A week of Challenging Encounters

Shadow of Orcus

My core group finished off the end of P2 last night, the book seemed like a waste of money. The players were able to use rituals and skip a lot of the encounters, and why shouldn't they be allowed to they are level 16.

In the end they had one big fight in the last room though. i added a extra bit of flair that really affected the encounter. The final encounter has a map provided by WotC, and there are four stones each of different colors. I decided to make these power stones that affected the entire area.

Yellow - All living creatures grant combat advantage
- requires 3x arcana checks dc30 {standard actions} to deactivate
- 2 success gives the disabling player a recharge of a arcane encounter power
- 3 success gives the disabling player a 'once this encounter re-cast an encounter arcane power you just cast'

Green - All living creatures take 5 necrotic damage at the start of their turn
{most players in my party have necro resist 10}
- requires 3x religion checks dc30 {standard action} to deactivate
- 1 success grants the disabling player 1 temp hp
- 2 success grants the disabling player 5 temp hp
- 3 success grants the disabling player 15 temp hp

Blue - All living creatures have -2 to attack rolls
- requires 3x thievery or dungeoneering checks dc25 {standard action} to deactivate
- 3 success grants the disabling player +2 to hit for the rest of the encounter
- 2 success grants the disabling player an additional minor action usable once during the encounter

Red - Living creatures cannot heal or spend hit points
- requires 3x heal checks dc25 {standard action} to deactivate
- 1 success grants the disabling player 5 hp
- 2 success grants the disabling player 5 hp
- 3 success grants the disabling player free use of second wind {does not count as using second wind}

This offered a huge challenge to the players, first they were just fighting the two main undead in the room, but round 2 the 1/2 the vampire spawns came in, round 3 1/2 the ghouls came in, round 4 the other 1/2 of vampire spawns, round 5 the other 1/2 of the ghoul, round 6 the lich came in and round 7 the BBEG came in. Sadly warlock+wizard+actionpoint the lich and BBEG died on round 8. combat was over on round 9.

But at least 3 of the players were locked up at any given time disabling the power nodes.

To end it off the little room ( a realm of its own ) collapse in on itself and spat the players across the cosmos. Should be a fun next session

D&D Encounters

All i got to say is wow, what a tough creature. I had the players begging for hit points each round. While the monster was in orb form it really did not move. So instead of wasting its move action i droped it for another minor action to do the minor attack two times a turn.

All players charged in, only to relize that on their turn they would be taking 5 damage. Mixing that with the blue flames from Wotc's twitter made this encounter challenging. However the players were greatly rewarded when they finished it and felt a sense of accomplishment.

Little do they know whats going on next week. buo hahahaha.. ...

D&D Rewards - an open letter to WotC

I love the encounters, the team at wotc did a great job. However i would like to see rewards for players who make it out more. Real tangible items for gaining renown. WotC obviously spent some money on pizza gift cards and digital cameras, why not use that towards miniatures instead.

Players earning 50 renown points gets a random rare player miniature.
Players earning 30 renown points gets a random uncommon player miniature.
Players earning 20 renown points gets a gift certificate for $2 off or something.

At the end of the day im sure the certificate will actually cost more then taking an existing product and giving it away.

Sometimes i grow so tired, but i know there's one single thing i've got to do
Tumblr On

Ok i've signed up for tumblr, i find it easier to micro blog from the ipod then have to power up my computer that i hate so much. You can find me at mleger.tumblr.com and i plan on posting lots of updates there, not just d&d ones.