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We had our second session last night. Same group, same setup. I was a bit overwhelmed with the possible situations arising from entering the BWs but I did my best to be prepared and let the chips fall.

The party began by heading right to the abandoned manor in Oldtown. They didn't search the outside at all -- if they did, they might have found the sewer entrance grate under the overgrown vegetation. Following the leads of others on the board, this is how my Pactlords are getting around the city without arousing suspicion.

In the entrance hall, they were immediately attacked by Kularas (F Orc). However, she quickly realized she was outclassed and tried to disengage, quaffing her invisibility potion. A stressful chase ensued from room to room as the wizard tried an area dispel (failed on Invis, succeeded on Bull's Strength - hah!) the tanks took blind swings, and the Rogue tried to direct traffic based on footstep sounds. Nobody connected with anything, but they kept up with their fleeing foe who I decided was too scared to just stop and hope for the best.

Eventually they blocked the exits off the room Kularas had made it into, and she made a desperate attack attampt, followed by trying to bullrush her way through Kaia (the holy warrior). Kularas suffered from a couple of consecutive 1's, dooming her escape attempt. At this point, I set aside this "spent" D20 and picked up another . Kularas did not last long under the attack of the entire party, and died before she could make another attempt to flee.

Cole (wizard) was interested in the ring, which gave off an aura of divination magic, but is far too wiley to put such an unknown item on right off. I decided not to have any sort of audible *de-crunch* effect on the Orc's death, so they don't yet know of anything special with the ring.

They did a cursory sweep of the building before heading down into the wine cellar and into the tunnel. For light, the party all uses a piece of cloth with continual flame cast upon it (which they can cover with another piece of cloth if they need darkness). Clever idea, actually.

They turned off towards the lair of the Umber Hulk when they got there. Kaia, who had been taking point, triggered the pit trap and barely avoided falling in (thanks to the Chaos Avatar's cloak of resistance!). They weren't sure where to go next, as they realized they couldn't pass easily through the trapped area. Therras (rogue) started spider-climbing around the perimeter of the trapped area looking to see where else they could go. The Hulk, having heard the trap go off, attacked via his secret entrance. Everybody did well in their saves vs. the confusion effect except Therras, who did nothing for a few rounds while the party cleaned up the Hulk without too much difficulty. Kaia took one solid hit but otherwise they emerged ok. Therras, on an "act normally" turn, walked over to the party and was bear-hugged by Kaia and Cole, who told him it was for his own good (Cole was familiar enough with Confusion to understand the potential for harm). When Therras finally rolled a "attack closest" all he could manage was D4 subdual damage on Cole; no big deal.

They explored the rest of the area, triggering the rockfall trap as well. Therras was taking point at this point but rolled low on the search. For the rest of the night, whenever Therras said a room looked "clear" Kaia's player got the pencil out to record damage from traps.

They left the rotting body in its puddle of grime, and noticed the Ochre Jelly before it could attack. Well, they noticed a yellow puddle that looked funny, and they were paranoid enough to assume it might be an ooze or jelly of some kind. They left that room alone and moved on. I ruled that the Jelly wasn't going to attack unless someone was in range, and they never were.

At the next fork they turned south into the Warrens after rifling through the bag on the ground (and keeping the lantern and the letter). I was surprised that Kaia, who belongs to an order of holy warriors who study lost treasures (she even has Knowledge: Lost Treasures, a new skill in Book of the Righteous) didn't try and make a roll to see if "The Grail" meant anything to her. Oh well.

They found their way into the warding generator room but didn't climb the stairs to the next level, so they didn't find the dead goblins or see the sealed door. The usually high-rolling, high-INT Cole rolled a one on the Knowledge: Arcana check and so couldn't tell anybody anything about the reason for the generator's existence.

