D&D: PPK, maybe
Unlucky omens for a D&D session: for an imminent fight against two very powerful opponents, both our cleric/crusader and our druid canceled on short notice, and our rogue left the campaign altogether because of a break-up with another player. Our DM's policy is that PCs of absent players don't participate in fights. That left us with a sorcerer, a psionic, and an NPC dragon paladin as our only fighters, and a factotum as, well, not very useful support. (The player missed a few sessions and is now trying to redesign his character to make her more useful in combat.)
It did not end well.
We were supposed to collect the venom of either a gargantuan scorpion or a huge sort-of-medusa, to prove to the spider lady that we'd be worthy allies. The plan was to scare off the scorpion with an illusion and then try to have the psionic subdue the medusa for long enough for us to cut off one of her hairs for the venom.
Step one: illusion of a biiiiig siege beetle. (I had to draw it to determine how well the illusion worked. Try to draw an intimidating beetle.) Except instead of running away, the scorpion shape-shifts into a human spellcaster. Scorpion lady and medusa run toward the forest where our party is hiding, and the psionic sends out a construct to distract them. The spellcaster puts restrains on the construct.
My character is very surprised that the scorpion isn't mindless after all and didn't attack with lethal damage. While it was heavily implied to our party that most creatures in this area of the mountain were undead evil monsters, these two are not undead and we're suddenly less sure about the "monster" part. [At this point it was very annoying that we didn't have our cleric here to cast Detect Evil.] I want to try to negotiate. She persuades the psionic and paladin and talks to scorpion lady and medusa. Scorpion lady asks a lot of questions, my character is evasive, scorpion lady says we can pass if we sacrifice the life of one of our party. I refuse. I notice the medusa is wearing a crest on her armor we saw before and mention that. It turns out the medusa is the grand-daughter of a character from that DM and group's previous campaign (that I didn't participate in), which our current characters know a little about because we found a letter of that older medusa, Lady Mirna. The medusa in front of us wants me to turn over the letter, I hesitate, the medusa attacks.
[Now here it would have been smart if I'd been more clear about the difference between lethal and non-lethal damage. ….yes okay it's in the name. All my character realizes is that she's being attacked by two creatures who already demanded that one of her friends, or herself, die, she doesn't want to turn back because that would mean giving up on the alliance with the spider lady, which is quite important in their plan to keep the approaching army from conquering the continent, and also the scorpion lady said she wouldn't let the party leave. So she too attacks. And she can't do non-lethal damage.]
Long story short, during the fight my character falls unconscious once but survives, manages to crush the scorpion beneath two big boulders, and together with the psionic they kill the scorpion lady. The medusa switched to lethal damage as soon as the scorpion was seriously injured. The dragon paladin and I are seriously injured and the psionic is almost out of power. But! My character still has several free spell slots (I didn't even hold back this time) and comes up with a plan. The psionic finally manages to destroy the medusa's very powerful magical long-bow. I summon a celestial brown bear as a distraction, shrink two more boulders to use as weapons, and fly up to drop them on the medusa.
Now in my defense, a) during the whole fight so far the medusa only used her long bow, b) yes the druid mentioned something about medusas turning people to stone, but we already are stone so we didn't take it especially seriously. However, it turns out that not only does her gaze have a longer reach than I thought, she can also turn us into non-responsive stone. Ouch. I fail my first fortitude save, cash in on a re-roll I saved up, and roll a 1. I crash to the ground as a petrified stone gargoyle.
The medusa, suddenly friendly, tells the rest of the party that they can pass, because she already got one life. (My familiars however seem barely affected, so while petrification is not something any of our party can heal it at least doesn't seem to be irreversible destruction. My cat tries to attack the medusa. Unsurprisingly without success. Side-story: before that, my evil cat familiar wanted to negotiate with the medusa to let me go if she helps her kill someone else. However, luckily this time, my cat doesn't speak common.) The party is skeptical. The medusa offers to help them, even give them some of her venom and tell them about the spider lady's weaknesses etc etc, if only they smashed me to bits.
