vote in favor of a dangerous ritual, he refused to give any of his personal power to enable it.
With a sigh, Sseklah said that if this awful ritual was to be cast, it had better work: he offered four surges towards its success. [Although Sseklah does have 12 surges, he goes through them rapidly, using them for lay on hands and for virtue (paladin utility 2, spend a surge to gain temporary hit points equal to your healing surge value). Going down to 8 surges would have cramped his style, a lot.]
As it turned out, the ritual was voted down, so no one had to give up any surges. Sseklah was greatly relieved.
----------
Encounter 3
We set out to destroy as many monoliths as possible.
The map consisted of a monolith in the middle, surrounded by areas of rubble (difficult terrain). The monoliths continuously spewed out "plague motes", which were minion creatures that dealt more damage when there were multiples of them adjacent to their target. There were also a bunch of undead wandering around: zombies (melee) and skeletons (ranged).
The two clerics in our group used turn undead to lethal effect. Ziz did a great job drawing many enemies to him and keeping them there. The monolith itself was the toughest adversary: not only could it generate more plague motes, it could react to being struck by blasting its attacker (damage plus push).
Eventually Sseklah managed to divine challenge the monolith, which deterred it from reacting to anyone else's attacks (as it would then take radiant damage from the challenge). Star, Sseklah, and Ziz all pounded on the monolith, while Brother Solinus provided healing and Lynetta and Silvana used skill checks (Arcana and Religion) to disable the monolith.
By this fight, our group started to find its rhythm. [And everyone's character started to unload daily powers.] We polished off the first monolith and allowed for reinforcements. This meant fighting another monolith plus some of its guardians. We killed them, too. Total success!
----------
In all, the PCs collectively destroyed 28 monoliths. But there were 60 of the foul things, and we didn't destroy enough of them.
The remaining monoliths unfolded, revealing that inside each one were the twisted bodies of pilgrims who had foolishly journeyed to the plaguelands seeking the blessings of the Order of Blue Fire. Instead, their bodies and souls had been corrupted to fuel the monoliths. Those terrible creations now used the power of the spellplague to create a massive wall of chaotic energy, blocking our way into the forward.
Whatever intelligence was behind this attack had thwarted our progress, and we feared that it would not be long before another pulse of destruction turned all of Elturgard into an extension of the plaguelands. Weary and defeated, we returned to the city to rest and await the dawn.
[When the organizers announced that we had failed to destroy enough monoliths, a murmur of disbelief and disappointment swept over the room. There was a real sense of apprehension about what would happen next.]
Also, ADCP 2-1 The Paladin's Plague chronologically follows immediately after the events from the SPEC 2-1 adventures, which entail helping the paladins of Elturgard with various tasks in preparation for the mission into the plaguelands.
By the way, for those who don't know, Elturgard (the country) is a theocracy ruled by followers of Torm. Elturel (the capitol) is a large city with one very important and instantly noticeable feature: a "second sun" that was placed in the sky as a gift from the god Amaunator. The "second sun" is called Amaunator's Gift, The Companion, and other evocative names.
The event began with groups forming and reporting to the coordinators for distribution to tables. I was playing Sseklah, dragonborn paladin of Amaunator -- a very appropriate character for this adventure. Sseklah wasn't a member of an adventuring company, so I looked for another group to join. I found some people advertising for "H3 need 1" (Heroic tier, levels 7-10) and joined up with them. As it turned out, that group also consisted mainly of Amaunator worshippers, so it worked out well from both a practical and a role-playing point of view.
The existing group's adventuring company charter was: must worship Amaunator (if a Divine character), or at least pay respects to Him, and no more than one character of each race could be a member of the group. Fortunately, they didn't already have a dragonborn! We later decided upon a name; behold:
The Morninglord's Many
- Brother Solinus, human cleric of Amaunator
- Lynetta, tiefling warlock
- Star, eladrin ranger
- Silvana, elf cleric of Amaunator
- Ziz, warforged fighter
- Sseklah, dragonborn paladin of Amaunator (me)
Unfortunately, I didn't write down people's real names, and I'm terrible at remembering them. But, in real life, Brother Solinus's player was the father of Lynetta's player; Star's player and Silvana's player were husband and wife; and Ziz's player was friends with the players of Star and Silvana. Also, in real life, Star's player and Silvana's player were Indian, and Ziz's player was Chinese, so we had some actual racial diversity in addition to the in-game racial diversity. :-)
Mechanically, this group consisted of two strikers, two leaders, and two defenders. If I could have changed one thing, it would be to replace the warlock with a real striker, like a rogue or barbarian. Lynetta was a fine character, and the player knew what she was doing, but warlocks just don't output enough damage, nor do they impose the powerful status effects of a controller like a wizard or invoker. Come to think of it, a controller would've helped this group also, as you shall see.