They hit the Wraith room next, Cole once again botching an Arcana check to identify the purpose of the runes on the door. They killed the wraith twice and made all their CON-drain-avoiding saves. After the PCs hit the incorporeal wraith several times in a row, I swapped in a new set of percentile dice for the 50% miss chance, declaring the second die "spent" of the night. (Our group enjoys joking around about dice ... the old GM, Cole's player, used to make us choose which dice he would use at the start of each session -- so if we got hammered by the monsters, he could say it was our fault for choosing the deadly dice).

When they saw the crystal, they tried to "turn" it with positive energy (PHB suggests alternate uses of Turn ability, but has no rules for mechanics ... Ariana [cleric] rolled well but not phenomenal on the turn check, so I decided it didn't work, though it did cause a visible shaft of light to appear and then disappear, leaving the crystal vibrating for a moment). Kaia decided she had had enough and delivered a 2H attack with full power attack on the crystal, dealing something sick like 30 points of damage to it. It shattered, and the two "tanks" each took some damage from the floor trap. They searched the area but didn't touch the pillar again, and moved on. Therras saw the trap (afterwards) but didn't bother to disarm it.

Before they could head south into the area with the Vermin Wights, they made a spectacular Listen check and heard something moving in the area to the north, where they had left the bag with the tools/etc. They set up an ambush at the tunnel mouth, but didn't conceal their lights, so I ruled the GQT1 easily knew trouble was ahead.

They sent a goblin in, terrified. He entered the room and triggered a handful of readied actions. He was dead from the first arrow that Therras hit him with, but Kaia's hammer sealed the deal, just in case. Verochim followed next, rushing in and attacking the first enemy within range, Kaia. He missed. Cole stepped to where he could see down the whole tunnel and launched a spell which did force damage to everyone in the hallway (similar to a Lightning Bolt but less damage, force, and if a save is failed the creature is knocked prone ... I forget what book it's in and what it's called). Unbeknownst to the player, the spell killed two goblins and knocked Ios prone. With his haste, though, he wasn't really slowed, but burned some of his time getting up before charging out of the hallway directly into Cole, dealing a massive charge blow that left the poor Wizard more than half dead.

(First mistake, I forgot to have Verochim use his miror images at the start of the fight).
(Second, I wonder if I should have had Ios attack Cole more than once. I figured he used up enough juice getting up that a charge and single attack was all he had time for that round).

Everybody focused on Ios and took him down in one round. Verochim realized his days were numbered and took off, moving 60 feet and quaffing a healing potion (his Mobility made the AoO he suffered for retreating insignificant).

(Oddity - what is GQT1 using for light? I ruled some of the goblins were carrying light sources)

Cole launched a blind fireball into the darkness and blew up the room with the bag in it. Verochim made his reflex save and with his evasion took no damage. This fireball toasted the last goblin who had never made it in. Verochim grabbed the fallen goblin's torch and activated his mirror image ability (doh!). He then took off down the tunnel back towards town at a double move. The party tried to rush afterwards and fired a few blind arrows but the light source quickly faded into the distance as the Lamia's superior speed made it impossible for them to catch up.

They returned to Ios' body, stowed away his gear, and noticed the identical ring. Funny quote of the night: "Oooh, I bet they're part of a secret club."

Back to town they headed, in dire need of rest after expending most of their spells. Verochim is outta there, having hit the sewers and fled. We ended the session with the party in the abandoned manor. It's late afternoon on the first day after the incident with the Chaos Avatar.

Now I have to decide what to do with Kalerecent and Derimach while the party rests. I assume they'll be back by noon the next day, unless they decide to start asking around in town about what they've seen so far. Either way enough time will have passed for the Kalerecent and Derimach to progress their little story. I've seen what some people have done here and I'm not sure which way I'll go myself.

The two main characters (Cole, Kaia) each have enough XP to advance to level 7 now. Cole will probably be taking Dimension Door as one of his L4 spells -- that gives him some interesting tactical options -- we've never played in a game that went high enough level to have that spell available! Anyway, the main PCs are about a half-level ahead of the cohort PCs who are still level 6.

