>>317994
It has actually gone NOT as planned.
They found the dragon, after a fair bit of deliberating around the fake fireplace.
The dragon negotiates with the group, offering them the choice of swearing fealty or death. He chats with the dragonborn of the group in draconic, telling him that the room had the key to reviving the old empire of Arkhosia, the birthright of the Children of Io. He uses the rest of the group to serve "their" goals, and help the dragon rise in power and infamy.
The lawful good, Bahamut worshiping dragonborn agrees to work with this OPENLY EVIL DRAGON. then convinces the rest of the group to do so as well, the warden because it serves his purposes, the elf ranger out of fear.
Only the cleric of Ioun refuses, stands his ground ALONE against the dragon in a one on one battle, flubs his attack and eats a crit ice breath, going down hard. The dragon is about to finish him off when the dragonborn speaks for him enough that the dragon spares the cleric, and when he is revived, informs him that the dragonborn is his new "master" and will be addressed as such, his name is now "Poochie", the elf is now "human because you all look alike" and their first mission given is to destroy the town that sent them there in the first place, no excuses accepted for failure.
I did NOT expect this, not after they shot down the orc's similar offer outright, and more, the dragonborn claimed to accept the decision entirely to save his own skin, defining his character as a opportunistic coward that NO ONE in the group trusts, the cleric as a rock solid good guy that hates the entire group as cowards and miscreants, and the warden and ranger just being THERE.
I did my best to make this dragon as haughty, childish and overbearing as possible, and now they can either cross the dragon and earn it's ire, cross the town and have the former adventurer leaders come gunning for them, or run away and earn the enmity of BOTH. I've never seen a group screw itself so hard, and it's entirely due to their own collective cowardice and inability to make decisions solo. The warden and ranger both claimed that they would have fought had others in the group did so, and I simply said "that's what happens when you insist on being a follower."
Now I need to abandon EVERYTHING I had planned until the dragon chronicles are ended, either with the dragon killing them, them killing the dragon or running away.
Wow. Just wow.

>>317997
Did I mention that the dragon lied about almost everything except for the fact that yes, the room chronicles the rise and fall of the various empires of the races in it's murals, but since the language is supernal, the dragon has no idea what the details are?
That no one tried to identify the dragon, the murals, tried to discern the truth in the words they heard? That they went into the room still wounded from the fight against the kobold raiders and orc?

2012/02/12(Sun)01:38 No. 8004 ID: 9130c6
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>>317998
>>317997
How.
Just straight up how.

>childish, irritating dragon
Have it give them humiliating and pointless tasks to prove loyalty, then pic related when they inevitably object.

>>318004
Oh, make no mistake, I have plans.
The dragon will eventually eliminate them, and until then, you may be right.
Small, silly, pointlessly vicious little dalliances may be what the doctor ordered.

Guardsork Orktavious 2012/02/22(Wed)11:10 No. 8061 ID: dd1abd
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>>318011
Updates, people, updates.
They go back to town and stupidly tell the town elders EVERYTHING, including the dragons plans to have them raze the town.
To be sure, the elders are like WAT, then learn that they have essentially failed every single task set to them, from securing the goods, mapping the cave to scattering the kobolds. One of the elders, Guilliman (HURR), decides to give them the money promised upon the scattering the kobolds, as they had slain the raiding orc boss, a paltry sum, and they were summarily booted from town, told not to return without a dragon's head in tow. Pleas to have them send soldiers to help them were denied as they were not going to send the young men of their town off to die foolishly; there are stupid adventurers like themselves for such tasks.
After deliberating, they decide to kill the dragon. They return to the cave, meander a bit, go back to the dragon, having planned to sneak attack him. This plan fails when the dragonborn all but declares they are going to fight him rather than submit (why do they let this guy talk???) during a short conversation with the dragon.
Battle time. It was brutal. The warden dropped slow effects on the dragon every round, and the party ate dragon breath like it was going out of style (the recharge rolls were always 6). The cleric got slapped with a claw, than dragon breathed to death, turning into a popsicle. I felt bad about that, the only character that had actually stood up to the dragon was laid low by ice breath the last time, and finally killed this time. His last act was a critical Cascade of Light that honestly turned the tide of the battle. The ranger got slapped down in the same blast, pulled up due to temp. hp, than dummied up hardcore by using her bow while threatened and put back down. The warden landed the killing blow, and we ended with them raiding the dragon's hoard and trying to figure out what they have and how to get the cleric's body out.
I have a brand new 4e group, made of teenage brand new players. I will take what I learned here (a level 2 party got their shit slapped by a CR1 dragon, must prepare them better gearwise) and put them thru the paces.
Until next time: Thus Spake the Orky Fella.
>posted this for the cleric, dick move but hilarity

>>318004
Also, this is EXACTLY what happened.
Repeatedly.

they were geared fine, they just had a failure of a plan. preperation is key and the dragonborn flushed it all down the shitter.