Except for Sseklah at 10th level, all of the other characters were 7th or 8th level, so we decided to play the low-level version of the adventure. I think that was the correct decision. We were never truly in danger of anyone's PC dying, but we had a hard time chewing through the monster's hit points, and playing the high-level version only would have exacerbated that difficulty.
The adventure started with the PCs assembled in the Temple of Torm in Elturel. We were introduced to three important NPCs:
- The High Observer of Torm, the head priest. (I didn't write down the NPC's actual name.)
- Knight Commander Vessen, leader of the paladins of Torm.
- Tirangal, a powerful mage of some sort, who "takes an unusual interest in the Plagueland", but is one of the Good Guys.
We were in the midst of receiving our final blessings from the High Observer prior to setting out on our mission when we heard a tremendous explosion outside the temple. All the Spellscarred PCs inside became limned in blue fire, and the temple itself started shaking as if in an earthquake -- church bells were torn loose from their moorings and crashed to the ground. The doors of the temple burst open, and a badly wounded young paladin arrived bearing grave news: the southern section of the city had been hit with a tremendous wave of spellplague energy, and various monsters were rampaging through the city, slaughtering innocent civilians.
Before the poor young man could tell us anything more, he succumbed to his wounds. All of his orifices (eyes, nose, ears...) had been leaking blue fire, and as the paladin finished his warning, he convulsed in agony as a tentacle erupted from his chest and his skull imploded, before he crumbled into ash. [The "flavor text" in this adventure was top-notch. And icky.]
At this point, we started our first encounter. Before I desribe that, let me go over a few things.
There were two mechanical elements of the battle interactive that weren't well explained. (At least, our DM didn't do a good job explaining them to us.) First, reinforcements. Apparently, if you thought your group was bad-ass enough, you could tell the DM you wanted the monsters to have reinforcements. I think you were supposed to decide upon this before the encounter began. I'm unclear how this is any different than simply choosing to play the high-level version of your level band.
Second, offering and receiving help. If your table mopped up the monsters easily, you could offer help to another table; or conversely, if your table was having trouble, you could request help. What would happen is that the table requesting help would decide how many monsters they wanted to disappear from their table and appear at the table offering help; the monsters would be appropriately leveled to the table where they appeared. For example, if an H3 table requested help and a P2 table took them up on it, then the monsters that appeared at the P2 table would be the (much tougher) P2 versions of those monsters, not the H3 versions.
There were a couple of other wrinkles. Each encounter was strictly timed, at 50 minutes. At the end of that time, the DM of each table would determine what degree of success the PCs at his table had achieved: failure, partial success, or total success. Those results (possibly plus other information) were reported to the event coordinators, who aggregated the results from all the tables to determine how the adventure would progress. You'll see examples of this effect in my write-up.
Encounter 1
Our goal was to rescue as many citizens as possible from the rampaging hordes of plaguechanged monsters.
Mechanically, this meant moving the citizens across the map to the Temple of Torm. As a minor action, a PC could attempt a skill check (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, or whatever you thought up) to get one or more citizens to take a move action (shift, move their speed, run, and so forth). The difficulty of the skill check depended upon how close the PC was to the citizens and how many citizens the PC was trying to influence. PCs could also use forced movement, teleportation, or the like to move the citizens around. However, left to their own devices, the citizens would only stand in place and cower.
The citizens were "mega-minions": they could take two hits before being killed. Initially, 6 citizens were visible on the map. The monsters consisted of 4-5 artillery minions, 4-5 strikers, and 2-3 brutes.