Further DM Notes:

Kaia (holy warrior using a big hammer, gauntlets of ogre power) deals a heck of a lot of damage with each strike. She's been very lucky when she needed it. I thin the GQT1 fight would have been much harder had Ios lived long enough to get in a mess of hasted attacks with that huge greatsword.

I feel like I should have made the GQT1 fight tougher. Maybe held off until they were a little weaker? I was worried about stories I've read here of near TPKs in that fight. Ah well; Verochim will make GQT2 that much tougher later.

I gave no XP for the ochre jelly as I felt that just ignoring it, without even knowing it was really a threat, wasn't a true elimination or bypass of the threat.

Session Notes - Session 4

This session began with the party, including Officer Kalerecent, limping out of the Banewarrens and into the abandoned manor. The PCs decided to wait and see if Therras would come out of his paralyzation; Kalerecent went directly to the Court of St. Gustav and asked the party to meet him there later.

After a few hours with no change in Therras' condition, the party dragged him (not literally!) back to the inn and left Ariana in charge of him while Kaia and Cole ran off to the Court of St. Gustav to speak with Kalerecent and Fabitor. An acolyte there had a message for them, and a chest of gold to reward them with. The message asked them to come to the Grand Cathedral of the Great Church in Oldtown the next morning, at ten AM. It also mentioned that any wounds could be healed by the Church free of charge.

The two returned to the inn, cleaned up, and headed to the Cathedral. There they asked to speak with Fabitor, and Kalerecent came out to talk to them. He explained that Fabitor had come here when he heard what Kalerecent had seen, and that he was meeting with senior Church officials now to discuss the situation. They would talk to the party tomorrow. Cole and Kaia asked if they could get someone to look at their paralyzed friend, and Reverend Mother Donna Mara came out to talk to them. She was personable, and offered to walk back to their inn to heal their friend. Along the way the party learned a bit about Ptolus from casual conversation.

The cleric healed Therras and returned to the church. The party then met with Jevicca, updating her and explaining that the Church was meeting with them the next day. Jevicca continued her sweet-talking of the party, working her way into a position of trust very carefully. She seemed surprised the Church was involved at all, however.

She also filled them in on what she had learned about the Bone Ring: it was a focus for scrying magic and was somehow involved in a magical pact. It was also tied to a shadowy group called the Pactlords of the Quaan, whose origins were unclear but which were usually up to no good. The last time anyone heard of the Pactlords they were trying to develop a magical plague and were stopped by a group of adventurers led by a Paladin (just added this for a bit of history for the group -- nice to know that the BaneWarrens isn't their be-all-end-all ... I also decided it would be fun for them to know at least a name for who they were up against). She also gave them a rough translation of the elvish "Banehart" phrase in the note, along with suspicions on the names: Kikuinuile was likely a Giantish or Aquan name (Hags speak Giantish) and Yuinthu was either Undercommon or some extraplanar dialect. Just a little flavor to keep them interested.

They agreed to keep looking into things, but told her they were talking to the church as well. She nodded understandingly, but kept referring to them as working "for us," the pyramid. It's clear how she was thinking of things.

The next day (day 4) they met with the Church, and were astounded by the number of people present. They were also dumbstruck by the Church's motivations: I had them explain that they were interested in learning how the sealing magic worked, as well as possibly learning about any lost lore from ages gone by. In other words, while they didn't say they were looking for stuff down there, they also didn't say they wanted to seal it up right away.

This was enough to make the party uneasy. They accepted the Legend Lore scroll but left unimpressed with the Church in general. Therras spotted one of the Churchguards leaving ahead of them, which made him nervous. He tried to follow her but a pair of 20's on the woman's spot checks left him exposed. When she passed from Oldtown to Midtown she spoke with the guards at the gates to Dalenguard, and Therras knew if he followed he'd likely be questioned (I'm playing up the whole "let me see your papers" angle and it's working well to cause a little friction between the lawful city and the neutral/chaotic characters). They gave up and returned to the Manor, where they met Kalerecent and returned to the Warrens.

