Game Report: A departure

After diving headfirst into a teleportation pad with the doppelganger, they come to the Grand Central Station of teleportation pads, and are cheerfully greeted by an eladrin, who asks why they are there and how she can help them. They almost get to where they want to go when a tiefling on an upper balcony shouts “Stop them!” and the room is locked down. The minotaurs guarding the door leap into action and more eladrin show up to harry the players.

The minotaurs prove little trouble, just tend to be obnoxious with their charges, but the encounter abilities of the eladrin proves capable of take players out of combat for an entire round, not to mention that minions kept teleporting through the pad set up around the room. The party had enough of the reinforcements, and the wizard leapt into the nearby information booth and threatened the cowering attendants there to shut down the whole operation.

The warlock pushed some enemies out of the room and at one point the doppelganger was suddenly surrounded by many minions and saved by the fighter, but otherwise the number game won out and the last enemy fell to its knees and begged for mercy. They spare her, only to be immediately flung into the next encounter

The doppelganger demanded that they chase after someone they saw before the fight and takes off. The wizard tries to stop her, but she just gets snarky and they go. They run into people, they try to keep up pace, and eventually they end up outside, looking at a number of warehouses. They charge into one and get inside to find a Yuan-ti, who admonishes the doppelganger and sics his allies on them.

The battle seems easy, until two ogres come crashing through the supply shelves, giant clubs in hand. The party was shocked, but shortly recovered, using AOE to slowly take out the remainder. The doppelganger disappeared and reappeared behind the Yuan-ti, and threw him into a box for later interrogation. The ogres were taken down and the doppelganger demanded to know where the sword was. When the Yuan-ti wouldn’t adequately answer, the doppelganger left him and told the party to set the box he was in on fire.

They left the warehouse, moving back towards the central building, when they saw something on the horizon. It’s apparently a white dragon, who lands before them and demands to know why they are disrupting his partner’s business. The doppelganger tries some of her usual tricks to convince the dragon that they are supposed to be there, only to get smacked for a healing surge of damage by the warlord. She was obviously pissed, and stepped back. The rest of the party tried to parlay with the creature, but he smelled something funny, and decided that it would easier just to kill them.

The fight went fine…a frightful presence early stopped the martial characters, but proper placement prevented the breath weapon from targeting everyone, and the party could now reliable deal over 80 points of damage a round if it wanted to, so the dragon wasn’t in play for very long. After a few rounds of fight, it suddenly decided it had enough, stunned everyone around him, spent an action point, grabbed the fighter and flew away. Everyone on the ground panicked, of course, and started climbing over themselves to try to find out where the dragon took him. The doppelganger, feeling a little spiteful, came around the corner as Garvan, only to be shouted at by the wizard.

They eventually saw that the dragon’s lair was nearby inside a building, and marched over and dove into his lair, a cold hovel, where the dragon was trying to like its wounds. It didn’t get far, and fell within seconds. The party searched the entire lair, even cutting the dragon open, but all they found was two teleportation pads that they couldn’t get to activate. The fighter was gone.

Lessons Learned: Don’t begrudge the players for having commitments and errors that prevent them from appearing. People are busy; if they are too busy, you can ask them if they really want to keep playing, but otherwise, they play to have fun. This isn’t WoW. If they can’t make it, don’t let it bother you. On the same note, I write my encounters assuming everyone will be showing up, and tend to use whatever elements I find fun or interesting.

Also, I need to start allowing the players a diplomatic out, if they so choose. I keep getting caught off guard when they don’t want to kill whatever I send at them.