Side Campaign Log: Session 1

As I said last night, I finished playing a great session of D&D with Jason, Noah, and Skitch. For those curious this session was not streamed, nor was it part of the main campaign. Instead it’s a completely separate story with separate characters. I figure people might still be interested in a recap, and if nothing else I can at least keep these as notes for the future. So, onto the recap!

In this campaign Jason is our DM. The characters are as follow: Noah is a half-elf Assassin who seems to be hiding quite a few important details about himself. Skitch is playing a half-elf Warlord who is prejudice against the “pure-bloods” (humans and elves) and employs a very high-risk high-reward style of gameplay. I myself play a half-elf Paladin of Pelor, though the church of Pelor is very minor in comparison to the Order of the Hammer which dominates a majority of The City where this campaign will take place.

So we started off our adventure being briefed by Officer Mahoney, and Officer Mahoney is a freaking douche. Guy spends the entire briefing telling us we’re all going to die, how lame we are, and pretty much just demanding we hurry up and go to our deaths. Jerk. Anyway, our mission is thus: Long ago a portion of The City (our campaign setting) was overrun by undead. Fortifications were made to essentially seal off this part of the city, and for a long time it has been left to its own designs. Our mission is the first step in a larger operation to reclaim the sealed section of the city, and the first assignment was to find a series of tunnels once used by thieves and bootleggers inside the sealed section. Since no man has ever returned from crossing over the wall into the sealed section, it was assumed that it’s a suicide mission, so again, Officer Mahoney is the douche who has no problem with constantly stating that he doesn’t think we have a chance in hell, yet continues to demand we hurry up and start our suicide mission. Yeah, so far I’m kind of hoping Mahoney gets mauled by zombies. Not likely, but I can dream.

Anyway, we enter the sealed section via the massive wall, and inside we find strange dinosaur like creatures called Byork. Well actually they had another name, but I just kept hearing Byork when he said it, so I’m assuming we were killing the prehistoric incarnations of a quasi-successful Icelandic pop singer. Anyway, Edward (Noah) managed to shoot one of the Byork from above, and the creature’s scream let the rest of its allies know it was in pain. A herd of around four of five more Byork showed up, and we used it as a distraction to go further South along the wall and bypass much of the monsters entirely.

After that Edward made a rope for us to climb down, and at this point I should explain that Abaddon (My character, and yes I continue the theme of naming all my PCs after LOST characters) wears heavy plate armor. For those unaware plate armor gives you high AC, but absolutely rapes some of your skills; namely Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth, and Thievery. For those skills I have a -4 modifier (small exception to Athletics which is a -3) and when my time came to climb the rope, I fell flat on my face from three stories up. Bam, 11 damage and I now officially hate heights in and out of character. Seriously with Juliet last week and the pyramid and Abaddon this week with the wall, I am going to make sure my next character can climb a god damn rope.

Anyway, soon after landing we ran into our first encounter—two Byorks and our first zombie. Strangely enough, I almost went down in this encounter. The build I have for my Paladin makes it so I’m quite sticky, and betraying my mark is extremely dangerous, and to compliment this I bought Plate armor. Fucking Byork managed to roll solid upper teens with just enough bonus to hit my AC, or they attacked Reflex. At the end of the battle I was at 9 HP (31 HP Max) and had no more uses of Lay on Hands left. At the time I figured that would be a huge hurdle to overcome, but not really. I’ll explain in a bit.

After a short rest we went back into the mission, and all we knew was that we needed to find a tavern as an entrance to the thief tunnels was supposedly hidden inside. At this point Noah pretty much managed to have us avoid about three encounters. We may have lost out on some XP, but we avoided what would have likely been about seven zombies and some Byork. It allowed us to enter the tavern as all the zombies poured out of a window into the streets and attacked the Byork, letting us find the trap door outside in a small courtyard between three taverns. In the courtyard there were about five zombies, but what we discovered from studying them as they walked was that the zombies themselves were mostly blind. They reacted to noises for the most part, and Edward and Erik (Skitch) managed to sneak into the courtyard via a window no problem. However now it was time for the guy in full fucking plate armor to do it, and what did I roll?