The encounter began with the artillery monsters winning initiative. Each of them blasted a citizen, bloodying several. Surprisingly, Sseklah was the next to react. He rushed forward from the temple's entrance, double-moving 10 squares into a clearing between several buildings, where he was near all of the wounded citizens. Sseklah then spent an Action Point to use Invigorating Smite on a nearby striker monster, hitting it and healing all of the wounded citizens ("bloodied allies within 5 squares"). [I was pleased with this action, as it was both heroic and tactically advantageous.]
The way the map was configured, it was possible for the PCs to form a safe corridor in the middle for the citizens to use. We employed several different dazing effects to allow citizens to move past monsters without provoking Opportunity Attacks. Unfortunately, we ignored the artillery minions for too long, and they managed to kill one of the citizens before we could do anything about it. [A controller PC would have been helpful to blast away multiple minions in a single action. As it was, we had to kill them one by one.]
In addition to the 6 visible citizens, there were other citizens hiding in various buildings. At some point I realized that although the PCs were in no particular danger, we just weren't killing the monsters fast enough to save all the citizens. So, our table requested help, and gave away a striker monster and one artillery minion. That was kind of embarrassing, but necessary. In the end, we managed to save 11 of 12 citizens, which was considered a success.
----------
In between each encounter, the organizer would narrate what was happening in the overall story. We learned that although we collectively had saved many citizens in the immediate vicinity of the Temple of Torm, the southern fifth of Elturel had been completely destroyed by the spellplague attack, with over 4,000 dead. [Given the population of the city, this was a catastrophic loss.]
----------
Encounter 2
We were charged with the mission of heading into the destroyed southern section to see what was going on, and to rescue anyone if possible.
Along the way, we noticed the spellplague had warped the city itself, fusing buildings and people together into grotesque amalgams. Pockets of terrain and elemental energy from elsewhere had been interspersed within the city.
We encountered a patrol made up of 3-4 former paladins and guardsmen who had been changed by the spellplague into terrible monsters. This was on one end of a very large map, with the southern wall of the city at the other end. Atop that wall were 3 plaguechanged elf archers who peppered us with arrows throughout the fight. There were some areas of fog and trees in between us and the archers, where several PCs sought cover.
Defeating the ground-based enemies wasn't too difficult, but when we tried to spare a guardsman's life by knocking him unconscious instead of killing him, it turned out that he was too far gone. As he dropped to the ground, his body exploded with blue fire, blasting everyone nearby for automatic damage (no attack roll) and knocking us back. We eventually figured out (Arcana and Insight checks) that only some of the corrupted people could be saved; the others had to be killed -- not knocked unconscious -- to prevent them from exploding when they lost consciousness.
After taking care of the ground pounders, we ran across the map to the wall. Fortunately, there were some ropes dangling down that we could climb. Star simply fey stepped to the top. Lynetta used a pull effect to drag a couple of the archers down, but they made their saves to fall prone at the edge of the wall. Eventually, we beat them into submission, enduring some pain from another one that exploded when we misjudged whether he was capable of being saved. Still, we succeeded in our mission.
----------
Looking out over the wall, we saw a strange and terrible sight. Where the southern gates of Elturel had once stood was now a massive crater filled with chaotic spellplague energy. The great army that had been camped outside the walls, ready to assault the plagueland, was completely obliterated. Worst of all, dozens upon dozens of pyramid-shaped monoliths floated above the ground, blue fire streaming among them. The line of monoliths stretched all the way to the plagueland (a few miles away), and it appeared that those monoliths had been used to transmit the energy that had blasted the city.
Clearly, we couldn't give them time to charge up for another such attack.
----------
At this point, Tirangal (the mage who was "unusually interested" in the plagueland) proposed a ritual that could transform The Companion into a weapon against the spellplague. If successful, the ritual would cause The Companion to lose its anti-undead properties, but Tirangal considered that acceptable.
Sseklah considered it totally unacceptable. In his view, tampering with a holy gift from Amaunator was blasphemy. Although the ritual might very well work and make it easier for us to beat back the plaguechanged monsters, in Sseklah's views, the ends do not justify the means used to achieve them. He voted against casting this ritual.