>>318070
There are no plans with this group, no forethought.
There is, as one player put it, Operation Blammo, and it is a stupid as it sounds.

Thus spake again, the Orky Fella.
Things have officially gone full retard.
The group has finally gotten some of their shit together, identified the magic items they had found, realized the plot hook was in a language they didn't know (supernal) and returned to town with the dragon's head.
They were hustled to the great hall where they spoke to the elders, were given the bounty for the dragon (did I mention how the group left 8 THOUSAND SILVER PIECES in the dragon's hoard behind? Yes, the party abandoned the entire treasure hoard that wasn't items because they are idiots) and then dispatched a force to recover the looted items (and the silver they found).
The party, due to some plot hooking to introduce 2 new characters, has now been joined by a disgraced, alcoholic dwarf warlord and a.... wait for it..... DWARVEN PALADIN OF BAHAMUT NAMED PEBAWUBAWU MANIA. This is the cleric's new character.
Goddammit people.

>>318171

>dwarf named Pebawubawu Mania

wat

After reading this thread, I can only say...I am never this retarded, even off my meds and after 48 hours of no sleep.

>>318188
>PEBAWUBAWU MANIA
You must have made a mistake. I think your player was just singing along with some Skrillex when you thought he was naming his character.

>DWARVEN PALADIN OF BAHAMUT NAMED PEBAWUBAWU MANIA. This is the cleric's new character.
And up until that point the cleric sounded slightly less idiotic than the rest of them...

>>318188
>>318190
>>318195
Unfortunately, this is how the cleric's player USUALLY acts. He is a devout attention whore, something I hoped I beat out of him in Dark Heresy.
The dwarf warlord player rages that he is trying to play a dour, serious dwarf and this "THING" as he calls him, makes all dwarves everywhere lesser by existing.
Did I also mention that the paladin challenges almost everyone to "Clorthmore", dwarven ritualized honor duels? This is gonna be fun.
I am gonna give him the rope to hang himself with.

Do you mind if I share some player craziness from a campaign I am currently playing in? Things just got really screwed up really fast.

>>318203
Speak, good man.
I need someone to remind me I'm not the only one that both looks forward to and dreads gaming with his group.
>passes the mic

>>318211
The session (which I last posted in the middle of) turned out to be a bizzare combination of kind of awesome and incredibly fucked up.
At the beginning of the session (with our group of four lvl 6 adventurers) we were about to save a city from a malfunctioning shield enchantment. At the end of the session, the session, the entire city (which the DM had intended to be out party's main base of operations) has been leveled and is now the lair of a newly created demigod-level monster. All of this was primarily because of one player's sheer asshatedness.

So the city in question was in a massive cave inside a mountain, with a huge shield enchantment surrounding the city inside the cavern. The shield had been gradually growing unstable over the years, and was needing increasing amounts of energy from the yearly shield rituals to keep it from deforming and crushing the city. In the previous session we had found a nearby gnome artificer who we convinced to help us safely take the shield down and redirect the energy, and things were going fairly well. (We did expect to fight a dragon or two, as the energy from the shield ritual (which was about to happen) attracted them, but with help from the gnome and the city I felt fairly prepared for it.)

