The Heroes of Winterhaven arrive in Argent, quickly discovering that the city is already besieged.
Read the full recap here.
Read the full recap here.
I had been hoping for an opportunity to sit down and have a meaty discussion with an NPC this session. After all, there hadn't really been anyone to converse with while we were hacking and puzzling our way through the Tomb of Horrors. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. No sooner had we emerged from the portal than the plaza of champions was under attack from tunneling elementals and their bulette allies.
Bulettes make interesting opponents. Despite their size and monstrous bulk, they're actually very mobile, and Dek's combat superiority was the only real way we had of pinning them down and giving them a right seeing to. The galeb dhur, on the other hand, barely lasted a round; flinging some mud and then being smashed into rubble themselves.
The wards and Obanar's attempts to raise them probably didn't get enough of our attention as it should have, with Bengi, Nala and Soveliss all ignoring it for the first few rounds in favour of shooting bad guys with various flavours of arcane energy. Only when new tunnels opened up and a steady stream of new enemies appeared did it become clear that Obanar needed assistance. Especially since he kept rolling 5 or under on his Arcana checks.
The basilisk, no doubt intended by the module's author to serve as a "get your collective arses in gear" reminder didn't appear until it was almost too late, and Soveliss responded in true controller style by immobilising it out of range of either the melee near the gates or the arcanists near the ward focus. It was then more or less ignored until the wards were secured. Then it copped the sort of thrashing that only 5 angry new-paragon adventurers can hand out.
Again I took a deep breath, preparing to ask Obanar a thousand questions about Argent. He had other ideas, sending us off to the eastern area of the city. More primordial agents had breached the defences there, and there was no time to lose. Bugger.
Still, this combat went more easily that the first, particularly for Pieter with his black iron scale armour. The last few sessions have confirmed for me a tentative comment I made during the session 48/49 recap. Energy resistance is troublesome because it's either useless (if there are no enemies of that type in the encounter) or amazing (if their are).
The DM has been upgrading the monsters with MM3 math since we entered paragon, and I must admit that the change is already noticeable. Before finishing Tomb of Horrors, I had been seriously considering trading out some of Pieter's healing powers in exchange for more offence or control. Having seen what MM3-enhanced monsters can do, I'm shelving those plans for a while.
Something tells me that we're going to need all the healing we can get.
The wards and Obanar's attempts to raise them probably didn't get enough of our attention as it should have, with Bengi, Nala and Soveliss all ignoring it for the first few rounds in favour of shooting bad guys with various flavours of arcane energy. Only when new tunnels opened up and a steady stream of new enemies appeared did it become clear that Obanar needed assistance. Especially since he kept rolling 5 or under on his Arcana checks.
The basilisk, no doubt intended by the module's author to serve as a "get your collective arses in gear" reminder didn't appear until it was almost too late, and Soveliss responded in true controller style by immobilising it out of range of either the melee near the gates or the arcanists near the ward focus. It was then more or less ignored until the wards were secured. Then it copped the sort of thrashing that only 5 angry new-paragon adventurers can hand out.
Again I took a deep breath, preparing to ask Obanar a thousand questions about Argent. He had other ideas, sending us off to the eastern area of the city. More primordial agents had breached the defences there, and there was no time to lose. Bugger.
Still, this combat went more easily that the first, particularly for Pieter with his black iron scale armour. The last few sessions have confirmed for me a tentative comment I made during the session 48/49 recap. Energy resistance is troublesome because it's either useless (if there are no enemies of that type in the encounter) or amazing (if their are).
The DM has been upgrading the monsters with MM3 math since we entered paragon, and I must admit that the change is already noticeable. Before finishing Tomb of Horrors, I had been seriously considering trading out some of Pieter's healing powers in exchange for more offence or control. Having seen what MM3-enhanced monsters can do, I'm shelving those plans for a while.
Something tells me that we're going to need all the healing we can get.
Yeah, if you play the paragon modules as written players will chomp through them too easily. I've been slightly trimming HP and adding half level to damage output since level 17 in the Orcus series. Much better, both for me and for the players.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, we very soon hit a couple of very nasty encounters, as the next few instalments will demonstrate.
ReplyDeleteI think updated MM3 math was the "problem" with one of them, but the other was just the [Maxwell smart] old monster combined with advantageous terrain trick.[/Maxwell Smart]