At our table, only Brother Solinus also voted no. Lynetta was more than willing to see this blasphemous ritual cast (what can you expect from a tiefling warlock?). Ziz was a pragmatist and thought we needed all the help we could get. Shockingly, Silvana also voted in favor of the ritual. [I seriously questioned the player about whether her PC would do that, but she said yes.] Star cast the deciding vote... in favor. [If there had been a tie, my vote would have counted as the tiebreaker, because the players had previously chosen me as "table leader".]
During the voting, a couple of players stood up to make impassioned speeches either for or against the ritual. I thought the player of the Spellscarred PC, who argued against the ritual, made a particularly compelling case: he said that he was already afflicted by the spellplague and knew all too well its dangers; he didn't want anything to do with altering The Companion to attune it against the spellplague, for fear of what might happen.
In addition to voting for or against the ritual, each PC also had to decide how many healing surges he would semi-permanently give up to fuel the ritual in the event it was cast. At our table, most characters chipped in one or two surges. But Star said he would contribute none! So not only did he vote in favor of a dangerous ritual, he refused to give any of his personal power to enable it.
With a sigh, Sseklah said that if this awful ritual was to be cast, it had better work: he offered four surges towards its success. [Although Sseklah does have 12 surges, he goes through them rapidly, using them for lay on hands and for virtue (paladin utility 2, spend a surge to gain temporary hit points equal to your healing surge value). Going down to 8 surges would have cramped his style, a lot.]
As it turned out, the ritual was voted down, so no one had to give up any surges. Sseklah was greatly relieved.
----------
Encounter 3
We set out to destroy as many monoliths as possible.
The map consisted of a monolith in the middle, surrounded by areas of rubble (difficult terrain). The monoliths continuously spewed out "plague motes", which were minion creatures that dealt more damage when there were multiples of them adjacent to their target. There were also a bunch of undead wandering around: zombies (melee) and skeletons (ranged).
The two clerics in our group used turn undead to lethal effect. Ziz did a great job drawing many enemies to him and keeping them there. The monolith itself was the toughest adversary: not only could it generate more plague motes, it could react to being struck by blasting its attacker (damage plus push).
Eventually Sseklah managed to divine challenge the monolith, which deterred it from reacting to anyone else's attacks (as it would then take radiant damage from the challenge). Star, Sseklah, and Ziz all pounded on the monolith, while Brother Solinus provided healing and Lynetta and Silvana used skill checks (Arcana and Religion) to disable the monolith.
By this fight, our group started to find its rhythm. [And everyone's character started to unload daily powers.] We polished off the first monolith and allowed for reinforcements. This meant fighting another monolith plus some of its guardians. We killed them, too. Total success!
----------
In all, the PCs collectively destroyed 28 monoliths. But there were 60 of the foul things, and we didn't destroy enough of them.
The remaining monoliths unfolded, revealing that inside each one were the twisted bodies of pilgrims who had foolishly journeyed to the plaguelands seeking the blessings of the Order of Blue Fire. Instead, their bodies and souls had been corrupted to fuel the monoliths. Those terrible creations now used the power of the spellplague to create a massive wall of chaotic energy, blocking our way into the forward.
Whatever intelligence was behind this attack had thwarted our progress, and we feared that it would not be long before another pulse of destruction turned all of Elturgard into an extension of the plaguelands. Weary and defeated, we returned to the city to rest and await the dawn.
[When the organizers announced that we had failed to destroy enough monoliths, a murmur of disbelief and disappointment swept over the room. There was a real sense of apprehension about what would happen next.]
Part 2
Show
We rested fitfully that night, as reinforcements were rushed to Elturel from across Faerun. In the morning, we listened as Knight Commander Vessen informed us of our new task. The main force would hold the line while we -- the adventurers -- journeyed into the plaguelands to stop the incursion.
[At the beginning of the adventure, one of the main NPCs commented that he didn't know why the plaguelands had chosen this moment to strike. But to me, it was obvious: they saw that we were massing a force to invade, and they struck a pre-emptive blow. We barely survived. And now, it was time to do what we had originally gathered to do: go into the plaguelands to bust some heads.]
We trooped back to the southern part of the city and thence outside. The landscape was a scrambled mess, and we approached a rift in reality where the effects of the spellplague were so great that everyone spontaneously developed a spellscar.