At the start of the session, we were talking to the gnome in his tent/pocket dimension/mansion filled with magic items, and he wanted to rend us gear for the coming dragon fight (for somewhat inflated prices). Our group's human psion read the gnome's mind about how he planned to redirect the shield, and heard something about a powerful item in a locked room at the back.
So the psion decides to sneaks off from the rest of the group, and break in. In other words, he wanted to rob a powerful and well equipped artificer right before said artificer was about to help us with a major goal.
The psion finds the door to the room covered with locks, but after a few broken lockpicks manages to nat 20, and makes it into the room. He enters and manages to resist and disable a mind effecting trap, and looks around the room.
The room is full of cursed items (some even in cages) and otherwise powerful items that are visibly unstable due to damage, but nonetheless he starts rummaging through the room looking for the right box (which he has no idea what it looks like).
After a few boxed containing extremely cursed looking items, he tries to open a jewel covered box with a large eye design in the center, After trying to open it and being hit for minor damage by a magical trap in the jewels, he stands behind it and stabs the box in the eye with a dagger. In other words, he stabs a mysterious trapped box, in a room packed full of unstable or cursed magic items, in the middle of a tent packed full of even more magic items, all owned by a powerful ally who is just a few rooms away.
Out of the many ways that this could go wrong, the DM decided on the second worst one (the wort being annihilating the entire party in the explosion).
The items instead cause the pocket dimension to start collapsing in on itself, and soon after the party (except for the psion) and the gnome escape from the tent the entire thing (including the psion) merges into a hostile demigod level monster with the combined abilities of an elder dragon, an illithid, a cloaker, a rust monster, a drider, and probably some other things.
(This would have been mostly legitimate if the psion had actually been evil and planning the whole thing, but no, it really was just being idiotic.)
After a long rampage involving a fight with a (previously neutral) gargantuan challenge rating 44 spider, a fight with five adult dragons at once, and a fight with the gnome (now using controlling the shield), the monster has everything in the area that can even touch it (among many other things, it has 20/+3 DR).
And then, as the monster proceeds to kill almost everyone in the city (while the heroes try to evacuate people through a back tunnel with limited success), the psion weasels his way out of any direct consequences to himself by transferring his soul out of the monster to a nearby human using a Mind Seed (a turn of events I am still annoyed about). When he rejoined the group, he was able to 'explain' away any fault on his part with is ludicrous bluff modifier (which I am also still annoyed about).

Afterwards, our barbarian (who was ironically one of the few characters who could read the signs in the sewer/escape tunnels) decides for no good reason to send the entire group (including the NPC survivors) in the direction of signs warning about a monster.

Anonymous 2012/03/22(Thu)23:53 No. 8226 ID: 6ad1b9
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>>318217
........................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................
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>pls excuse me, I have caught a severe case of both the DUMBS and the White Hot Napalm Death Rage
>I shall return in a moment

>>318217
Now that I have refreshed myself with a large draught of bourbon, here I go.
1. Fucking 3.5
2. By the book, you don't use social rolls against other players. It's against the rules and poor form. While you can't rescind the actions, do take care to not have that happen again.
3. WHAT THE FUCK. SERIOPSULY FUCVK FUCK FUCK GODDAMN ASSHOLE COCKSMOKER.
I can't remember the last time I read something so dumb...
>scrolls up in own thread, reads what my players have done lately
OK, I can remember, but jesus christ that is terrible. I'd kill the guy, preferably irl but ingame is just as good.

Anonymous 2012/03/23(Fri)01:10 No. 8229 ID: 6ad1b9
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>>318227
Here was my face.
Finally fopund it.

>>318217
tbh, it is half my fault for ignoring the pvp rules. But aside from that i am looking very deeply in my soul to find the most troublesome encounter for both those players. I guess i should learn never to get my write ups wet form rain storms... i honestly believe that if i did salvage more of it that this probably wouldn't have happened.

>>318230
This is your game?
For shame, sir, forgetting one of the core basics of interplayer conduct. That said, now you know better.
As a player, I find myself wondering sometimes about people trusted with sometimes crucial responsibilities that fail with them (the psyker hiding as a cleric that doesn't tell us when the xeno witch is trying to kill us all dead). It's very annoying.
That said, I personally thing that outside one gaffe, you have a startlingly amusing campaign that is gearing up for ungodly awesome or miserable failure.

>>318231
the write up is half a novel long, i've been working on this campaign for about 2 years now... and there are some house rulings that i fly with.
One is that i rarely follow initiative stats, it's the one who has the highest dex or inish stat goes first. Next is my circumstance bonuses, instead of adding +2 or whatever i have players add a d6 to their rolls, and multiple depending on situation. The third one is ignoring the pvp rules, cus story arcs will cause players to go against players often- but in this situation the player's name is mister hupr durp and his usual character type is hurpus mc'durpus. I will still need to rethink the pvp rules and possibly go back to auto-fail rolls if this keeps happening.

>>318232
There isn't anything really wrong with that, just don't allow the social rolls between players.
However, metagaming fucktardedness gets ground to paste when it's found.

>>318233
you should probably sit in on one of our sessions. I'd love to get input afterwards. We usually skype.

>>318234
Well, if i could, i wouldn't mind.
Need to crash tho, email me, eh?

