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Author Topic: [Actual Play] Prince of Undeath and my first dip into the Epic tier (4E, epic level)  (Read 1917 times)

Abyssal Maw

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So this adventure was an impulse buy last week-- I was actually playing (rather than running) a Living Realms game at the shop on the usual Thursday and I picked up Primal Power, and this was sitting right next to it.

It's an Epic level adventure, levels 27-30. It features Orcus and the Raven Queen. I picked it up just for fun along with Primal Power.

When I brought it upstairs some people were interested so I said "I'll run it! uhh.. next week..!" Got home and I already had an email from someone who heard a rumor I was going to run an epic level game. Hah. So I sent out an invite to a list of 10 people, picked a date (Tuesday nights, 7:30-10:30), and that winnowed the list down to 7 people, 1 of whom couldn't make it at the end, and then 1 dropped out unexpectedly.

Down to 5. Perfect size. This was not an RPGA game, by the way.

The first issue of the day everyone had was "How insane is it to create a level 27 character?"

Answer: It's kind of insane! Technically players could one-click it off of the character builder, but leaving the feat selection random produces some incongruities (like giving a fighter the feat that boosts certain types of energy damage.. and he doesn't have any powers like that.)

Magic item selection is more complex than it looks too: the rule we used is the standard DMG D&D advice (also the same as the RPGA guideline for characters above 1st):  1 item above your level, 1 at your level, 1 below your level.. and gold equivalent to an item below your level to purchase anything else.

Well, turns out that you can probably kit your character out with the extra gold fairly well. As a test, I built two epic level characters (and helped a player with his epic conjurer wizard). The 3 items you start with are good for weapon, armor and maybe the neck slot item, but the extra gold buys you a lot of extra crap.

There are spoilers galore, so if you ever plan on playing it, I guess you should stop here.

....

Next post is about how I rewrote the opening scene of the adventure. Spoilers.


...
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Abyssal Maw

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SPOILERS. You've been warned.

Ok, so the adventure itself is part 3 of a series (Deaths Reach and the Kingdom of the Ghouls coming before it). I had skipped those (Although Kingdom of the Ghouls is starting to look kinda cool now that I got this one..)

So the overarching plot is this: Orcus plans to kill the Raven Queen and usurp the power of death itself- in essence, he is trying to elevate himself from Demon Lord to the new god of undeath.

And his plan is kinda neat!

Somewhere at the dawn of time, there was a great Primordial (sort of a cthuluesque entity) that battled with the gods called "Timesus the Black Star". Timesus was eventually slain by the gods, transformed into stone, and then.. shattered in a million pieces and buried. But he used to be a total bad-ass, able to disintegrate the edges of reality itself.

Well, Orcus' plan is to gather up the chunks of Timesus and bring him back to life, get him to bite off a shard of power that he'll use as a weapon to slay the Raven Queen, and thus become the new God of Undeath.

The way I am running this is slightly different than the adventure as-written. At the point the adventure begins, The Raven Queen has been captured already by Orcus, and her handmaidens (which include angels and a pair of demigoddess exarchs of my own invention called Ushas and Madame Fortune) search out the epic level PCs, and literally rob them of their destinies.

So the PCs begin as dead. Victims of bad luck and unfairness, right at the moment of their glorious path to immortality. They each strongly suspect that it was either Madame Fortune or Ushas (or both) who did it too.

The handmaidens gather the epic PCs (in ghost form) and offer them this classic fiendish bargain:

"Take on the mission against Orcus and rescue the Raven Queen.."

"..and why should we help you..?"

"Because if you do not, at the moment that Orcus takes over the portfolio of Death, you become his servants, as do we.."

Now- this might seem a bit railroady, but keep in mind, this isn't a self directed campaign, it's a very specific adventure, so everyone was already on board with that exact mission before I even set it up this way. I mainly wanted to set up the handmaidens as untrustworthy NPC allies.

So there's some back and forth and arguing and the PCs are sort of settling into their characters.

One PC (known as Clarity) has chosen an actual cleric of the Raven Queen, and unlike the rest of the group, her background is not that she has an epic level past but rather she is a complete neophyte who is possessed by one of the Raven Queen's own angels. So she goes back and forth between "scared young girl" to "hardened death angel". Unlike the rest of the group, she doesn't show up on the howling peaks of Pandemonium as a ghost- but instead is spirited there directly, still wearing her neophytes robe.