Natural Effing Twenty. Granted it became a 16 after modifier, but I fucking ninja’d that window. Imagine if you will a six foot, moderately well built man covered in heavy plate armor managing to slide himself through the window without a freaking sound. I AM AWESOME. After that we prepared to get the drop on them, and Jason called for another Stealth check. What did I roll? Effing 19! I AM THE GREATEST NINJA KNIGHT ALIVE! There’s something very hilarious about the plate mail covered knight who moments ago fell three stories because he couldn’t climb a rope just fucking slide through an open window unseen and remains almost invisible to zombies. For some bizarre reason I’m amazing at Stealth checks with Abaddon. I might MC into Rouge just for shits and giggles now.

Anyway, the next fight can best be called “complete and utter rape on every level”. With range on our side we managed to drop a few zombies before they even got close, and thanks to Divine Challenge/Divine Sanction, any enemy breaking my mark takes at least 7 damage. In addition Erik has several abilities that can allow us to take a gamble to potentially get extra attacks, and Edward’s shrouds are quite powerful. The three of us have a potent synergy right now, and this encounter and the next were nearly jokes in comparison to the first. After clearing out the zombies we noticed a chest and we attempted to open, but Edward’s Thievery check rolled like a 21 and didn’t cause the thing to budge.

Erik tried to pry it open, but then managed to critically fail, have the crowbar slip out of his hand, and imbed it into a wall. Nice. Well we ignored the chest for now and headed down the trap door into the tunnels. Inside we fought two Byork, and slain the beasts! However right after the encounter Edward viewed a demonic skull on legs that Jason warned us looked very intimidating. I think Noah was honestly debating on fighting it, but ultimately decided against it, which was likely a good idea because Jason seemed to suggest that if we had engaged it we would have likely been killed. Either way the skull left, we returned back to the surface, smashed through a wall cause my fatass couldn’t climb it, watched some Byork and zombies kill each other, wiped up the survivors, and then returned to The City, our first mission completed. It was in the middle of the night, but we made sure to wake Mahoney’s dumbass up.

More or less the campaign ended there. We did more, but it was mostly related to telling our respective superiors about our mission. Our current plot hook suggests that the zombies are not normal undead due to their lack of vulnerability to radiant damage, and that they may actually be the reanimated corpses of a race of ancient warriors who lived only in fables. Quite intriguing, and a good hook to return the next time we decide to play.

I have to say I enjoyed this session a lot. It wasn’t as wacky as our main campaign, but it flows a lot more smoothly. Since all of us are at least relatively well versed in the rules combat can fly by, and our characters are melding well together. Edward is an interesting character as he was introduced as city watch, but clearly possessed the skills of an assassin, so I’m curious to see how that develops. Erik is rather humorous as I can see the dude getting us into trouble. Since his fighting style promotes taking bold risks it forms an interesting chemistry with the Paladin whose job is to keep all the attacks coming towards him to leave the others open to attack unhindered. I’m actually very appreciative of Edward as he fights at range so it gives Abaddon more room to play with in melee. I have to say I love Divine Challenge/Divine Sanction. -2 to attack if they try to attack anyone but me, they take an automatic 7 damage (and next level I will have a way to increase that to 10, and I have several ways of forcing that on enemies. I can see why some people hate playing Defender because your job is to essentially get pummeled and be knocked out, but I’m loving the character so far both in mechanics and in flavor.

Abaddon is a paladin of Pelor, so he constantly references light and sun. Since many of my powers do Radiant damage and I intend to get feats and powers that will allow me to increase radiant vulnerability. My goal is to make it so Abaddon will be the target of most attacks, and if not, I’m going to make damn sure the enemy suffers for not choosing me as the target. I have an extended story for Abaddon regarding his entry into the clergy, but like everyone else I think I’ll keep most of the details secret. It’s not as interesting as Edward and his shadow powers, but all in all this campaign is a lot of fun. I love the way this campaign is shaping up, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next session. I’m not sure if we’ll do anything with this campaign like streaming it or anything. We’ll talk about it when we decide to do another session. Anyway, I hope those who bothered to read this enjoyed it in some way. There weren’t any blonde girls falling off pyramids or rangers making out with the bard, but there was Plate Mail Super Ninja, and remember friends… FOR PELOR!!!