At this point the factotum, who unsuccessfully tried to blackmail the medusa by threatening to burn Lady Mirna's letter, runs toward the medusa, covers her in oil and lights her on fire. The medusa is annoyed and petrifies her too.
The party by now figured out that the medusa is trying to test the party for some reason and that she's not intrinsically evil. Which doesn't mean much. The dragon paladin is too cautious to try anything. The psionic, out of power, runs toward the medusa with a big ax in a suicide attack and is petrified as well.
End of session.
Soo, currently: the three of us are on the ground, petrified. The dragon paladin is still nearby, but very weak, and I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up petrified too. My two familiars are still around, and so is the celestial bear I summoned. And our druid, our cleric/crusader, and the now-NPC rogue are a hundred foot back in the forest hiding in a rope trick. [Finding an in-game reason for this could be tricky. For the rogue, okay, but the druid and the tank? Annoying. Maybe it'll be ret-conned as "they got lost." Or fell into a ravine.] I'm extremely curious to find out what happens next. (And if my character stays petrified I want to play my cat xD)
After the session we asked why the psionic did a suicide attack, and the player said he wasn't having fun with this campaign. Among other things he complained that he felt we get more new questions than answers, and that he doesn't understand his character's motivations and why he's on this quest to begin with. The first doesn't bother me because we get enough answers to keep things interesting, and the latter… This player turned up for the second session and his character was introduced, then he was absent for almost three months, and then he joined us again. He didn't get a chance to build and explore his character's motivation to come on this quest because he simply wasn't there, and he obviously didn't put any effort in doing it later either. I understand his problem, and if I understand correctly his long absence wasn't entirely his fault, but also, what's the DM supposed to do with him in this situation?
I left before the discussion finished because it was 1:30am. I'm curious what'll happen next, if the player will leave the campaign (might be slightly awkward because he's the DM's roommate), if he'll roll a new character he can build better, idk we'll see. I made sure to reassure the DM that I'm having a lot of fun with this campaign, because it must suck to hear that one player isn't enjoying it. (Also I'd brought cupcakes with the rest of the caramel cream and there were some left over, cupcakes always improve things.)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth.
comments there.
It did not end well.
We were supposed to collect the venom of either a gargantuan scorpion or a huge sort-of-medusa, to prove to the spider lady that we'd be worthy allies. The plan was to scare off the scorpion with an illusion and then try to have the psionic subdue the medusa for long enough for us to cut off one of her hairs for the venom.
Step one: illusion of a biiiiig siege beetle. (I had to draw it to determine how well the illusion worked. Try to draw an intimidating beetle.) Except instead of running away, the scorpion shape-shifts into a human spellcaster. Scorpion lady and medusa run toward the forest where our party is hiding, and the psionic sends out a construct to distract them. The spellcaster puts restrains on the construct.
My character is very surprised that the scorpion isn't mindless after all and didn't attack with lethal damage. While it was heavily implied to our party that most creatures in this area of the mountain were undead evil monsters, these two are not undead and we're suddenly less sure about the "monster" part. [At this point it was very annoying that we didn't have our cleric here to cast Detect Evil.] I want to try to negotiate. She persuades the psionic and paladin and talks to scorpion lady and medusa. Scorpion lady asks a lot of questions, my character is evasive, scorpion lady says we can pass if we sacrifice the life of one of our party. I refuse. I notice the medusa is wearing a crest on her armor we saw before and mention that. It turns out the medusa is the grand-daughter of a character from that DM and group's previous campaign (that I didn't participate in), which our current characters know a little about because we found a letter of that older medusa, Lady Mirna. The medusa in front of us wants me to turn over the letter, I hesitate, the medusa attacks.