I just noticed my name field was empty, lol

>>318235
sure, i'll mail you when it's a few days from next session.

Updates on my wacky crew.
They just got done fending off a attack by wolf riding goblin raiders whilst traveling in a caravan.
It did not go as well as it could have. While no one was really in danger of death, it didn't hold back, using high movement and skirmish damage to pick away at them.
>Note to self, the group has 2 ranged strikers, this plan doesn't work that well.
>Note to self 2, they have a warden, paladin and lazy warlord. Need to get super tactical in order to give them a proper challenge in the battlefield. Or LOTS OF DUDES. Time for the undead :D
The only really bad thing was when in desperation, the dragonborn used his acid breath to hit a group of the riders right when they were boarding one of the wagons. He managed to hit one of the people inside the wagon, despite the -5, and killed the wife of the leader of the caravan. Fortunately, the party doesn't know about it, and I played up the situation for drama, but it's a poor thing that the dragonborn used this with the full knowledge that there were civilians present that could be caught in the crossfire. Her death is entirely on his hands, and I subtly let him know that somewhere, someone disapproves of such thoughtlessness. The dour warlord and the wacky paladin are feuding hardcore, and I have no idea where it will lead to. Hopefully to amusement (for me).
Now the task at hand. I am having them approach a dwarven hold, long abandoned that had recently seen signs of inhabitance. I am mulling over having vermin be in the place, lead by a swarm druid coven, or undead at the behest of a covenant of necromancers.
With the goblin battle, I have seen that they have really come into their own as a powerful defensive force, especially with the warden's leaf cover and the sorceror's shrouding. -2/-5 to attack rolls, with the paladin being a offensive defender and the warden sticky as hell means I have little choice but to barrel thru the front lines, and the dwarves in the party mean I can't really take advantage of forced movement as much as I had planned to.
Need to find ways to turn on the pain train for the group.

Well it is a dwarven fortress, so the natural thing to do is to have some of the traps still be operational (which probably means the necromancers are there, as I don't think druids are usually into that kind of thing).
Things you can do with dwarf traps / necromancers include:
- Make it harder for the players to search for traps by having a few low level skeletons or something shooting from fortifications on the other side of the room.
- Delayed or lever activated pit traps. That way they can open after your melee characters have already crossed, so it will take time for the fighters to get back if you mess with the casters in some way.
- Have the party pass an old pit trap that had already been sprung. At a (in)convenient time, the bones of the pit trap's victims stand up and ambush the party or attempt to pull party members into the pit.
- Levers or keys in flooded rooms or deep pools of water. Because the living need to breathe while the undead don't.

I suggest poisonous darts. The undead will be immune and likely take no damage due to a lack of immune system to attack; and a dart does very little to a zombie and nothing to a skeleton.

I would also like to suggest semi-obvious pit-traps, with skeletons that are animated but inactive in the bottom (as suggested earlier)...and, not too far in front, traps that push with great force. The dwarf will consider himself a lucky, lucky sonuvabitch if he triggers it; if not, well fun time! Dwarf Fortress-type fun.

Also: "A boulder drops down and starts rolling towards you; everyone make an Endurance check to keep running." Then, of course, turn on the Indiana Jones theme on your laptop, just to screw with them a bit more than you already have. If you don't have it, YouTube is your friend.

And finally, a water trap. The players come to a room where the water is 30 feet deep, and there's three platforms - one at each door, and one in the center of the room. Stepping onto the middle platform starts to drain the room (there's a refilling mechanism above)...but in the water are a bunch of water-adept creatures that try to pull the PCs down and drown them. (A more fantastic way to do this would be to make an anti-magic trap triggered on the center platform, which triggers the end of a magical field keeping the water in the room. That water will drain VERY fast if the field is big enough.)

A cool encounter might be a zombie giant squid in that water room...

>>318263
Some good ideas here.
They are already at the place and have already meandered into a trap room of mine.
>>318271
>implying I don't have the Indiana Jones osts already
But I like that giant squid thing.
That said, I'm planning on unleashing some L4D style super zombies on them. I have already made a smoker, I have a plan for the big fight to have several boomers and behind the door the warden is at right now, is a Tank, barreling towards them. He will find out what that odd rumbling is in a minute.
Did I mention they are in a room that is 5x5?

>>318280
L4DnD?

>>318284
Yes.
I just made the Tank.
It's bad. Real bad. They will have to use their big shit here, or die.

I know you haven't asked for any ideas lately for traps, but I just got this one. Pardon the derailing.

