Korvath was late to the garthering, his player having been confused as to the intent of the session, and rolled up a new character, and gave him a passable backstory.
Upon arriving to the gathering point, he saw that he had been left behind, and that the group had tackled the 2nd dungeon directly, rather than a replay of the 1st and sequential progression through the available dungeons.
Kor grabbed some gear slightly better than his
Starter Crap, and headed after the group, catching up to them with a friendly pointer in the direction he was heading.
Having caught up the party shortly before they entered the fray, he found that the ill-fated start of a new character was going to be a pain, though not as badly as if he had taken a non-tank.
Kor ended up as fodder and napping far more than he would have liked, but not too far down the road (though after the quest item had been retrieved apparently) someone kindly donated a Full Plate +1 to him, and Kor found himself lasting more than 15 seconds on average. Thanks to his preference for the biggest weapon available, his damage wasn't pitiful compared to his compatiots, though he usually still did less than the rogue on his non-backstabs.
More rooms were passed through, almost every one of which Kor became acquainted with the hard rocky bed called the floor.
Notable among them was a very narrow bridge with a large number of enemies on the other side. Kor was wise enough to know that it would be better to lure the enemies to their own side of the bridge, rather than fight on the bridge or on the enemy's side of it. The idea was put forth by someone else before he could voice it, but it went unheeded.
Luckily, the rate of XP loss was being overcome by his share of the kills, and eventually he made 2nd level, and actually lost track of the number of fights he
didn't take a dive in. Eventually the mines were declared done with, and they headed out side and freed the spirit, before heading across the way to the snowy realm.
The group happened across a Tomb, and after it seemed most of the party was just standing around Kor assumed that someone needed to try bashing the door down (first impulse when things aren't happening, and he can't do anything else to fix it).
He found the door couldn't be damaged by his weapon and said as such... but apparently that just meant that everyone else needed to attack the door instead. Kor suggested that the door might be picked, but people continued to attack it. Getting frustrated, Kor took a short walk to look over the cliff and rest, in that short time however, a pair of the fellows ran down the hill and headed across the bridge. Dusting himself off, Kor followed them and came upon an Arms Dealer finishing a conversation. Kor naturally had no idea what was discussed, having been out of earshot for it. He perused the goods available but found them all to be wither puny weapons, or quite exotic, and not a greataxe nor greatsword were to be found. Declaring the selection to be rather odd, he followed most of the party towards a small 'village' (quite an exaggeration at that.) He arrived and found a pair conversing at about 500 words per minute, and caught a general idea that this 'village' and the next over were in a feud over food, and wanted revenge against the other by looting of a tomb.
Having picked up that the party either was going to review the two conversation after both were in hand, or they didn't care much about the story at all, Kor headed towards the other 'village', and skimmed through what the other guy had to say, most everything matching what had already been said, though this one apparently had been the one in a better position resource-wise. Kor left the village, declaring that this tale was pretty much the same as the other (and later mentioning a few times when it was being decided which to loot, that the Thuvians(sp?) were a better group to ally with.)
The group headed back to the tomb, and upon entering, Kor got a strong feeling that this confined space that made up the outer corridor would be trap-laden, and said so. Some seemed to agree and began searching as they went, though most simply stayed behind the meatshields, even if they were slow from searching. Surprisingly, not a single trap was found on the trip to the central chamber.. not even an errant undead. Very odd.
On coming to the foretold shared crypt, Kor saw that not only were people ignoring that it's wiser to ally with someone that has a better pool of resources (the Thuvians,) but that the foolish fellows were actually about to open both sarcophagi at the same time!
Had these fellows never run into a trapped tomb in their lives? He quickly worded a strong opposition to the course of action, and managed to convince them to at least open them one at a time if they were going to loot them both.
They opened the first one, and Kor prepared for an attack or trap of epic proportions... only to eventually see a smallish group of skeletons come out of hiding, and rather weak ones at that. Rather underwhelmed, he made little attempt to pursuade the group to leave the other tomb alone, only to be shocked to see a SET of Liches guarding this one. Thankfully, two of the three turned out to be illusions, and vanished, that still left a rather strong opponent, but not one that couldn't be brought down by a party running 6 deep. A handful of stone naps later, the group had vanquished the foe, and started to leave, cleaning up handfuls of undead along the way that finally decided to rouse themselves from their slumber.