Koramus is a "veteran of 1000 wars " type of human fighter. I can't recall what his epic destiny is. He wields a greatsword and he's pretty damn unstoppable.

Moonstone is a dwarven swarm druid who has the reincarnate champion destiny- she has a bunch of past lives.

Tyvraxus is a tiefling warlock with the "Prince of Hell" epic destiny, so he *especially* doesn't want to end up at Orcus's mercy. He is tied directly to Asmodeus.

Legend is a warforged conjurer with the Archspell destiny- his goal is to plumb the secret of life itself.
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Abyssal Maw

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So in the space of the 3 hours we ran this (it went slightly over, but not by too much), we settled in, talked about characters and sort of had the whole scene where the Handmaidens explained the situation to the PCs.

Once they determined to go through with it, they stepped through a teleportation portal which linked to one of Orcus' planar ships- a vessel called the Shevaithan.

The Shevaithan is the third of three ships in Orcus' fleet that are able to actually travel across (and through) the Abyss.. It is crewed by abyssal ghouls, commanded by a rotfiend captain (Captain Xur, and we determined that Xur and Koramus had served together in a previous conflict, where Xur was killed, so she especially hated him). The other thing was there are Nycadaemons aboard the ship- 3 on deck when the players arrive.

The adventure module comes with a deck-plan map of the ship shown above. So in the battle- it's hard to describe- this was a first time for epic level gaming for all of us, but it wasn't unmanageable at all.

The players stepped out of the teleportation circle and were immediately jumped by the Nycadaemons- the warforged wizard ended up kinda on the outside and got pounded on pretty good- the Nycadaemons have a wicked axe attack that does a pretty good chunk of damage. Legend was bloodied just in the first round of combat, but quickly teleported away, leaving behind storm pillars that deterred pursuit.

The rest of the group was swarmed with ghouls- they were dealing out a ton of necrotic damage, plus immobilize effects. This had the effect of keeping the group kinda locked down by their point of origin... the warlock teleported out as well, in another direction but remained immobile. He cursed everything he could see...

The rotfiend captain relied on psychic powers- one of which diseased Koramus with abscesses for a while.  

Soon it came down to the cleric who managed to wipe out the ghouls pretty quickly (within 2 or 3 rounds).. but the captain and the Nycadaemons turned out to be fairly hardy: The Nycadaemons were resistant to radiant damage (and cold), and Captain Xur had similar resistances plus resistant to fire.

This really weakened the cleric against them. Koramus and Moonstone (surprisingly hardy and unhittable) held the Nycadaemon off while Tyvraxus concentrated fire- his fire powers are not affected by resistance because they come straight from hell.

Xur herself had the power to create a zone of miasma that did psychic damage, and she maintained that over the PCs to slowly drain them, while she also fought off the cleric (they could both fly, so they clashed above the forecastle a few times).

At one point Legend used deceptive shadows on Captain Xur and that kept her isolated against just Clarity for a few rounds.

So.. long story short, they ended the battle (and the players learned most of their powers). So that was a good intro to the adventure.

Afterwards, the players took a short rest and attempted to seize control of the ship- it was still moored far below- to a place called the Red Hold. The next step would be to journey down the abyssal anchor-chain and free the Shevaithan from it's moorings. They also discovered a note that mentioned Orcus' Castellan (Harthoon) and discovered crates of black rock that Legend identified as chunks of Timesus. They also found the ship's treasure of platinum near the command center of the vessel. Tyvraxus took Captain Xur's pirate hat.

As the group started to make plans about journeying to the Red Hold (either via flight, climbing the chain, or bringing the whole ship down..) the hatches burst open and a fresh wave of abyssal ghouls, nycadamons and a pair of leaders spilled out.

One of the leaders was a Larva Warlord, and the players had a hard time pinning him down- he had a ton of hit points and was sort of like a boiling swarm of insectoids and beetles.. the swarm druid locked him up in combat and or a while it was like a tornado of battling beetles (her blue and purple beetles against the abyssal red and black) battling on the forecastle.