[This was a nifty feature of the event. Each PC had to draw a card from the "Change Deck", which consisted of a large number of different spellplague effects. Some of these were purely cosmetic, such as your skin becoming translucent blue, while others had a game mechanical effect, such as granting you a bite attack or rendering you vulnerable 2 to all damage. If your character already had a spellscar, you got to draw twice and choose which card to keep, representing your partial control over the spellplague's energies.]
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Encounter 4
A group of slaads were gathered around the rift, marveling at the chaotic energy. As we approached, the slaads attacked. There were 3-4 flux slaads, 2-3 green slaads, 2 gray slaads, and 2 Large-sized red slaads (blood slaads).
This was shaping up to be a very difficult fight. We couldn't effectively close with the slaads, as they kept sliding us around and knocking us prone. Meanwhile, the gray slaads were scooping up handfuls of chaos from the reality rift and throwing them at us, causing significant damage.
But just as things looked dire, all of the slaad's heads exploded! Unperturbed by their lack of heads, the slaads moved towards the rift and jumped in. [I think the organizers decided we were running short on time and chose to end the combat early.]
Everyone looked around, shrugged at this unexpected turn of events, and pushed onwards.
----------
We made our way to the curtain of blue fire that the monoliths had created the night before. It was a solid barrier of chaos, and when one NPC paladin drew too close, energy lashed out at him, blowing him into chunks, each of which landed, quickly grew into a full body, and then immediately died with an expression of pure agony on its face.
Nobody went anywhere near the barrier after that.
[Everyone did, however, spontaneously develop another spellscar, meaning another draw from the Change Deck.]
Based on some documents captured from gnolls in the Reaching Woods (as part of SPEC 2-1 H2 Dogs of War), the ritual casters from Elturel informed us that each PC could call upon the protection of the gnoll god Yeenoghu. A handful of fools accepted this bargain, but none of The Morninglord's Many did so.
----------
Encounter 5
The ritualists now had to cast a powerful spell to destroy the wall of blue fire. Each table had to protect and aid a ritual caster while he chanted the words.
Mechanically, this was a skill challenge, but with a twist. In addition to assisting in the ritual (using Arcana, Nature, and Religion checks), the PCs had to defend against numerous plague motes that were attacking. A PC could use an appropriate skill check to do so (for example, Endurance to absorb the mote, taking damage but destroying it; or Athletics to hold it back), or could use powers to attack and destroy the motes.
We began with six motes. After each round, any that weren't destroyed remained, and were joined by an additional six, plus two for every round. So, eight more on the second round; ten more on the third round; and so on. The ritual caster had to survive for ten rounds to complete the ritual, if we didn't help him to complete it any faster.
This was another encounter in which having a controller with an at-will area burst would've been helpful, to destroy several motes at once. We quickly realized that there was no way our group could stay ahead of the growing number of motes, so we concentrated on completing the ritual as quickly as possible. We used Encounter and (a few) Daily powers to stem the tide of plague motes. At the last moment, Brother Solinus managed a barely successful Religion check to finish our part of the ritual, just before we were overwhelmed. (There were something like a dozen motes on the board at that point.)
We did very well in this encounter, keeping our ritual caster completely unscathed, for a total success.
----------
Collectively, the group kept enough of the ritualists alive to complete the spell. A massive, disembodied pair of gnoll claws appeared in front of the plague wall. Yeenoghu's Hands pierced the wall and pulled it apart. [Sseklah was uncomfortable calling upon a demonic god, but game-wise we weren't offered a choice in the matter.]
Beyond, we saw the center of the plagueland: a huge, pulsating heart covered in innumerable writhing tentacles. Many of the tentacles had pierced nearby earthmotes, and were holding them in place, syphoning energy into the heart. Some of the tentacles were topped with giant, mutated heads that seemed to be directing this abominable work.
With a great cry, the adventurers rushed forward.
[But not before drawing from the Change Deck again. At this point, Sseklah had two cosmetic spellscars, and one useful one, plague lash (a ranged 10 attack against Fortitude).]
----------
Encounter 6
Each group had to defeat as many tentacles and heads as possible.
The map consisted of two earthmotes, divided by a 2-square-wide chasm. [I'm not sure how we got onto the first earthmote; we just did.] The larger of the two earthmotes, consisting of about three-quarters of the map, held three tentacles, one at each corner. The smaller earthmote held the fourth tentacle in the remaining corner, along with a couple glowing sigils burned into the stone. In the center of the map, on the larger earthmote, was the tentacle-head.
