Broken Web

November 30, 2020

The group pauses for only twenty heartbeats before heading to the south.  From what Dakxer and Drewgan said, a ritual was happening and they should stop it.  When they go around the corner, Dakxer's blade barrier is still going.  They can vaguely see shapes on the other side, waiting.  Drewgan is still in elemental form, gliding under, waiting for his moment.  Raz signals Dakxer, who lowers his blade barrier, and then Raz charges all the way!  To the High Priestess!  Activating all of the golems as he runs past them.  Even the two drow who were waiting were not expecting him to do that.  

Marcus went inside as did Volhoric.  Marcus was a near victim of the attacks of the Spiderstone golems.  Further, not only were constructs immune to his spells but so are undead.  He switches to his magic missile wand and buffing anyone who wasn't already buffed.  Volhoric got a free pass on the golems.  Early in the fight, one of the drow wants to fight him and tells the golems not to attack Volhoric.  That lasted the fight.  He was disappointed.  

By the time Shyrrik moves forward to shoot with his bow, and Dakxer steps into the room, feeling the unholy presence of Lloth, Marcus is already hard pressed and retreating.  Volhoric is fighting on the drow and is coming out better than they are.  Raz is finding hitting the high priestess, and it turns out there was another that he couldn't see due to how long the room was, and they are attacking him back.  Realizing that they are still going forward with a sacrifice or something on the High Mage, Raz grabs the high mage, and flings him back down the aisle, telling Drewgan where to get him.  Drewgan glides forward and pulls the High Mage down into the floor into his elemental form and then starts getting back to the group.  Seeing this, the high priestesses eventually teleport away after a slight mishap with a rink of blink compared to teleport.  

Even with the high priestesses gone, it's not a given that the group will win.  Six golems come forward, again beating Marcus with fists and beating down Dakxer.  Shyrrik manages to take out one with four arrows.  Then Marcus switches to fire and blasts another golem.  Volhoric soon figured out their vulnerable spots and was hitting vulnerable spots to great comport.  Soon, the golems are all destroyed.  

They revive the High Mage and he thanks them.  He says they were trying to cut some of the defenses of the town and make them access points instead.  He's still not sure how they got past the defenses to attack him in his home.  He wants to get back to Silverymoon as soon as possible but he understands when they stop to pick up a few magical items that are quite powerful.  Drewgan leads them to a tree and activates the wand.  That takes them outside the High Mage's manor!  He is impressed, says to call on him when they have a chance, and heads inside, after asking about his staff.  Finding they are fine, he again thanks them.  

The group heads back and spends several hours in the dungeon.  They recover what they can from the drow ambushers, including magical wands and a magical rod, as well as magical arms and armor.  They harvest some beholder eye stalks.  While Marcus, Volhoric, and Shyrrik take the items from the bodies remaining, Dakxer, Drewgan, and Raz cleanse the temple area.  Drewgan can feel something there and knows there is a magic but not really feel it's diving flavor.  Raz can tells many have been sacrificed at the altar, as many souls linger.  Most unseen but as Dakxer spills dwarven holy water, souls are released.  Dakxer feels the unholiness of this temple.  It's not so bad that his goddess can't respond to him or he can't cast spells while within it but it feels wrong to him.  Nauseating.  He knows that he could spend a tenday cleansing it and while it would feel good to do so, unless he is going to take up residence, it still looks like a temple.  It will only cause the next cult time to desecrate his work.  Instead, hearing from Raz that there are trapped souls, he decides to free them.  

It takes nearly two hours of blessings by Dakxer to free all of the souls.  At one point, Dakxer and Drewgan watch as some souls stop and speak to Raz.  One reaches out and touches Raz on the left shoulder.  The other spoke a bit before leaving.  They almost saw details of them but got the sense of them being orcs.  They finish freeing the souls and meet up with the rest, who are finishing up with the items and beholder stalks.  

They head back to Silverymoon.  

33,750 xp

GM Notes

• Messed up on the accent but have learned to pause, take breath, then start over with the correct one.  Seems to work.
• Druid elemental form
• Really torn on this.  I don't think it's strong enough.  I think movement should be increased, for all forms, as well as attack
• High level DND
• I looked over some high level adventures and encounters and these characters would blow through them with quarter resources much less full.  That's not bad, just my observation of what I do.
• I also saw that few NPCs in high level adventures had higher than a 25 AC.  The few higher than that are dragons or powerful undead. 
• I find that interesting because it does mean they intend characters to be hit and to take the blows.   
• My own high level DND
• I do admit, that I throw out balance.  I think fun is better served this way but it can make planning tough. 
• Everyone has the equivalent of spring attack and an attack action is their full attacks.  Again, not only is it more fun, but then we don't get walls locked down so they get full attacks. 
• It can ruin some feats, though, like the Vital Strike chain, so I still have to figure that out.  
• I really want to limit PC AC to 30.  I'm more than willing to do that with NPCs. I haven't done it but I want to for reasons.  
• I think this will encourage multi classing, especially from martial classes.   When you get to +25 or more, there is no reason you have to keep improving.  
• I think that there needs to be a way to do a bit like PF2 (and 5e tries and fails to do) of allowing levels from other classes to help a first class.  It also encourages that multi classing. 
• In this case, I think the old dual class had it right in that xp in the new class starts over a zero. 
• I would expect a person/character to pick up on related skills quicker than the usual progression. 
• No system will be perfect and I'm still playing with this. 
• I also want to use ideas from Pathfinder Unchained
• Notably three actions and a reaction.  
• I also have the PCs doing a lot more damage than normal.  This ups the lethality of a fight.  If they still did damage as a regular high level character, the fights we have had would take four times longer at the same hit points.
• Yes, I could lower hit points and damage but again, doing a lot of damage is fun! 
• I have indirectly recreated minions for Shyrrik, Raz, and Volhoric because they rarely do less than thirty points of damage on a hit.   
• d20Pro issues
• I don't know if we will have a clean game?  I don't know if any vtt system does?  They all have to have the same, or similar, limitations in the game.   
• The blink ring v teleport ring was a fun happenstance when I wasn't sure if setting them invisible had taken and pressed it several times.  They kept winking in and out! 
• As I mentioned in critiques, going back to low level will be a shock with the numbers!   

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