So that was pretty cool. There was another battle. This one seemed to go quicker as people had a better sense of their powers.

We ended, did an XP divvy and made plans for next session.
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Rubio

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Sounds like some over-the-top epic badassery. Keep it up.

I've only ever run 4E at the Heroic tier. How quickly did you find your players going through their 1/day magic item powers? How about daily powers? Did the lower-level encounter/utility powers see much play?
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Abyssal Maw

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Quote from: Rubio;340876
Sounds like some over-the-top epic badassery. Keep it up.

I've only ever run 4E at the Heroic tier. How quickly did you find your players going through their 1/day magic item powers? How about daily powers? Did the lower-level encounter/utility powers see much play?



I've only run Heroic tier (more than I can count), and Paragon level (only twice.) I decided to jump right in at the top of Epic just to sort of "trial by fire".

It isn't unmanageable, I can say that much. The numbers are larger, but it isn't different math.
 
Anyhow, at the higher levels, the powers start replacing other powers. Also, as far as magic items, the way it works right now is that you get an item daily use back after a milestone. (This wasn't clear to me immediately). After the two battles we had, everyone was looking over character sheets and most people had not yet expended a daily power yet. Koramus had used one of his "real" dailies plus two item dailies (and recovered the use of an item daily at the milestone).
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Rubio

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Quote from: Abyssal Maw;340887
Also, as far as magic items, the way it works right now is that you get an item daily use back after a milestone. (This wasn't clear to me immediately). After the two battles we had, everyone was looking over character sheets and most people had not yet expended a daily power yet. Koramus had used one of his "real" dailies plus two item dailies (and recovered the use of an item daily at the milestone).


I was under the impression that you could only use *one* item's daily power and another at every milestone. So if you had a magic bow with a daily power and magic armor with a daily power, you could use one or the other, but not both. You got this daily use back after a milestone.
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Does this place have a never-ending supply of WEIRD STUFF!?"

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Drohem

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Quote from: Rubio;340908
I was under the impression that you could only use *one* item's daily power and another at every milestone. So if you had a magic bow with a daily power and magic armor with a daily power, you could use one or the other, but not both. You got this daily use back after a milestone.


Yeah, you're right.  An extended rest restores all item daily powers.  See the Player's Handbook page 226.

Good stuff AM. :)

How did fighting on the deck of a ship affect or shape the combat?  You mentioned that he players got locked down in an area, was that due to the terrain (i.e. ship deck)?

Abyssal Maw

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Quote from: Drohem;340914
Yeah, you're right.  An extended rest restores all item daily powers.  See the Player's Handbook page 226.

Good stuff AM. :)

How did fighting on the deck of a ship affect or shape the combat?  You mentioned that he players got locked down in an area, was that due to the terrain (i.e. ship deck)?


Parts of the ship deck were difficult terrain, parts were actually hazardous (the ship has three "Anarch sphere's that are used to power it's movement and as weapons)- those are the two glowing bubbles up front and one in the rear.

Getting too close to one of those would cause you to get attacked.


But getting locked down mainly had to do with the ships crew being ghouls: they would swarm in groups of up to 10 at a time, they were fast, could climb (one group climbed up the forecastle, not even bothering with the stairs). and they had paralysis. I think the warlock spent most of the final combat completely paralyzed.
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Abyssal Maw

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Quote from: Rubio;340908
I was under the impression that you could only use *one* item's daily power and another at every milestone. So if you had a magic bow with a daily power and magic armor with a daily power, you could use one or the other, but not both. You got this daily use back after a milestone.


That's pretty much it, but you get 3 magic item dailies per day (and recover 1 of those with a milestone). So with Koramus, I think his sword daily went off, and his arms-slot had some kind of item that did some extra lightning damage and that went off. And then at milestone I think he was recovering the sword one.

I might be doing that wrong, I'll reread it I guess. We follow the rules as close as we can, but we have a policy of never looking anything up during the game.
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Drohem

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Quote from: Abyssal Maw;340928
Parts of the ship deck were difficult terrain, parts were actually hazardous (the ship has three "Anarch sphere's that are used to power it's movement and as weapons)- those are the two glowing bubbles up front and one in the rear.

Getting too close to one of those would cause you to get attacked.


