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Author Topic: [Actual Play] D&D 3.5-- Raid on Goblinspire  (Read 1275 times)

Abyssal Maw

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[Actual Play] D&D 3.5-- Raid on Goblinspire
« on: August 31, 2007, 08:38:31 AM »
Last night we kicked off Joel's turn as a DM in our gaming group. I had put together my idea for my character a while back, and had the character done, but I kinda had to lobby for the feats and spells I wanted to take as they were non-core, and Joel isn't quite as comfortable with that as I am.

So my character was a half-orc sorcerer, which is already an unusual choice... most of his stats were physical (a 16 strength!), with an adjusted 14 or so charisma. That's not exactly optimal for a sorcerer, but these were 1st level guys, just starting out, and I like to make unique characters.

My idea was a "melee sorcerer" with a unique dragon flavor, so the first thing I had to get approved was Draconic Heritage. This is a precursor for opening up a series of other draconic feats that build on it. The next thing I had to do was find the right spells- my idea being- spells that don't involve saving throws (since I only had a 14 in Charisma), that covered my ability to stand up in melee combat. Joel was ok with that one.

For spells I had only one that I needed to get approved: Complete Arcane's Fist of Stone. The cool thing about this spell is it boosts strength by +6 as well as a slam attack for 4 rounds.

There are basicly three ingredients for a melee guy like this: hit bonus (which I now had covered with strength), armor (which I was covering with a combination of Mage Armor on scroll and Shield as my second sorcerer spell) and hit points, which I almost had kinda covered with a toad familiar and a fairly good constitution.

So what I ended up with was an attack which was either +3, and 1d8+4 damage. (heavy mace). An AC which revolved between 15 and 19 (depending on whether I got shield up-- I cast Mage Armor at the entrance to the dungeon). and hit points of around 8. Which was good for a sorcerer, but not great.

The other two players are playing a goblin barbarian (who put most of his points in con- survivable and very mobile tanker) and a favored soul who was well armored but not very damaging. Favored soul had some nice buffs as well- shield of faith and bless.

(see next post)
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Abyssal Maw

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[Actual Play] D&D 3.5-- Raid on Goblinspire
« Reply #1 on: August 31, 2007, 09:19:35 AM »
So the game started out as my character Khaazra the Dragonblooded, Salvarion the favored of Tylona, and Squee the goblin were headed out of the Desert of Desolation town of Jezail towards the town of Wildgate, to investigate a series of goblin raids.

Another fun thing we did for this campaign is Joel had picked up those Campaign Coins at GenCon.

Along the way there, we encountered a few riders in the dangerous wilderness areas in the forest. These weren't combat encounters, so we picked up rumors and directions from a few of the riders we met. They warned us that the forest got a lot more dangerous at night.

After a few miles it turned to dusk, and we came across a farmer and his son crossing by cart... we could just see them in the distance, about 100' ahead. By this time we were on the battlemap.

And just then the goblins attacked. They were mounted on dire bats, throwing barbed javelins connected to tethers. They started out by attacking the farmer and son on the cart.

We charged forward, and I found out I was a bit slow, because I had to spend an action casting shield (not wanting to waste one of my two scrolls of mage armor just yet). Luckily the goblin barbarian (Squee) crossed the space quickly, and the favored soul (Salvarion) managed to lay down some fire from his crossbow as he was moving.  

Squee reached the fight first, where the farmer had already been impaled twice. The farmer was a little disturbed by yet another goblin on foot moving up to try and cut the tethers, but these guys were all glad to see us when they saw Salvarion. So anyhow, the farmer is cut free by Squee. The goblins circle again and impale the son this time, bringing him down to 0 hp.

Around this time, Salvarion managed to crit one of the goblins that had the kid impaled, knocking him off his bat. The goblin dropped another 20' to the ground. His bat flies off.  

I reached the fight second, and grabbed the rope, trying to yank the goblin off his mount. I had a great strength advantage, but I managed to roll really low.

The goblins circled again, and switched targets from the helpess civilians to us, which we shrugged off. They were almost out of javelins by this time. My character cut the kid free and tried to stabilize him until Salvarion could get there (I failed on that one). Salvarion kept up covering fire with crossbow bolts.

Squee yelled out "They can't take us on the ground.. " and pushed the vulnerable civilians under the cart. He then managed to stabilize the kid (who was down to -3 at that point). Squee than yelled out a challenge to the goblins, taunting them.

Khazraa nodded and took up a position on top of the cart. He powered up Fist of Stone.

Salvarion finally got there, firing another crossbow bolt. He saw that the kid had stabilized, so he yelled out that he wouldn't use any healing on him until we had either killed or driven off the goblins.

The goblins circled one more time atop their mounts, and then flew off.