Silvana realized that the four tentacles were empowering the center head, and that each tentacle we killed would weaken it. [Mechanically, the head started out with excellent defenses and resistances. For each other tentacle we destroyed, its defenses went down and it lost some of its resistances.]
Each tentacle was pretty tough, capable of slamming a PC for considerable damage. The tentacles that weren't in melee could exude a gob of mucous and hurl it as a ranged attack. Finally, the head in the center of the map could spew foul substances onto anyone who got close to it.
We focused our attacks on a single tentacle at a time, rapidly downing the first. [Let's call it the northwest tentacle.] Star then rushed over to the northeast tentacle and landed a spectacular flurry of attacks on it, including a critical hit, dealing over 90 points of damage all told -- and dropping the thing in a single round. But as the tentacle withdrew from the earthmote, whipping around like an angry snake, it dropped off four smaller tentacle minions that tried to block our path.
As each tentacle "died", it left behind a patch of ground infused with magical energy. By standing on this ground, a PC could draw upon its energies to empower himself. [Mechanically, you could regain a healing surge's worth of hit points without spending a surge or regain an Encounter power -- each of these only once per patch of ground.] Star recovered one of his better Encounter powers before joining the rest of us at the southwest tentacle.
Meanwhile, Lynetta had used Arcana checks to determine that the sigils near the southeast tentacle (on the other earthmote) would allow one to more effectively fight the center tentacle-head. [Mechanically, you could crit it on a 19-20.] So it was in her interest to get over there. Star decided to join her, as he had ranged attacks in addition to his melee attacks.
Everyone else polished off the southwest tentacle, and then began laying into the head. [We decided to ignore the southeast tentacle, figuring that weakening the head by three-quarters was enough.] A single enemy never lasts long against the concentrated attacks of six PCs, and that was the case here. We downed the first head, allowed for reinforcements (which brought in another head and two more tentacles), and destroyed those as well. Another total success!
But would it be enough? Against the monoliths, our table had done equally as well, but the group as a whole failed....
----------
With the climactic encounter over, everyone waited anxiously for the results to be tallied. When they were, we learned that there were 28 tentacle-heads that needed to be destroyed. And collectively, we had defeated... 35!
The room erupted into cheers as we realized that we'd done it. Across the plagueland, the blue fire was dissipating, and the souls of those unfortunates who had been captured and made to serve were streaming towards the heavens, there to be judged by Kelemvor.
Except for one. We saw a particularly powerful soul, in the shape of a female elf and garbed in wizardly robes, refuse to ascend. With a shriek of rage, it sped deeper into the plaguelands. All we could do was shake our fists in impotent rage as it escaped.
[At the beginning of the adventure, one of the main NPCs commented that he didn't know why the plaguelands had chosen this moment to strike. But to me, it was obvious: they saw that we were massing a force to invade, and they struck a pre-emptive blow. We barely survived. And now, it was time to do what we had originally gathered to do: go into the plaguelands to bust some heads.]
We trooped back to the southern part of the city and thence outside. The landscape was a scrambled mess, and we approached a rift in reality where the effects of the spellplague were so great that everyone spontaneously developed a spellscar.
[This was a nifty feature of the event. Each PC had to draw a card from the "Change Deck", which consisted of a large number of different spellplague effects. Some of these were purely cosmetic, such as your skin becoming translucent blue, while others had a game mechanical effect, such as granting you a bite attack or rendering you vulnerable 2 to all damage. If your character already had a spellscar, you got to draw twice and choose which card to keep, representing your partial control over the spellplague's energies.]
----------
Encounter 4
A group of slaads were gathered around the rift, marveling at the chaotic energy. As we approached, the slaads attacked. There were 3-4 flux slaads, 2-3 green slaads, 2 gray slaads, and 2 Large-sized red slaads (blood slaads).
This was shaping up to be a very difficult fight. We couldn't effectively close with the slaads, as they kept sliding us around and knocking us prone. Meanwhile, the gray slaads were scooping up handfuls of chaos from the reality rift and throwing them at us, causing significant damage.