But getting locked down mainly had to do with the ships crew being ghouls: they would swarm in groups of up to 10 at a time, they were fast, could climb (one group climbed up the forecastle, not even bothering with the stairs). and they had paralysis. I think the warlock spent most of the final combat completely paralyzed.


Yeah, a dynamic battle-board with obstacles and different types of terrain is what really brings out the best of 4e combat, in the tactical sense.  Well, at least for me; YMMV and all of that.

Were the ghouls minions?  Are there any minions opponents in the published adventure?  I'm curious as to how minions play into the mix at this level of play.

Abyssal Maw

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Quote from: Drohem;340933
Yeah, a dynamic battle-board with obstacles and different types of terrain is what really brings out the best of 4e combat, in the tactical sense.  Well, at least for me; YMMV and all of that.

Were the ghouls minions?  Are there any minions opponents in the published adventure?  I'm curious as to how minions play into the mix at this level of play.

The ghouls were indeed minions.. and there were 10 of them per encounter.

The first encounter was 10 ghoul (minions), 3 Nycadaemons, and Captain Xur (an Abyssal Rotfiend)

the second had 10 more ghouls, 1 Nycadaemon, a Larva Warlord, and a Blackstar commander (sort of a death knight). The warlord and the commander were in a rivalry to take over the ship once the Captain had been killed.. (That's why the second wave held back- they were making a hasty pact to take the ship back).


That is the entirety of the Shevaithan's crew.


There's a series of set piece battles here- for example the next thing is a dungeon (part of Orcus' own citadel) called the Red Hold-- but they also have 2 pages of random encounters, and I definitely want to use some of those, as well as an Abyssal/elemental planar city (well, City of Brass is one I already have) where they can do some city adventuring (and maybe even have some voyaging aboard the Shevaithan once they unmoor it) before they head towards the third part.
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Abyssal Maw

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PART II: (or session 2, really)

After defeating the crew members of the Shevaithan, the party figured out that the ship was still moored by a ghostly chain down to the Red Hold, which also happens to be the gateway to Orcus' citadel, Everlost.

They explored a few ways of getting the ship free and determined that they would have to descend the chain, invade the Red Hold, and release the moorings.

They decided to lower the ship as close as they could to the Red Hold itself... and then disembarked (the map of the Red Hold is a bit confusing so I redesigned it a bit, so that it was clear which areas were open air, which areas were indoors.. )

After jumping off the ship, they arrived at the gateway itself, held by the gatekeeper (a huge Glabrezu demon), and a pair of Eye of Despair Beholders. The party cleric of the Raven Queen (who had 'Exalted Angel' as an epic destiny) immediately challenged the demon, and the battle was on.

This battle went pretty well: a few times the Eye of Despair Beholders were able to teleport a couple of heroes into an outer-moat area of superheated "volcanic stone" , but they eventually got pushed back into the gateway. Elemental circles within the opening area turned out to be dangerous to the Glabrezu, beholders, and PCs alike.. They also used confusion, domination, and maddening rays against the PCs to pretty good effect.

After the beholders finally fell, the Glabrezu was pretty quickly beaten down. The warforged conjurer had called forth an Abyssal Horde of his own, and they set to work chewing down the demonic gates that lead further into the Red Hold.

The Glabrezu was wearing the prizes of previous adventurers who dared to challenge him- I'm still waiting for the email with the treasure divvy, but it was a lot.

Beyond the gateway there was a river of boiling blood, and they had to figure out how to cross it: the wizard conjured a diamond falcon to carry him, the cleric/angel had the ability to grow wings.. and the druid had a magic item that let her walk across the water.. The warlock (a tiefling with "Prince of Hell" as an epic destiny) had an immunity to fire that would have allowed him to swim it.. but the rest of the party was trying to figure out a way across. They had just about settled on a plan involving a makeshift raft sewn from the bodies of the beholders, but when the druid stepped into/over the water, an elemental demon surged out of the (river of boiling blood) and attacked.

So the second battle here took place in and around the river of boiling blood: Achree and Kazirith sentinels attacked- the wizard managed to lock one in a force cage, but the other one was causing havoc: the Achree spawned an entire host of smaller monstrosities that also swam through the river and surrounded the druid.

But eventually these were defeated as well.