It's a swinging log, which is held up by a rope that can be cut or burned. Those in its path (probably a 5-by-15-or-5-by-20 line) must make a Reflex save. Success means you dodge completely but are prone. Failure means you take 4d6 damage, and are moved that amount + 4d6 feet (round to the nearest 5-foot square). For 4e, divide the result by 5 for squares.

The problem? There's a copse of trees about 15-25 feet back along each square of the trap. A wall is fine too. Hitting the wall deals a number of d6 of damage equal to 2 + 1/5 the feet you would have traveled (round to the nearest 1). So if you would have traveled 30 feet, and hit a tree 20 feet away, that's 4d6 extra damage. (This includes the fall from the tree.)

>>318293
Fear not, I always could use more traps, and you gents (possible ladies as well) have been a wellspring of cruelties.
UPDATE TIME:
Alright, a lot of Not As Planned. Again.
After some blurbing and serious hint dropping, they finally opened the door and saw the Tank, as it was throwing a piece of wall at them.
As I roll a mighty 4 for EVERYONE in the area burst of the rock throw, I had them roll initiative. The warlord, who opened the door, then closed it, and they set up a tactical formation that I knew would end the fight REALLY fast. A bit too fast for my liking, tbh, so I conspired against them with the smoker I had in hand. Once the door was busted open with thrown rocks (tank experience taught me to NEVER waltz right into a closed door when you knew the survivors were waiting for you), I had the smoker nab the warden who was poking out just enough for me to have line of effect, dragging him in, assuredly breaking their formation and making the battle a challenge again.
Not so!, says the paladin, activating Martyr's Blessing, taking the hit and being dragged, in his words, screaming "REMEMBER ME~" into the hallway, right in front of the tank. Not my intent, but I've been looking to murder the paladin anyway so :D
The rest of the group either panics and does nothing, waiting for the paladin to come back, or runs into the hallway to try and support him, and by going to the hallway, I mean the warlord. Now, the Tank hits for 2d12+2 a shot, and autocounters any melee attack with a basic attack, so it's evil diesel killy. So I start rolling the bones, and either missing entirely or hitting for 3-5 damage a hit. One PEBAWUBAWU SMAAAAASH!~ whiffed daily later, spent action points afterwards, the warlord is running, the paladin refuses to go anywhere, and the rest of the team is lounging about.
One good hit later (10+10+2=owwie), the paladin FINALLY retreats from the tank, and the elf ranger (played by the bipolar schizophrenic girlfriend of one of the guys -_-) steps into the open hall and unleashes a big hit on the tank. Tanks turn, it tramples over her trying to get to the paladin, whereas then the group beats the tank into submission. Smoker, like any good smoker, runs off when smoke attempt is expended, and battle ends. The tank melts into goo, the ranger and warlord search the goo for rewards. They find a giant black gem, several coins inscribed with runic letters, a few rings made of silver and both had to test against skin rot (they passed easily.)

They then went on forward into the hallway, encountering a single zombie, which the warden and elf took on and slew, thus ending the day.
At the end of it all, no died, only the paladin was brought to the negatives and immediately rescued by the warlord. Not what I was expecting, but oh well.
The issues began after the game. The warlord player was butthurt that he couldn't contribute to the battle due to low rolls and that no one listened to his plans. I countered that since he has +6 to his roll, that he didn't roll better than a 9 means he wasn't hitting shit and if he expected his plans to work as intended, he needed to put in for the wildcard (paladin). Moreso, every plan is perfect until the battle starts, so complaining that they don't work is silly, as is complaining people don't listen to him (they do,by and large).
He then goes on to say that he's trying to be a serious character when no one else is (a lie, both the ranger and warden play their shit seriously) and he wants to bring in a bard (what he wanted to play initially) because it's easier for him to support others.
I contend that his character build relies far too MUCH on others, especially when no one has encountered such a character before. Some discussion among the players about their potential abilities would go a long way for him, but I know that won't happen despite encouraging it.
>and the drama doesn't end

Okay.

This was hilarious and awesome in equal measure. Up until player bitching...

Anyways, another trap idea. Not sure I posted this one before.

Two-part oil-fire trap. First part spits a sticky oil, second part spits fire. Succeed at your first Reflex save? Evade the oil, and Improved Evasion against the second half of the trap. Fail the first save, and the second? You have to contend with, oh let's say, 5d6 fire damage AND being on fire with a hard-to-put-out flame (DC 15 Reflex save to put out WITH the full-round action of rolling on the ground).