Kalerecent took up his guard post while Cole used the scroll, and received a little poem I put together:

For a moment's entry, and no more
A simple Wish may pass the ward
Set upon this enchanted door

But ancient magic and holy decree
Can be undone by long lost key
Found in Ptolus by the sea

They who have it, know it not
Just an oddity they bought
A Relic of a time forgot

A house ignoble but in name
Crafty players of the game
Barely hide their ancient shame

Pondering this they left to explore the rest of the unsealed area (the empty cells and the holding areas for the Thought Stalker and the Chaos Avatar). There, near the cells and far from Kalerecent, they debated the poem and what to tell to whom. They finally decided to tell the Church about the key, and that it was in Ptolus, but not anything else. They agonize over this decision for a long time. They also decide to tell Jevicca the whole story.

Very interesting to see loyalties forming!

They leave, and Cole immediately seeks out the large library of Ptolus, once again convincing the party to pitch in on the cost of a year's membership to the restricted archives (cost: 300 gp). I use a different mechanic for research than Monte suggests -- a research check is a special Knowledge roll, with a circumstance bonus based on the size and quality of the library. Just a different way of handling it. So, anyone can access the public area of the library (cost: 1 sp/day) for a +2 bonus, but access to the restricted areas costs more (10 gp/day or 300/year) for a better bonus (+4). You can retry a knowledge check only if you are doing so in a way that results in a better circumstance mod (going from your own memory vs. the library, or going from a poor library to a good one).

Cole researches the noble houses of Ptolus, getting a brief rundown of the ten houses (I introduced a few of my own to supplement those listed in the book) and their one-line reputations.

They're beginning to get more and more suspicious. They suspect that the noble houses have their fingers in every pie, which is pretty much true. They're certain someone (who shouldn't know) has been filled in on the entire story of the Banewarrens as understood by the church (they're right). In other words, they feel like they have no idea who they can trust. Just where they should be at this point in the story.

They met again with Jevicca and fully described their situation to her, including their bad feelings about the church. She was quick to confirm their suspicions, and made a point of trying to align her goals with the party's. The party, however, was quick to point out that while their goals and the Pyramid's seemed to align, they did not want to become "officially employed" by the Pyramid. Jevicca understood, but hoped she could change their minds.

They met with the Church the next day and mentioned that they knew there was a key in Ptolus and they were doing more research. They promised to keep the church posted, and left it at that. They left feeling a little uncomfortable, but glad they didn't mention anything about the noble house or the fact that the key didn't look like a key.

That day and the next were spent doing more research. On the first, Cole focused on houses which had a more "dark" past. This was about half of them. Vladaam easily became the one he wanted to focus on most. The second day, he learned that rumor had it that Vladaam's ancestors were not human or even humanoid. Exactly the kind of "ancient shame" and ignoble past that they were looking for. Their eyes were now set on Vladaam.

The rest of the party secured new housing for the party, found out that the Manor was abandoned (and could be bought for 2000 gp in back-taxes and property fees), and scoured oddity/antique shops for news of recent "weird" purchases. They heard a lot of red herrings: someone who bought an ink well that was never empty, or a chamber pot that emptied itself and always smelled of roses. Nothing useful, but it lent a little flavor to the occasion.

The session ended with the party discussing their options. Breaking into Vladaam was probably a crazy idea: they had no idea what they key looked like, they could assume that the house was well guarded and probably magically warded, and if they got caught, they would likely go to jail. Buying the key was also fishy -- they felt that they'd be unable to offer anything of use to such a wealthy house as Vladaam (I thought they would go this route but they immediately sold themselves short by figuring that there was just no way they had enough money to offer this house). They decided to ponder it a bit more, with the most promising suggestion a question to Jevicca of who within the city might be opposed to Vladaam that they could talk to.

A perfect way to introduce Nicalon. I'll probably still send them to the LoreMistress to have a hook for later.

