Game Report: Oh, one more thing

After defeating the vampire, the party took another look around the room and found a secret compartment that held a couple of reagents, some cool boots, and a stick. The stick turned out to be a battle standard; all they needed was a flag, and they could reap the benefits of the new item.

Convinced they found everything they needed, they marched through the night back to the Order’s headquarters, only to find that their sense of direction was way off, as they ended up at a mostly abandoned building. Curiosity mounting, they stepped inside to find a displacer beast. The martial characters charged, while the spellcasters took to the far corners of the room…out of which appeared hidden cavern chokers. With this two front battle on their hand, the party concentrated their fire on the displacer beast, who fell soon enough, but as the chokers keep appearing in the most inconvenient places, and the fighter stepped right into a glyph trap, they had some trouble mopping up the rest.

Eventually they handled the chokers, but only after more friendly fire as the loathsome beasts used the warlock as a human shield (I’m sensing a pattern here). They stepped lightly to the second floor, to find some crates full of blankets, a cot, and a teleportation pad. That again. They spend a minute staring at it until Selena shows up. She’s shocked to see them, and tells them that the headquarters has a glamer of over it, preventing anyone not being led to find it. She suspiciously rushes them back to the headquarters, where they are thanked for their involvement and given a place to rest.

After resting, Riley the wizard comes to visit the warlock. He tells her that he believes the Monarchy is holding the blade to the artifact the warlock is chasing, and relates a lot else in response to this. The warlock suspects that she’s not getting the full story, but can’t discern exactly what’s being left out. Meanwhile, the rest of the party is discussing just how much they trust the Order, and whether they want to go back to the abandoned house to check out that teleportation pad. They decide against it when Islith calls them up again and sends them on another mission, this time to kill all the people they find in a certain building, who appear to be working for the Monarchy.

The party agrees, and heads westnorth. During the journey, they use their magic bag to get someone to make a standard for them, and decided on a skull and crossbones atop a boat, in dark blue and white, with a tinge of yellow. It appears they were to be the Deathboaters after all. Their new symbol in hand, they come across the building, a vast estate with a small courtyard. Beside the front doors, they found lines of broken statues, giving the room some kind of religious air.

They stomp through the front door, to find five humans standing about. They start a small conversation, only for the fighter to charge into combat after he figured the opponent was sufficiently flustered. The group of humans turned out to be highly skilled, using their weapons to daze the party at every available chance. However, they were little match for the wizard’s fireball, and eventually the party took out the front group.

They chose a door and walked through halls lined with animal symbols, and move towards the back where they hear maniac laughter. They first check the room opposite the room where they heard the weird sounds to find six men playing cards. Feeling charitable, they offer the cardplayers a chance to retreat. Of course, one gets antsy and protests, causing the wizard to set him and everyone around him on fire. After this, the three remaining men merely agree to take the offer, and inform the party that when dealing with the crazy in the next room, they should “duck.”

They step into the next room, to find a bald man in a robe, standing in the middle of the room muttering to himself. Near him are two floating skulls on fire. The party charges in, only to see the violent end to these unusual trio, as the bald man lets loose a spasm of magic missiles that strike all targets and baths the party in acid, while the skulls spit out two massive fireballs. Stumbling, they managed to bear most of the force, and eventually turned around the situation, taking out of the crazy man shortly.

It was late, and so they quickly sprinted to the next room, where they found three people, two archers and a gruff man with a greatsword, as well as what appears to be a robot shaped like a dragon. As they waked in, he quickly said, “So, you've come at last. I now see the enormity of the lizards' egos. Whatever, we achieved our own good. Be cautious that you do not fall from their vision as well. Tomil! Now!” Tomil appeared behind the warlock and put her in a headlock. The greatsword guy charged forward and proved himself a paladin, attempting and failing a smite maneuver on the fighter. The archers took to the back of the room and started dazing all targets.

The wizard put up a wall of fog, forcing the archers out of the corner. After the warlock teleported away, Tomil instead grabbed the cleric and tossed him across the room, taking him out of combat for a round and a half. The archers found themselves in the thick of it, and eventually took a tumble after missing some more, leaving only the two elites. Tomil continued to dash and grab, while the paladin’s counterattack ability made him a difficult target.

Eventually Tomil found his end after all of the party was out of tricks and dependent on at-will effects, and a cornered paladin was taken low by what I’ve dubbed the hydra trick, where the fighter will take advantage of the mark ability when the enemy attacks out of turn. After much struggling, they take him down, and call it a night because everyone is a might tired.

Lessons learned – While it is possible to play the game over the Internet through webcams, the webcams are tricky to manage and it can be dull for the person on the other end of the cam. Also, the bluff/insight dynamic can do a lot to kill intrigue, especially when a not-quite-true can’t be trusted because the player crits an insight check. Also, need more extraneous and unimportant detail…it drives the players crazy.