PotA Sessions 11 and 12

We played two weeks in a row this month, which was handy for finishing the Battle of Feathergale Keep.  The party wound up taking on the entire tower during the day, which was a deadly encounter even for a party of 8.  I played it pretty straight for the first session but wound up pulling my punches during the second session because a TPK would violate the social contract.

We left off with the party separated.  Su'uvarax was on the ground floor in the conservatory, with Hazel the captive halfing, Merosska, an initiate and the hurricane.  He had cast Darkness to protect himself (since he could still see through it).  In the great hall, the rest of the party had defeated an initiate and a knight, while another knight jumped out the window. 

After making his way out of the dark to the central stair, Merosska organized the defenses.  He placed three initiates and a knight in the foyer, to block the exit.  Three more initiates took position in the kitchen, in case Su'uvarax tried to escape that way.  He sent the last initiate to the stables, where most of the knights were gathered.  Two were delegated to go up the stairs to the party; the rest mounted their vultures to fly to the roof and come down the stairs.  Merosska positioned himself at the base of the stairs.

In the great hall, Freyja threw a mounted head after the knight who jumped out, but missed.  Liliandra tied her rope around the foot of the table so Freyja could pursue.  The rest of the party started dealing with the two knights who came up the stairs, although Truth took a moment to give Thoril a little healing -- the initiates were surprisingly effective with their little daggers.

Freyja and Liliandra climbed down the rope.  The four mounted knights in the stable took off for the roof and the fleeing knight headed into the stable.  Freyja pursued, arriving as he took off on his vulture, so she commandeered a hippogriff and went after him.  Liliandra wasn't interested in flying, so she looked in the windows of the conservatory, where the rumbles of thunder had been heard.  At the first window, she just saw a blob of unnatural darkness.  When she arrived at the second window, the darkness was gone -- the hurricane's Thunderwave had disrupted Su'uvarax's concentration on his Darkness.  Once Su'uvarax was visible, the initiate stabbed him and then the hurricane punched him unconscious.  Liliandra cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter at the hurricane, but he saved, so she had to climb into the room and fight him.

Upstairs the bulk of the party was rolling poorly against their knights.  Maendir chose to Dodge past the knights, only to find himself facing Merosska.  They exchanged blows and discovered that Merosska hit harder.  We ended the session with the party in a difficult situation.

During the interval, I trimmed the knights' HP by 6 and Merosska's by 11.  I wound up having them attack once instead of twice a round, which made the fights more balanced.  I also reviewed the party's resources and came up with some ideas to deal with Merosska.  As for the knights, we were about to get Freyja back into combat, so that would probably give the party some traction.  Starting out, I let a couple of close misses hit, just to move things along, but once the party got some momentum, I backed that off.

Downstairs, Liliandra used Healing Word to bring Su'uvarax around.  He fried the initiate with an Eldritch Blast and closed the door to the stairwell, leaving just the hurricane as an opponent.  Hazel aided Liliandra by throwing things at him, but it turned out that Liliandra didn't need advantage -- she rolled a critical hit and dispatched him.  Hazel shoved a table across the door to the kitchen, so no reinforcements from there.  Meanwhile, Merosska knocked out Maendir.

In the great hall, the group managed to drop a couple of knights.  Truth took advantage of the gap to move down the stairs and send a Fire Bolt after Merosska.  Su'uvarax moved into the central stair room and hit Merosska with an Eldritch Blast for a little damage, but he had plenty of HP in reserve.  He stepped out of the stairwell and Truth's line of sight, and told Su'uvarax if he surrendered, "We won't kill all of you."

This is where Plan Turning Point came into effect.  Liliandra cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter on Merosska.  When he saved, I let her use Cutting Words to reduce his save (technically illegal).  So Merosska was temporarily out of the picture.  I was hoping the downstairs people would take the opportunity to rejoin the upstairs people, but no.  They wanted to finish off Merosska.  Fortunately, they came up with the idea of disarming him and tying him up before collectively beating on him.  Liliandra got Maendir conscious and he healed himself a bit.  Su'uvarax found the three initiates in the kitchen, confused by the laughter, and intimidated them into staying put.  Hazel escaped upstairs with Merosska's great sword, Liliandra handled the rope, Maendir and Su'uvarax got ready to attack if Merosska stopped laughing.  Which he did, but he was prone and tied.  Acouple of readied actions, and then a bunch of regular attacks, and Merosska had 3 HP left when his turn came around again.  He had Misty Step, but he could only jump to a point he could see.  So I sent him down the stairs.