But just as things looked dire, all of the slaad's heads exploded! Unperturbed by their lack of heads, the slaads moved towards the rift and jumped in. [I think the organizers decided we were running short on time and chose to end the combat early.]
Everyone looked around, shrugged at this unexpected turn of events, and pushed onwards.
----------
We made our way to the curtain of blue fire that the monoliths had created the night before. It was a solid barrier of chaos, and when one NPC paladin drew too close, energy lashed out at him, blowing him into chunks, each of which landed, quickly grew into a full body, and then immediately died with an expression of pure agony on its face.
Nobody went anywhere near the barrier after that.
[Everyone did, however, spontaneously develop another spellscar, meaning another draw from the Change Deck.]
Based on some documents captured from gnolls in the Reaching Woods (as part of SPEC 2-1 H2 Dogs of War), the ritual casters from Elturel informed us that each PC could call upon the protection of the gnoll god Yeenoghu. A handful of fools accepted this bargain, but none of The Morninglord's Many did so.
----------
Encounter 5
The ritualists now had to cast a powerful spell to destroy the wall of blue fire. Each table had to protect and aid a ritual caster while he chanted the words.
Mechanically, this was a skill challenge, but with a twist. In addition to assisting in the ritual (using Arcana, Nature, and Religion checks), the PCs had to defend against numerous plague motes that were attacking. A PC could use an appropriate skill check to do so (for example, Endurance to absorb the mote, taking damage but destroying it; or Athletics to hold it back), or could use powers to attack and destroy the motes.
We began with six motes. After each round, any that weren't destroyed remained, and were joined by an additional six, plus two for every round. So, eight more on the second round; ten more on the third round; and so on. The ritual caster had to survive for ten rounds to complete the ritual, if we didn't help him to complete it any faster.
This was another encounter in which having a controller with an at-will area burst would've been helpful, to destroy several motes at once. We quickly realized that there was no way our group could stay ahead of the growing number of motes, so we concentrated on completing the ritual as quickly as possible. We used Encounter and (a few) Daily powers to stem the tide of plague motes. At the last moment, Brother Solinus managed a barely successful Religion check to finish our part of the ritual, just before we were overwhelmed. (There were something like a dozen motes on the board at that point.)
We did very well in this encounter, keeping our ritual caster completely unscathed, for a total success.
----------
Collectively, the group kept enough of the ritualists alive to complete the spell. A massive, disembodied pair of gnoll claws appeared in front of the plague wall. Yeenoghu's Hands pierced the wall and pulled it apart. [Sseklah was uncomfortable calling upon a demonic god, but game-wise we weren't offered a choice in the matter.]
Beyond, we saw the center of the plagueland: a huge, pulsating heart covered in innumerable writhing tentacles. Many of the tentacles had pierced nearby earthmotes, and were holding them in place, syphoning energy into the heart. Some of the tentacles were topped with giant, mutated heads that seemed to be directing this abominable work.
With a great cry, the adventurers rushed forward.
[But not before drawing from the Change Deck again. At this point, Sseklah had two cosmetic spellscars, and one useful one, plague lash (a ranged 10 attack against Fortitude).]
----------
Encounter 6
Each group had to defeat as many tentacles and heads as possible.
The map consisted of two earthmotes, divided by a 2-square-wide chasm. [I'm not sure how we got onto the first earthmote; we just did.] The larger of the two earthmotes, consisting of about three-quarters of the map, held three tentacles, one at each corner. The smaller earthmote held the fourth tentacle in the remaining corner, along with a couple glowing sigils burned into the stone. In the center of the map, on the larger earthmote, was the tentacle-head.
Silvana realized that the four tentacles were empowering the center head, and that each tentacle we killed would weaken it. [Mechanically, the head started out with excellent defenses and resistances. For each other tentacle we destroyed, its defenses went down and it lost some of its resistances.]
Each tentacle was pretty tough, capable of slamming a PC for considerable damage. The tentacles that weren't in melee could exude a gob of mucous and hurl it as a ranged attack. Finally, the head in the center of the map could spew foul substances onto anyone who got close to it.