The rogue will probably live to see another day. The rest of the party...debatable.

And while I'm thinking of it, let's throw in a murky-water-filled room, only about knee deep, with things like poisonous fish or electric eels hidden in the black water. That are hungry. Not necessarily deadly, but make 'em freak out about so much as taking a bath IRL when you're like "Oh by the way take 1d4 electricity damage" for no apparent reason. Oh, and maybe have a bunch of squares with Sea Urchins in them. Then, of course, the players have to deal with attack rolls on their feet and possibly party members urinating on them to negate the poison. Assuming they make their Knowledge (nature) check.

>>318188

Also regarding this post:

How the fuck do you pronounce that?!

>>318305
Updating your trap to 4e mechanics is easy enough.
To be fair, I'd likely increase the damage a bit.
No oil on you? Fire trap does 3d6 and done.
OIL you say? 6d6 + 10 ongoing fire, save ends. On a good role, that is enough to wipe out any of the squishies outright.
Also, Pebawubawu Mania is said EXACTLY how it's spelt. Fear not, it took me 2 weeks to say it right.

It's late, and the Orky Fella is up.
So, RECOUNTING TIME!
Now the warlord toteyed off to a larp last weekend, so I removed his character from the game in a silly way because the players asked me to. Think "MY PEOPLE NEED ME!" style.
So they are traveling thru a long dark hallway, lit by their own torches, eventually coming upon some damaged wall that with some checks and intelligence, remind them of the wall damage from the Tank. Noting this and moving on, they make a right and come to a hallway where the floor is covered in something dark.
>it took them almost 2 hours real time to get to this point in a 40' hallway
The warden (foolishly) steps on it and I inform him it goes crunch beneath his feet, like old johnny cake (drew blank stares) or fortune cookies (more stares except by the dragonborn who understood the reference). The warden examines the floor, rolls bad, knows shit. The ranger takes a glance and realizes the floor is covered with dead locusts and moths, to her very, VERY vocal and somatic disgust (I have yet to see such a strong reaction from her about anything else). The sorcerorous dragonborn laments his lack of proper boots, and the boyfrie- er, warden, offers to shovel aside the bugs with his shield.
He does so, until he encounters strange runics engraved into the floor. When both he and the ranger fail to identify the writing, they summon the sorc, who with a great arcana check, surmises they are the runes of a necromantic ritual, and he feels more of the same further ahead, bleeding a bright green goo that turns darker and moldy. However, he also realizes that whatever happened here, it already occurred, and while the area was still awash in necrotic magic, it wasn't actually dangerous by existing.
And so they marched on, until they came to yet another hallway, where the runes lined the floor, walls and ceiling, the magic strong enough that the sorceror didn't have to roll to know what it was. As they continued to walk down the hall, the black gems they had recovered from the zombies so far began to glow with a sickening green light, and emanating a heat that almost matched the soaring temperatures of the hold itself.
However, as soon as they moved beyond the runes, the activity in the crystals died off, becoming cool to the touch.

The group finds themselves in a large, very cool room, compared to the rest of the place thus far, that smells of damp earth, mold and rot. I tell the ranger she hears a soft moan from somewhere within the room, off to the left, and soft shuffling of feet perhaps.
Off to the left, they can see a tombstone, old, worn. As the warden goes to investigate, SMOKED, dragged him clear across the room (rolled a 6 on a d6 roll for how far he got pulled that round) into a pile of waiting zombies. Roll initiative, people.
It start off alright. My plan is to throw a mountain of zombies, minion skellies and famine hounds at them, 16 total, 10/4/2, as zombies are the lesser threat while being a problem in numbers, skellies because skellies, famine hounds to skirmish and trip. The group moved in to support the warden very slowly, and he was surrounded by zombies. Split the Tree crits rits from the ranger dropped 2 of the zombies, freeing up the warden to escape, which h didn't, and the paladin forgoed a charge into battle in exchange for moving forward a bit and throwing his maul (he is obsessed with throwing it ever since he found out that magic items are automatically returning, need to investigate if that is true now).
So instead of the 2 defenders bro'ing it up and taking the fight to them, supporting each other with class skills while the ranged support hammers from a distance, there was the warden getting bumraped by 4 zombies all trying to nom his face or bash his brains out (succeeding too, 3 crits on him so far, with the special rules of damage on a grappled opponent, he's eaten 60 damage), the paladin trying and failing to take on 2 zombies he drew away from the warden (getting slapped down as well), and the ranged people running will nilly.
The sorc is in full self-preservation mode, activating his shroud and running away from everything. But he has dropped 2 zombies so far with acid orbs and a crit. The ranger decided to close the gap to save her boyfrie-, er, the warden, and so is getting nommed by a zombie and a hound. Fortunately, the sorc came to her rescue, somewhat.
All in all, the battle is going REAL bad, and the smoker is walking around to each of the tombstones when something dies, banging on it and raising a new creature. They have tried to attack it, and so far, only landed one good hit. I plan on bringing in the warden this week by having him crawl out of the soil in front of one of the graves. They REALLY need him. Hell, I made this battle for them.