That's 6 days in Ptolus. For two of those days, the Thought Stalker has been on the loose. I think on Day 7 they will hear a story of a badly torn-up body with the top of its head ripped off. They already feel a little guilty about letting the thing get away, so I'll play on that a little....

I did give a bit more info than described in the published material (which just says to talk about the wish, and then say there's a key which is in Ptolus). On the other hand, a DC26 gather information check reveals that Vladaam has the key. I didn't like that -- who knows this that the PCs could pick it up via Gather Info?

So, I put clues in the poem to give the characters a reason to research the houses. It gave me a chance to make Ptolus feel more real to them (they took notes of all ten houses and their one-line descriptions), and they still don't know what the key looks like, so they know (or think they know) Vladaam has the key, but have no idea what to do with that information.

Seemed like a decent compromise

From the PH, page 150:

Quote:

---

A creature that successfully saves against a spell without obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack.... Likewise, if a creature's saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell ..., you sense that the spell has failed.

---

In my campaign, we play (and I'm not sure how much of this comes from the rules and how much is house rules):
- If you make a save, you know it. The DM usually describes something, like, "You feel something tickling at your mind but fight it off" as opposed to "You feel a wave of weakness wash over you but you're able to shrug it off."
- If your opponent makes their save, you know it.
- If your opponent has SR, you're aware of it, as well as whether you breach it or not. I even let the caster roll the level check, for the same reason fighters roll attacks against AC.

We pick up where we left off; four frustrated young heroes standing not far from House Vladaam in the dark, quiet streets of the Noble District. I'll try and sum this up briefly; a lot happened and I don't want this to get boring/long!

The party decides it's in their best interest to act now, instead of waiting. Cole flies over to gather information. Servants are gathering the horses, and a figure that could be Nicalon is outside, talking to someone he can't see (in the outbuilding). Flying around a bit, he catches the tail end of a conversation: a female voice saying she'll be back shortly and to keep the place alert.

He reports back and the party decides to ambush the woman in the streets with hopes of subduing and interrogating her. (DM Note: Wow -- the party must be desperate!) Navanna and two agents leave the compound by carriage, and Therras follows on foot with Cole flying far enough overhead that he can't see details. Navanna goes to a guard post and reports a breakin, but doesn't describe the PCs -- she says it was an unknown group of four people. She does say they may have taken something, and that they made it in through the library window. The guards promise to come by in the morning, and Navanna says she'll be away on business.

Confused about who is after them and who isn't, and shocked that Navanna didn't give them up, the party aborts their ambush plan and goes home to sleep.

The spellcasters sleep a solid eight hours, but Therras gets up before dawn and watches for Navanna's departure. He follows (there's one close call, but he does well on his rolls) Navanna and her two agents out of the Noble district and into Oldtown ... and to the Manor.

Panic. (DM note: the look in the players' eyes was priceless here)

Therras runs home, and rallies everyone. No time to prep spells; everybody but Cole rushes towards Oldtown. Cole writes two hurried notes. One, to Jevicca, is a very terse status update. The other is to Ishara Jare, more polite, hoping to get her to look into some information about Nicalon+Navanna and any possible connection. They suspect the use of costumes or magical trickery. Cole catches up with the slow (heavily armored, non-expeditious-retreat-using) party as they enter the Manor.

They move quickly, and soon find Kalerecent's dead and looted body. The missive token is still there, but is powerless. He had time to send out a message. The party scribbles a note on a piece of parchment asking "The good forces of Ptolus" who might find it not to enter but to stand guard for anyone escaping.

The party moves into the new area, and the tension level kicks up a notch.

(DM timeline note: the party arrives here roughly 45 minutes to an hour after Navanna did. She and her agents poked around a little but knew the door was the important thing. They killed Kalerecent and looted the body. They opened the door and entered. Random chance sent them towards the generator. Navanna detected and disabled the moving cube trap. When the party enters, Navanna is studying the warding generator. The Pactlords were watching the Manor. They begin assembling GQT2, which I decide will enter the Manor house in 24 hours, unless some cool reason to change that takes place. I decide to place the Hag in the Octopus tube room.)