Meanwhile, four knights had landed on the roof.  Two made it down to the first floor and engaged the group in the stairwell outside the great hall; two more lurked on the second floor.  The knight who jumped out the window arrived on the roof, followed by Freyja.  Once they started fighting, one of the lurkers headed up and the other headed down to fill in for a fallen comrade.  In the hall, Zook ran out of spells, switched to his crossbow and finished off a couple of battered knights.  Silaqui was bladesinging but rolling terribly, so she started using Thunderwave.  Thoril happily stabbed away and they made their way through the pile of knights.  Silaqui cast Thunderwave on the last one and pushed him back 10' into the wall, so I rolled a d6 for damage -- 6 points, which killed him.  This left Thoril free to head downstairs, while Zook and Silaqui went upstairs.

Truth pursued Merosska and found him crawling down the stairs.  He stabbed him with a rapier, but only did 2 points of damage, so Merosska was clinging to life.  The initiate downstairs pulled him away and Truth missed the opportunity attack.  But then Su'uvarax ran downstairs and fried him with an Eldritch Blast.  Thoril arrived to find Merosska dead and had to content himself with squishing the initiate.  Maendir arrived to find everyone dead, so he went back upstairs.  Truth, Thoril and Su'uvarax did some searching and looting.

On the roof, Zook strategized with Silaqui on how to help Freyja, but she finished off her second opponent before they could act, and collected a wristband as a trophy.  Then she climbed aboard her trusty hippogriff to find more prey.

Liliandra had been left on the ground floor.  Since it had been quiet for a couple of rounds, the three initiates in the kitchen emerged.  I gave them Insight checks to read her body language; one realized that the jig was up and ran to join the group in the entry; one closed with Liliandra but missed; one started to circle around the stairs to get her from behind, ran into Maendir and stabbed him.  Liliandra dispatched her attacker and Su'uvarax arrived to dispatch the other. 

Truth came upstairs to find the drawbridge down and the door guard running away.  He and Su'uvarax sent some long-range spells after them.  The circling vultures landed to pick up their passengers.  Freyja flew her hippogriff into one of them.  The guard and four initiates mounted the remaining five vultures and escaped while Freyja's hippogriff finished off the vulture.  Truth and Su'uvarax fired parting shots but didn't manage to bring anyone down.

Between them, Silaqui and Maendir made sure the rest of the tower was clear.  Next week, we start with the searching and looting and discoveries and explanations.

And that is the story of how I cheated at D&D.

PotA Session 10

In the morning, Su'uvarax finally confronted Merosska about the halfling woman and the evidence of the caravan attack, and demanded to speak to Hazel.  Merosska claimed that his knights found the remains of the caravan during a patrol, and they rescued the halfling who was wandering the area.  He wouldn't dream of subjecting her to an interrogation without her agreement.  He then went off to talk to her.  When he came back, he accompanied Su'uvarax to the greenhouse room, where Hazel and the hurricane waited. 

After they left, Truth tried to follow, saying he needed to tell Su'uvarax something, but the initiate at the top of the stairs told him he had to stay in the great hall.  Thoril had enough standing around and took a swing at him, but missed.  Maendir took the precaution of spiking a bedroom door, in case someone came out to surprise them, and Zook hid in another bedroom.  The others more or less lined up with the two knights in the hall, but didn't actually swing.  The initiate managed to stab Thoril with a dagger and run down the stairs, yelling.  Su'uvarax excused himself politely, came upstairs and yelled at them to behave.  He then charged Truth with keeping Thoril in line, leaving Thoril feeling very put upon.  So no battle yet.

Su'uvarax returned to the greenhouse.  Hazel was watering plants, not meeting anyone's eyes and giving terse answers, but going along with Merosska's party line.  However, Su'uvarax used Awakened Mind to let her know he was here to help, and asked to her spill water if she needed help.  She promptly did.  Su'uvarax used his Sending Stone to tell Silaqui that they needed to rescue Hazel.  This raised the question:  can you send a message without speaking out loud?  The recipient hears it in their head, but does the sender need to speak?  It isn't spelled out in the spell description, and strangely has not been argued to death on the Internet.  In the end, I went with silent mode.

Upstairs in the great hall, Silaqui told the party that Su'uvarax said wanted them to join him, but they needed to clean up first.  Finally, the party started rolling well for Insight and got the message, so they weren't caught flat-footed when Silaqui launched her attack on one of the knights.  In the end, one knight went down but the other was able to jump out a window before he could be killed; he joins his comrades in the stables.  Some of them will be heading up the spiral stairs while others will fly to the roof and come down from the top.

Down in the greenhouse, Su'uvarax cast Darkness, which protected him from attack, and Hazel took the opportunity to hide.  Merosska made his way out of the darkness, and out of the room.  He's in position to hold the staircase.  The hurricane cast Thunderwave since he couldn't close with Su'uvarax.

That's as far as we got with the battle, so we'll have to see how things develop.  The tower architecture is really the defining element, with the central staircase and the opposing sides on different floors.  Team Feathergale has the advantage of mobility, so we'll see if the party can avoid getting gridlocked on the stairs.