>>318320
So they hear zombie noises in the large room, know there is a Smoker zombie on the loose, and let one guy go ahead of the group to take a look?

>>318323
The elf ranger heard something, and informed the group.
I guess they entirely forgot about the existence of the smoker when I informed them in no hidden words about it.
The warden just happened to be the one to wander into smoking distance. To be fair, if he was using a sun rod instead of a torch, this would have been a totally different story.
Dowjin, thank you for looking this over, your assistance is appreciated.

Returning to my thread, with a story of actual triumph and the players NOT fucking everything up.
I saved the initiative scores of the group, and merely had the warlord spring out of the earth. I was disappointed that no one got the Gimli reference inherent to this, but I said meh, and had the warlord roll initiative, getting 22 (this guy ALWAYS has 20+ on his ini rolls). He is first, and I allow him a minute or 2 free chat with the party to catch up, wherein he takes tactical control of the battle. The sorc, ranger, and warden are clustered in the middle of the battle field, the paladin still on his own with the 2 zombies. When asked if he needed backup, the paladin deferred, and the warlord went to support the larger group getting menaced by a 2 famine hounds.
Monsters turn. Zombies on pallie continue to menace, joined by one more that the warden left behind, while the other goes to assault the larger group with the 2 hounds and zombie already there.
They mix it up for a bit, planning to pull back and support the pallie, who finally called for aid. This stopped after the warden got grappled by the zombie he was holding off. I then pulled up, via smoker HRRRUNG HRUNG HRUNG HRRRUUUUUNG'ing 2 archer skellies and 1 skellie with the fighter template on it. I had done this in the belief that by the time these guys became a factor, the rest of the zombies would not be an issue.
I was wrong. Now unless you don't know, the skellie archers from the books hit hard. They aren't bitches, and I wagered the group could cope with the heightened threat. I misjudged the situation gravely, and decided to give myself an out.
I crit the warden with the grappling zombie, pulling up the damage the warden took this battle to fucking 96 hp worth of damage and he was still standing. The warden on his turn marked all the creatures around him, used an at will to slide the fighter skellie away from the group, thus solving the marked issue, the warlord ran around provoking enemies, thus activating the warden's interrupts and his own reactions, the paladin finally crushed the zombies he was embroiled with and went to play bulwark the ranger who was sniping the enemy skellies. The smoker's last ploy was to pull up 5 skellie minions, 2 archer/3 sword, and hid behind the tombstone. However, the group was hurting bad, everyone was bloodied, the warlord had no healing left, the paladin was far away. I had the smoker run for it (again) and when he left, the tougher skellies became minions with the same attack roll.
Fortunately, no one called me out on skimping on a tough battle. I personally would have caught it, and perhaps been upset the DM "took it easy" on me. Better dead and proud versus living on the mercy of someone else.
But that's me.

>>318340
To finish this tale of war and woe, the battle ground down in short order, the team with their newfound ruthlessness and military tactics shredding the 8 skellies left, but not before I managed to drop the ranger into the negatives, first for me.
The group, after the last skellie falls, breaks to search about. The warden smashes the large black gem (WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY MUST YOU DESTROY ITEMS THAT WILL SAVE YOU), the party loots the skellies, gaining some small items, coins and some more black gems. The party searches the room, and comes to realize they are in a graveyard of dwarves that had died within the hold itself.
I waited for the paladin to speak up for the respectful treatment of his dead kinfolk, did not get it. The warlord spoke up, saying that he said they agreed to take whatever they wished that had no importance to his people, but looting the bodies of his fellow dwarves was NOT within their agreement, and asked them to return the coinage burial gifts to the bodies and re-inter them with a prayer for acceptance into Moradin's blessed halls.
>before this, the party spoke of using the bodies to create a barricade at the door to keep out foes -_-
The party agreed, and the game was ended there as they set down to rest, having expended the majority of their resources in the last 2 battles.
I commended the party for coming to clarity over battle tactics, commended the warden for his survival in the face of my repeated attempts to kill him dead and commended the warlord player for his excellent roleplay, giving them both power cards from my personal collection for them to keep.
Now I'll see where they go. I have decided to decrease the frequency and viciousness of the battles for a bit, seeing battle fatigue come to the party. A few light puzzles and traps will do them good, versus nonstop razorwire battles, I think.