They settled on a strategy of using the wizard's diamond falcon to ferry the fighter across the river, with the druid walking across, the warlock swimming it (immune to fire), and the cleric/angel flying.

After this they made it to a gateway and started to explore the Red Hold - wandering up and down a series of passages.. up and down a series of staircases. Finally they reached a set of doors and decided to use a ritual to try and locate the mooring point. It indicated the opposite direction- a hallway they had not taken.

So they turned back, and made their way across more of the hold, completely circling around twards the eastern edge of the Red Hold. They stopped at another sealed door- and this time used another spell- a summoned shadow serpent to try and spy on the other side. From inside, they heard a haunting melody...

Inside, the shadow serpent (and the controlling wizard) was able to see a visiting vampire lord playing his pipes inside a sort of lush den full of demonic statues. His guardians- a trio of hill giant skeletons and a wight lurked within.

The party tried to open the door stealthily but failed, and the vampire took notice just as the serpent winked out of existence. He commanded the skeletons to throw open the doors and attack- bringing the battle into the hallway. This battle went really well- the undead are tough, but they are vulnerable to radiant, and the epic cleric/angel had really good radiant powers. One of the cool parts of the battle was the vampire used mist form to get behind the warlock, reform, and then landed two (massive) critical hits in a row with his broadsword on him. The warlock responded by summoning his own minions- a group of legion devils. Eventually the battle carried back into the room, and the vampire and skeletons were destroyed.. the wight fought on for a while- it seemed to heal itself with every attack, but it eventually got pinned down and killed.


We wrapped up after this battle- the vampires den contained a strongbox full of treasure including 35 astral diamonds, and an assortment of jewlery.

The PCs are getting close to needing to rest, but they aren't far from the first mooring point.
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Abyssal Maw

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Fast forwarding a bit- this has been ongoing just about every tuesday night but I haven't updated it.

The group made their way out of the Red Hold, headed to the City of Brass.

First they did something slightly foolish by contacting Demogorgon who had offered to help defeat Orcus. Demogorgon offered help, but it came at a price, and the thing about demons is they don't even pretend to honor deals like that.

They also got into some hijinks with an Efreet Padishah there who offered to help defeat Orcus in return for locating the body of an extinct fire god. This was kind of a side quest. The group passed on it, and nearly got arrested.. their ship was impounded in return for defying the Efreets, so they had to steal it back.

Long story short- they stole it back, and recruited a dwarven fighter named Gilly. The human fighter (Koramus) was arrested and taken away by the efreets. (In reality, that player had a series of appointments and couldn't make Tuesday nights anymore, so we switched him out).

They escaped the City of Brass and buzzed the Padishah's palace, dumping trash on the great Efreet as he is being carried from the garden on his litter. The scene ends with the efreet shaking his fist at the sky.

The group heads to the Forge of Four Worlds, after fighting off an attack by elemental demons from Demogorgon.

The Forge of Four Worlds is described as a bit like a giant floating crystalline asteroid, floating in the Astral Sea. It was defnded by a race of crystalline elemental constructs called the Forgeborn.

The forge was already under a two-way siege:

Demons were invading the forge (bringing the shards of Timesus the Black Star- a primordial spirit of a collapsing star- hoping to reforge the primordial as undead and use it to kill the Raven Queen). Devils were ALSO invading- Asmodeus had sent forces to the aid of the Raven Queen , more or less just to oppose Orcus.

Tyvraxus (yes, this is the same Tyvraxus as in Vault of Xammux, except a 29th level version of the same character played by the same player) was a Prince of Hell, and presumably also involved.

Reasoning:

The original PCs (minus the exalted angel) all begin as dead, and all under the domain of the Raven Queen. If the Raven Queen's power is usurped by Orcus, then the group is under their power.

Which would place Tyvraxus, a legitimate prince of hell, under the domain of Orcus. Asmodeus wouldn't want that. (And Tyvraxus wouldn't either).

So they circled the ship in, and Tyvraxus offered to speak to the legion devils assaulting the Forge. He managed to negotiate a coordinated assault- the legion devils would try and  neutralize the forges defenders and the PCs would go after the demonic invaders as they made their way to the core of the Forge.  

More later. We actually got all the way through the forge siege.
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