So that was out first encounter.

After that we talked to the farmer and escorted them the final few miles to Wildgate. We learned more about the goblin raids, and heard other rumors connected to their lair, the goblinspire.

Back in Wildgate, Joel had the idea to try out one othe games he had bought at GenCon- a little quickplay strategy game called 'Gnome Crystals'. So when we hit the tavern there- we picked up more rumors, and ultimately got involved in a betting game of Gnome Crystals.

Also, we used the Campaign Coins! I only had around 5 gold left, but I happily threw some coins in, and we even made a few side bets throughout the game. Joel took on the role of a wily gnome proprieter. Anyhow, my character won that game which was fun. It was cool throwing coins in and making side bets with little stacks of coins.

So after I doubled my money, I wasted about half of it getting us accomodations, and Salvarion blew all of his remaining gold on ale for gathering clues. Squee saved his.

The next day, we investigated some more rumors in town and interviewed a few NPCs. We heard about a shrine to a local legendary thief, which I visited (and Salvarion desecrated as soon as I turned around).

Then we headed off to the Goblinspire itself.

(continued next post)
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Abyssal Maw

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[Actual Play] D&D 3.5-- Raid on Goblinspire
« Reply #2 on: August 31, 2007, 09:55:05 AM »
Ok, thus begins the dungeon!

We adventured through the woods and didn't have any encounters. Squee pretty much had to lead the way, both being a barbarian, and being local, and being a goblin, he knew where the lair entrance was located.

We reached the entrance at the bottom of a spire thingy where the goblins were based. The entrance was unguarded.. but after delving through a couple of shallow caves, we discovered a staircase up, preceded by a shallow (10') pit. I put mage armor up.

Squee jumped the pit. Khazraa jumped the pit.   Salvarion was negotiating a way around it, when the goblins at the top of the staircase attacked. They used a trap that swung a glowmoss-encrusted ogre corpse down the staircase down on us on hidden ropes (it was meant to look like an Ogre Mage we learned).

Anyhow, Squee dodged the Ogre-corpse barrage, but my guy got hit, and he fell backwards into the pit, suffering a couple of points of damage.

Salvarion finally crossed the pit himself, and Squee and he started battling the goblins up the cramped stairs. I spent a round throwing my rope and climbing out. On my second round, I was still stuck behind a front rank of Salvarion and Squee, so I cast shield.

Meanwhile, Squee was bashing goblins left and right with quick kills, and Salvarion was doing ok whittling them one with his rapier.

On the third round, I traded spots with Salvarion, and managed to crunch one with my mace. I could hit as hard as the barbarian, I found out! My first attack did something like 10 damage. (1d8+4 for two handed smashing).

We fought our way through the goblins and then ended up in a large ovoid room at the top. 3 groups of 3 goblins each swarmed in for a total of 9!

Whoa!

But we didn't back down. Squee charged in, followed by me (I cast shield as I crossed into the room). Salvarion hung back supporting us with a Bless spell. We started to get hammered with javelins, so Squee tried to tie up as many as he could in melee. I tried to follow suit, locking up a group of three.

Squee started smashing down goblins, and I managed to bring down a couple myself without having to resort to Fist of Stone... With both shield and Mage Armor up I was pretty well covered, AC-wise.

I absorbed a bunch of hits, and finally I got hit myself, taking 5 damage. (along with a point I suffered earlier, I was down to 2. Uh-oh).

Salvarion moved up and healed me, though. Squee was holding his own, but getting chipped at every one in a while.

Eventually he got brought down as well.. but at that point he raged, and managed to salvage his remaining hit points.

We finished the encounter in pretty good shape. Salvarion had to use the remainder of his healing afterwards, and my shield spell wore off again. Squee had finished raging for the day.

So we were looking for one last encounter, really.

Luckily we found it.. after checking out another couple of rooms we ran across a red banner curtain, and behind that a place where a goblin adept was waiting to ambush us.

On this one we fanned out and took him down quickly, despite getting hit by a sleep spell early on. (Once again, I failed a save, haha). Salvarion woke my character up while Squee closed with him. We eventually took him down with concentrated melee attacks.  Squee took a fairly bad hit from the goblin's magic spear.

After that, we scoured the area for anything we could keep or sell, and then headed out, hopefully to return next week. As a parting shot, I cast my arcane mark on the banner where the Shaman's lair had been. The mark of Khazraa the dragon!

And that was that. as the game closed we divvied up XP and gold. We haven't got close to 2nd level yet, but I think it will probably just be one more session.
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Zachary The First

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[Actual Play] D&D 3.5-- Raid on Goblinspire
« Reply #3 on: September 01, 2007, 12:53:31 AM »
Good stuff, man!  Thanks for posting!  A fun AP read!
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