The party begins a thorough exploration of the outer vaults, in search of Navanna. They head first for the cold trap (14), which damages Kaia but does not freeze her solid. After setting it off once, they manage to disarm it and move on. They see the bronze constructs (in area 18) and back away, fearing a trap.

They head next towards the warding generator area (5-6), following Navanna's footsteps. They make a listen check and hear a single footstep on metal. They move up carefully, and Therras sees the disabled trap. They're sure they're on the right track now. They are interested in the pit but can't figure out how the trap worked. They move on to the Warding Generator area. They investigate the top floor; Navanna and her agents are hiding (in darkness) on the bottom floor, in the corner. They study the generator and Cole makes his Arcana checks to figure out more about how it works. They come up with the great idea of closing the Sealed Door and hoping it locks them (and whoever they followed in here) in. They dash back to the entrance and close the door, but nothing special happens. (DM: now Navanna and her agents move back up to the top floor. They aren't sure if they're locked in, so begin walking towards the party)

The party returns to the hallway near the generator area, and as they round the corner they see a light source (Agent with lantern) disappear out of sight at the corner (back into the generator room). They move forwards as Navanna's agents, in werewolf form, step out from the room and attack. (DM: Navanna has told the agents to attack. She has gone invisible and says she'll sneak around the back and flank the party. She ends up just fleeing invisibly past the party and out of the Vaults to get reinforcements).

Cole launches a fireball and the werewolves take damage. The fight is on. It's over almost as quickly as it began. Ariana ends up taking the brunt of the damage, and fails one of her saves. She feels a brief sickening sensation wash over her, but it passes. She panics. Her religion opposes things not "of the earth" and werewolves definitely apply. They loot the werewolves and decide there's a decent chance these were the men that accompanied Navanna here; but no sign of Navanna. They press on.

The spear trap (7) proves very difficult for them, but they finally disarm it and advance into the Bear Flesh Golem's room (8) . It scores a critical hit on Kaia, and after another hit nearly knocks her out. Cole wastes a magic missile hoping to hit it, knowing they have some magic immunities but not which ones. They eventually drop it but Kaia is in bad shape.

They enter the round room (13) and peek around a little, but decide not to disturb anything, nor to open any of the other doors out of the room. They make the long trek back to the starting room (2) and take the stairs up towards the broken trap (12). They study the large doors there and figure they're the same doors they just saw in the round room. They enter the force-wall room (20) and search it thoroughly. They have no way to get past the wall, and so they move back to the starting room (2).

The last set of stairs leads to an easily disarmed pit trap (room 3). They see the vault door (4a) and wisely leave it alone. My party has no desire to find Banes.

They had back towards the freezing trap area (14) and decide to check out the door into the poison gas trap (15). They prop it open with a javelin, Therras disarms the trap, and they had into the storage room (17), where they fight the Spectre. It lands solid hits on Cole and Kaia, inflicting negative energy levels and healing itself. It puts up a good fight but eventually falls.

Nursing their wounds, the party returns to Kalerecent's resting place, and find the note they left gone (Navanna took it). They move Kalerecent into the store room and send Therras up to Ptolus to buy diamond dust (for restoration). A tense 16 hours follows as the party rests in shifts, constantly hearing small noises here and there. In the morning, Ariana cures the negative levels with Restoration (having leveled to seven down here), and tries to remove her own lycanthropy (unsuccessfully, but she's not sure).

We end the session there. The party is healed, repowered, and angry. They think Navanna has left, or someone else has entered.

DM timeline: Navanna will consult with her brother, gather two more agents (or more?) and return sometime today. GQT2 is on its way down presently; if the party waits too long to enter, they will end up encountering them in this area. The Green Hag may move around a bit. The party has yet to explore the scorpion area, the octopus room, or encounter Danar's construct assistant. They also haven't experimented with the round room at all yet.