The Orky Fellow returns.
My updates are short these days, following a severe drought of gaming happening.
>sigh
But this one is quite fun (sorta).
The group decided to rest out in a underground graveyard of a abandoned dwarven fastness.
Deciding to sleep in shifts, I had them make perception checks and such to see if they noticed anything. I rolled a shitton behind the screen, just to fuck with their metagaming minds (do this a lot recently), until I roll one of the special numbers of 60/70/80/90. I got a 90, time to JUST AS PLANNED them.
I have a magic mouth, planted by the BBEG necromonster in the center of the room, start to speak to them in the most obnoxiously effeminate, flaming gay voice I can muster after 22 hours of no sleep. I must have done a good job as the group replies to the goading with groans, ooc jokes and general aggravation at the idea of being found out.
>stop letting Thin Man escape and maybe you could have moved unheard of
The sorc does a detect magic, and finds it on the floor, the ranger points it out (damn sky high perception) offhand. The warden walks over, asks for a description of the mouth, I tell him it's a big mouth, big teeth, with no lips, think Cheshire Cat. He (predictably) smashes it with his hammer, and eats a trap, blinding, glittering powder spews from the broken teeth.
>glitterdust was always one of my favorite spells
I tell him he is blinded, save doesn't end, and tell the rest of the group he sparkles in the light, setting off a new round of Twilight references, disparaging homosexual slurs and so forth. The sorc does a detect magic on the powder, and is surprised when he is told it is NOT magic (I decided to not make this so simple, use your skills people). The sorc chats with warlord, deciding to simply wash it out of his eyes. The warden then feels a burning sensation in his eyes and nose, taking 2 damage. He begins making a series of checks, heal/nature/dungeoneering/history, eventually gleaning that some folk use such blinding powders made up of salts and powdered stones to blind opponents, and some as a extra precaution, mix them in such a way as to when water is used to wash it out, creates a acidic compound. He asked if it could blind him permanently.
I told him that there are tales of loss of sight with prolonged exposure.
This provoked some serious panic from the party, and I was inundated with new questions that I fielded as appropriate. The only one that mattered was whether or not they had material to neutralize the acid. My plan was for them to use the clay dirt of the crypt, with it's high mineral content mixed with water to neutralize the acid.
The warlord suggested his beer, and I had them look it up, if it's ph was the right type, I'd clear it for the ingenuity. Unfortunately, it wasn't, but I was impressed with his quick thinking. The warden made a final heal check, and remembered that dirt could be the solution, especially the dirt near to hand.
The warlord responds by taking a handful of the dirt and shoving it into the warden's eyes. Not exactly what I had in mind, but hey, it's close enough?
Upon completing their rest, a round of endurance checks was called for, and the sorc and paladin found themselves fairly exhausted, the high heat getting to them. The group decided to sally forth, attempting to track down Thin Man, had the ranger attempt to follow him and discovered the tracks lead back the way they came.
The group decided to break off and check the hallway they hadn't been down as of yet.

Holy shit, this thread is still here?
Well, since it's here, and so have I, I will pace out the end of this particular story.
The group breaks out, having had a decent rest, and sallied forth along the trail already blazed to trails untested.
The warlord asks for a moment to say a few solitary prayers to the dead, as the paladin did not, and leaves back to the crypt, his torch bobbing into the darkness.
>the warlord's player had to leave due to drama within the group, apparently he hit on the one player's girl who was also playing
Returning to the crossroads, they took the turn they demurred on prior, traveling down a long, worked stone hall with many turns and twists, eventually coming to an odd length of hall studded with disembodied arms and legs.
>you know where this is going

>>10237
One of my characters was in a hall similar to that one once. I just started hacking the limbs off with my greataxe until some skeleton archers showed up at the other end.

>>10237
Dunno if you still check this, but I'm actually interested in the exciting conclusion. The whole thing was a fun read.

For the love of God, MOAR. This is like if you took Old Man Henderson and made him a dumbass instead of a badass. And then made four more.

Seriously, this is hilarious.