Game Report: Pirates

The party finally finds itself on the shore of the Sandsea, near the completely broken and abandoned capitol city of the former kingdom of Ar, and they head to the docks of the city, to move into the foreboding blue dunes. They see the hulks of broken ships out among the desert, and in a fit of fervor, the cleric rushes forward to look around.

He managed to step directly into a trap, and some kuo-toa jump out from under the deck to attack. This ugly froglike creatures used their spears and sticky shields to torment the party, but overall they fail to deal significant damage, only occasionally sticking the players with their harpoons to deal aggravated damage. The kuo-toa fall easily, but not before their leader makes his escape, running to a specific ship some ways from the dock.

The party sees the danger of allowing one of those who attacked them to get away, especially since the players drew similarities between these creatures and certain creatures from another game. They followed the rogue leader to the ship, which was partially collapsed in the sand. As they approached, they catch sight of a kuo-toa whip in the crow’s-nest, who shouts, “You shall never defeat the Dread Pirate!” Another group of the monsters attacks, fitted with eyepatches and three-cornered hats.

The whip casts some nasty spells at the players and managed to remain mostly unharmed until late in the fight by constantly blinding the most dangerous PC. The rest of the kuo-toa who assisted, however, had less of a chance and were quickly swept up the party, who then were able to focus attention of the spellcaster. Multiple players also managed to teleport into the crow’s-nest, making this an interesting three dimensional fight.

The players took a short rest and decided that it was to their benefit to finish off this Dread Pirate. They take a pick inside the derelict ship to see a single kuo-toa taking to an unseen entity that seemed to be the Dread Pirate. They decided to enter and start the fight, all falling through the porthole into the enclosed space. The wizard put up a wall of fire to take out the leader whip and his entourage, which they quickly maneuver away from. After everyone was inside the boat, through the wall of fire came…a floating brain-in-a-jar wearing a pirate hat and with an eyepatch strapped across its faceplate.

The Dread Pirate immediately dominates the wizard, and has him fling spells at the party. The melee characters get into position around the kuo-toa, sending them back into the fire, while the rest stood back and mopped up the remaining minions hiding among the rafters. The brain-in-the-jar found itself quickly injured, only to remain standing for an extra round to the fervor of his demagogue follower, and after the Dread Pirate fell, its lock on the wizard’s mind faded and the rest of the fight went easily.

After tripping over the corpses of the unusual pirate gang, they discovered some much needed booty; a large pile of treasure to weigh them down as they made their way across the Sandsea.

Lessons Learned: I like throwing something goofy in every once in a while, and after acquiring the Open Grave book and seeing the Brain-in-a-Jar, my players knew it was only a matter of time before they encountered one. By making it a pirate being worshipped by a group of extremely misplaced kuo-toa, I made the inevitable appearance as silly as possible. That should satisfy my need for the inane for at least a month.

On the other hand, the execution in the final fight wasn’t as well-tuned, and paragon tier has proven that there is a lot more paperwork than usual. Nearly half of all paragon tier monsters have started dealing ongoing damage and require multiple saves per turn, and the players have so many actions and options that they are difficult to track. The wall of fire that proved so instrumental in the final fight shouldn’t have been, and it broke a lot of the dynamic of the fight in the player’s favor. Keeping track of these things more closely is becoming more necessary.

Also, the wizard’s player would like you to know that the Dread Pirate was technically a Brain-in-a-jaaaarrr.