Second Party, First Session

Today we had the first meeting of our second group, this one consisting of 5 members. First thing we had to do was design one character and redesign another, resulting in another slow start, about an hour after we were supposed to. Hopefully this will get better the more we play.

The party consists of:
Garar, Lizardfolk Rogue 2 who had minimal success with his crossbow
Earl, Azurin Totemist 2 with a focus on grappling
Grimnir, Human Duskblade 2 who had extremely effective color sprays
Kirara, Dwarf Samurai 2 who had some fun with intimidation
Drake Bladestrider, Human Warblade 2 who they met later

We started the session off with a bit more excitement than last time, with the decision that they should all meet up in jail, then proceed to break out. This resulted in the need for a bit of improvisation on my part, given that I had had no plans for them to go to jail yet. We started with the duskblade using color spray on the warden, making him flop about uselessly for a bunch of turns, and the resident rogue picking the lock. Interestingly enough the rouge had neither search nor disable device, so traps will definitely be fun for the group with no healer. After getting out on a natural 20, they proceeded to get their weapons from a nearby chest, and tie up the warden.

Now there is only one exit to this place, and that is a stairway leading up, so they decide the best course of action is to have the Rogue scout ahead, and the rest of the party to come after , leading the warden up with a knife to his back. After a few botched stealth rolls at the top of the stairs, the guards in the next room both see and hear the rouge, and proceed with the stabbing. Now the rest of the party hears this, and kicks their prisoner down the stairs as they run up for a fight. With two guards standing back and shooting the party, and two at the front blocking for them, the combat was difficult, especially the with the limited maneuverability of the stairs.

A well aimed color spray late in the battle however turned the tide, as the remaining two guards were incapacitated and unconscious for about 10 rounds, an immediate death sentence. Before that however the Totemist, who killed the other two guards in one attack, managed to fall down and be color sprayed, to writhe on the ground inefficiently for the rest of the battle, and the dwarf Samurai managed to stab himself in the foot, halving his speed to 10 ft. for 10 minutes, which was incidentally the rest of the session. So after this basic combat, and the goes without saying looting, the party decides to exit through another door, into a courtyard. This is where we found the final member of the party, a disgruntled Warblade guarding a door, which after some quite painful to watch role-playing joined the party.

This next combat is where I first introduced guns into play, and showed just how powerful they can be, almost knocking out the Duskblade in the first shot, and actually doing it on the second, of course they do take a round to reload, and with non-proficiency for the players they really aren't that powerful. This was also an important combat because it showed just what the Warblade was capable of, missing his first two attacks and then critical failing himself all the way down to -8. After the wrap up of this combat, and some generous healing potions on the guards corpses they were on their way to the exit, only one door and two guards on the other side stood in their way.

Of course these two guards were much better than the level ones they had previously been facing, and though they outnumbered them 5 to 2 they still thought long and hard about how they were going to do this. Their first plan was for the Warblade to go out and convince one of them to come, but after some failed bluff rolls, and decent sense motive checks they had no chance of coming in and it was time to get creative. He boosted out of there and they decided to simply gank the guards, death by swarm and all that. So slowly opening the door, the rogue missed his sneak attack, but the Warblade's bow found his mark, as did the Samurai's sword. The Totemist tried to rush by but was knocked to 0 HP by the attack of oppuritunity, and with his last effort got a bite on the non-wounded guard. Through a combination of good rolls on the part of the guards and bad rolls on the part of the players it ended with only the Duskblade and the Warblade up, each with about 5 health, versus the guard with about 3. It was fairly close at the end, but a lucky critical fail by the guard resulting in him falling down and it was all over.

And that is where it ended, more than half the party unconscious, and the rest not in exactly good shape, no way to transport there nearly dead friends and standing at the gate of the castle with two corpses. We'll see what happens next time, I'm sure it will be entertaining at the least.