[Now here it would have been smart if I'd been more clear about the difference between lethal and non-lethal damage. ….yes okay it's in the name. All my character realizes is that she's being attacked by two creatures who already demanded that one of her friends, or herself, die, she doesn't want to turn back because that would mean giving up on the alliance with the spider lady, which is quite important in their plan to keep the approaching army from conquering the continent, and also the scorpion lady said she wouldn't let the party leave. So she too attacks. And she can't do non-lethal damage.]
Long story short, during the fight my character falls unconscious once but survives, manages to crush the scorpion beneath two big boulders, and together with the psionic they kill the scorpion lady. The medusa switched to lethal damage as soon as the scorpion was seriously injured. The dragon paladin and I are seriously injured and the psionic is almost out of power. But! My character still has several free spell slots (I didn't even hold back this time) and comes up with a plan. The psionic finally manages to destroy the medusa's very powerful magical long-bow. I summon a celestial brown bear as a distraction, shrink two more boulders to use as weapons, and fly up to drop them on the medusa.
Now in my defense, a) during the whole fight so far the medusa only used her long bow, b) yes the druid mentioned something about medusas turning people to stone, but we already are stone so we didn't take it especially seriously. However, it turns out that not only does her gaze have a longer reach than I thought, she can also turn us into non-responsive stone. Ouch. I fail my first fortitude save, cash in on a re-roll I saved up, and roll a 1. I crash to the ground as a petrified stone gargoyle.
The medusa, suddenly friendly, tells the rest of the party that they can pass, because she already got one life. (My familiars however seem barely affected, so while petrification is not something any of our party can heal it at least doesn't seem to be irreversible destruction. My cat tries to attack the medusa. Unsurprisingly without success. Side-story: before that, my evil cat familiar wanted to negotiate with the medusa to let me go if she helps her kill someone else. However, luckily this time, my cat doesn't speak common.) The party is skeptical. The medusa offers to help them, even give them some of her venom and tell them about the spider lady's weaknesses etc etc, if only they smashed me to bits.
At this point the factotum, who unsuccessfully tried to blackmail the medusa by threatening to burn Lady Mirna's letter, runs toward the medusa, covers her in oil and lights her on fire. The medusa is annoyed and petrifies her too.
The party by now figured out that the medusa is trying to test the party for some reason and that she's not intrinsically evil. Which doesn't mean much. The dragon paladin is too cautious to try anything. The psionic, out of power, runs toward the medusa with a big ax in a suicide attack and is petrified as well.
End of session.
Soo, currently: the three of us are on the ground, petrified. The dragon paladin is still nearby, but very weak, and I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up petrified too. My two familiars are still around, and so is the celestial bear I summoned. And our druid, our cleric/crusader, and the now-NPC rogue are a hundred foot back in the forest hiding in a rope trick. [Finding an in-game reason for this could be tricky. For the rogue, okay, but the druid and the tank? Annoying. Maybe it'll be ret-conned as "they got lost." Or fell into a ravine.] I'm extremely curious to find out what happens next. (And if my character stays petrified I want to play my cat xD)
After the session we asked why the psionic did a suicide attack, and the player said he wasn't having fun with this campaign. Among other things he complained that he felt we get more new questions than answers, and that he doesn't understand his character's motivations and why he's on this quest to begin with. The first doesn't bother me because we get enough answers to keep things interesting, and the latter… This player turned up for the second session and his character was introduced, then he was absent for almost three months, and then he joined us again. He didn't get a chance to build and explore his character's motivation to come on this quest because he simply wasn't there, and he obviously didn't put any effort in doing it later either. I understand his problem, and if I understand correctly his long absence wasn't entirely his fault, but also, what's the DM supposed to do with him in this situation?
I left before the discussion finished because it was 1:30am. I'm curious what'll happen next, if the player will leave the campaign (might be slightly awkward because he's the DM's roommate), if he'll roll a new character he can build better, idk we'll see. I made sure to reassure the DM that I'm having a lot of fun with this campaign, because it must suck to hear that one player isn't enjoying it. (Also I'd brought cupcakes with the rest of the caramel cream and there were some left over, cupcakes always improve things.)
Crossposted from Dreamwidth.
comments there.