Somewhere in the whole ordeal, at least one, if not two fellows had somewhat abandoned the group's struggle (either during or shortly after the lich battle), and ran ahead to town. At the exit from the Tomb, a pair of Ghoul Lords jumped the party.
Kor struck several mighty blows, felling them quickly with his fellows, however he couldn't grasp why a pair of undead were waiting
outside the tomb, rather than attacking the group while they were bogged down in other undead.
Kor had only just descended the hill when he saw the Arms dealer running out of the area, muttering something about things being 'Bad for business.' The group then proceeded towards the 'villages' to turn in word of their deed, only to find that no one was around. Some of the fellows thought that they were the ghouls that appeared outside the tomb. Kor thought this unlikely, given a ghoul's relatively advanced state of decay, but he knew better than to disagree without a solid counter to the idea.
The party returned to the linking dungeon, and touched their stones to the glowing orb that was no longer protected by an impenetrable fog. Upon returning to the Waiting Room, it was discovered that the vendors had decided to change venue to the Gathering Circle. While odd, it didn't seem that anything had been disrupted, and the adventure continued as usual.
After a round of accolades being given out, Kor found he was finally as strong as the rest were when the adventure had started... only to see that several were stronger than they had started as well. Giving himself a chuckle, Kor's player was glad he had come into this expecting to be a meat shield.
At this point the group decides to do another play through of the 2nd dungeon. Kor resets the dungeon, and things go mostly as they did before, if with slightly fewer dirtnaps for Kor.
Of note in this round were the Succubi, which turned out to be immune to a LOT of physical damage, Kor himself only being able to give a good scratch when he swung with all his might, the few times he managed to connect. Turns out that even something practically immune to damage can (eventually) be killed if you hit it hard enough. Kor discussed his lack of a magical weapon to be the reason, but turned out that even those with magic weapons weren't doing damage. Guess it's better to have a big weapon than a magic one.
Kor eventually finds a Greataxe +1 after another clusterfudge at the narrow bridge (and again the wise advice went generally unheeded), and gets his damage to be on par for the group, usually able to kill small critters in one good hit, and making significant damage to Big Bads between his faceplants, particularly when he wasn't caring as much where he was aiming.
The mine was cleared (enough) relatively easily this go-through, and the party quickly got to the snow fields again.
The Arms Dealer apparently had taken an oath of silence in this version of the dungeon, though it wouldn't have helped much, as the Quest NPCs were again breezed through (if at a slightly slower pace), though this time Kor stayed out of the process.
Half the tomb had a handful of undead in it, apparently the lazy bones decided to actually try and stop
before they got to the inner sanctum.
This time, Kor decided to take the initiative and headed straight for the Coffin of the ancestor of the less fortunate 'village', looting it before anyone could get the idea to loot the other one first. He rushed out towards the door, half expecting to fend off another measly army of skeletons. Wiping a few of them out quickly, he headed towarsd the door, only to be caught in the middle of an ambush by Two Liches. Apparently someone couldn't leave good enough alone, and was more interested in 'phat lootz' than adhering to a code of valor
or the safety of his compatriots, as further evidenced by someone looting the first Lich to fall, before the 2nd was dead.
After many, MANY dirtnaps, (brought on by the Liches repeatedly ignoring everyone else, and making Kor a priority target everytime he stood up, even when he was across the room), the tomb was cleared, and the group headed back out to the surface.
Upon leaving the Tomb, Kor sees that once again there are two Ghoul Lords waiting, though they seem to have decided to wait for the group well down the hill, nearer the portal back to the dungeon.
The group already knows that there's nothing to be done in the 'villages' so they kill the Ghouls and head back to the orb, once again returning to the Gathering Circle and receiving accolades.
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Topic: Ongoing Neverwinter Nights Campaign, Monday nights 7-10pm PST (Read 11657 times)