We focused our attacks on a single tentacle at a time, rapidly downing the first. [Let's call it the northwest tentacle.] Star then rushed over to the northeast tentacle and landed a spectacular flurry of attacks on it, including a critical hit, dealing over 90 points of damage all told -- and dropping the thing in a single round. But as the tentacle withdrew from the earthmote, whipping around like an angry snake, it dropped off four smaller tentacle minions that tried to block our path.
As each tentacle "died", it left behind a patch of ground infused with magical energy. By standing on this ground, a PC could draw upon its energies to empower himself. [Mechanically, you could regain a healing surge's worth of hit points without spending a surge or regain an Encounter power -- each of these only once per patch of ground.] Star recovered one of his better Encounter powers before joining the rest of us at the southwest tentacle.
Meanwhile, Lynetta had used Arcana checks to determine that the sigils near the southeast tentacle (on the other earthmote) would allow one to more effectively fight the center tentacle-head. [Mechanically, you could crit it on a 19-20.] So it was in her interest to get over there. Star decided to join her, as he had ranged attacks in addition to his melee attacks.
Everyone else polished off the southwest tentacle, and then began laying into the head. [We decided to ignore the southeast tentacle, figuring that weakening the head by three-quarters was enough.] A single enemy never lasts long against the concentrated attacks of six PCs, and that was the case here. We downed the first head, allowed for reinforcements (which brought in another head and two more tentacles), and destroyed those as well. Another total success!
But would it be enough? Against the monoliths, our table had done equally as well, but the group as a whole failed....
----------
With the climactic encounter over, everyone waited anxiously for the results to be tallied. When they were, we learned that there were 28 tentacle-heads that needed to be destroyed. And collectively, we had defeated... 35!
The room erupted into cheers as we realized that we'd done it. Across the plagueland, the blue fire was dissipating, and the souls of those unfortunates who had been captured and made to serve were streaming towards the heavens, there to be judged by Kelemvor.
Except for one. We saw a particularly powerful soul, in the shape of a female elf and garbed in wizardly robes, refuse to ascend. With a shriek of rage, it sped deeper into the plaguelands. All we could do was shake our fists in impotent rage as it escaped.
I thing I will note is that the adventure has a few branch points in it that allow not only for the PCs to make some choices that affect the direction of the story (for example, the Friday group did better than Saturday and instead was able to go on the offensive into the plagueland instead of defending the city); but also allows someone running this adventure to choose one of several outcomes/consequences for the votes so that people replaying it will have a hard time meta-gaming the situation. At the convention we did not show all these options to the judges, but they will hopefully all be including in the orderable version of the event.
This is an AWESOME description of what happened and is largely accurrate (being involved in organizing it I note one or two very minor details that could be added). I hope everyone shares Josh's level of excitement and investment.
I thing I will note is that the adventure has a few branch points in it that allow not only for the PCs to make some choices that affect the direction of the story (for example, the Friday group did better than Saturday and instead was able to go on the offensive into the plagueland instead of defending the city); but also allows someone running this adventure to choose one of several outcomes/consequences for the votes so that people replaying it will have a hard time meta-gaming the situation. At the convention we did not show all these options to the judges, but they will hopefully all be including in the orderable version of the event.
If you're excited about the storyline and want a chance to...
spoiler
...hunt down Vessen
During playtest we had 2 wizards, 2 fighters, 1 ranger and 1 shaman.
2 Wizards, including myself, and the one of the Fighters cast Visions of Avarice covering 80% of the map in the first encounter while I had an arcane gate up.
We saved all the people using forced movement and barely did any damage until all the people were safe. It was hilarious.
Then we teased the other tables if they needed any help.
the ritual casters from Elturel informed us that each PC could call upon the protection of the gnoll god Yeenoghu. A handful of fools accepted this bargain,
I'm sure the few gnolls participating didn't mind the protection!
and some of us where are not gnolls =)
FYI, there was an entire Adv Comp of gnolls present on Friday.
I'm sure the few gnolls participating didn't mind the protection!
Heh, I'm sure you're right!
There's a player who used to play at my FLGS who had a gnoll barbarian. He would've loved this adventure.
If I play this again, I'll definitely use an unaligned PC and make all the "bad" choices. Just to see what happens.
and some of us where are not gnolls =)
FYI, there was an entire Adv Comp of gnolls present on Friday.
I wish I could have seen that one in action!