Wrecking Crew XIV (5th and final update)
The Crew moved on to the Druid Grove. I thought that should be a fairly simple location for them, but early on I was slow to realise against some spiders that Slasher had been webbed. That meant all the spiders treated him as a priority target and the delay in switching attack strategies proved too great to save him - resulting in his first death.
After returning from the Temple the Crew quickly smacked down the trolls (gaining the potentially useful Spear of the Unicorn), but then came across more trouble against an Elder Earth Elemental. Its initial earthquake stunned 4 of the Crew, but they recovered without casualties. Attacking it through its invisibility and with limited +3 weapons available was difficult, but I thought I was making good progress until I mistook who it was attacking and Slicer died. The others were able to finish it off though without further losses
Back again and silence and stinking cloud took its toll on Kyland Lind and his druids - they had the Staff of Earth (with no charges, but 15k gold was invested to recharge it). The rest of the area was cleared, apart from the rakshasas who were left for now, before Cernd was invited by Faldorn to have a bite to eat. Regrettably though, in this installation Cernd stays in human form and doesn't even try and cast spells - leaving him a helpless victim of Faldorn's ironskins and insect plagues 
. Faldorn is therefore going to be left to rule over the Grove, which means that the Crew have no access to the potentially useful shops there.
. Faldorn is therefore going to be left to rule over the Grove, which means that the Crew have no access to the potentially useful shops there.Incidentally I noticed that Slasher had lost the Helm of Balduran at some point in the last session. I'm not sure where that was, but thinking back I have a feeling that the beholder in the temple sewers used telekinesis - I'll have to watch for that in future and make sure I check the area to avoid further losses.
The Crew were running a bit short on easy work, but did take down Captain Dennis and his unmerrie men. Their suits of full plate meant the whole Crew are now outfitted with those as standard. In the same area they did some hopping in and out of a house to ensure they didn't have to rely on saving throws while killing Dracandros and his companions.
They gave up on finding some glasses of identification and just paid to ID lots of sundry loot. The cash boost from that allowed the purchase of some more improved equipment, including buying some dispelling arrows.
Returning to Watcher's Keep they activated the statues and then hopped in and out of the Keep while killing a couple of them. Then disaster struck when they were unable to leave - they tried at least half a dozen times before two of them were affected by a symbol stun from an arriving mage. I suspect that it was just extremely poor pathfinding preventing them leaving rather than that the exit was actually inoperative. For the last couple of attempts at leaving I can see why there might have been a problem as everything was very crowded, but that was after they had been pushed back towards the exit and had moved around several times to try leaving from different angles. Probably what I should have done, but didn't, was to try and move only a single character onto the exit point to ensure they were not getting in each other's way.
Once the first character was disabled things looked pretty bleak. It's possible there might have been time for the remaining Crew to kill their companions and escape, though I'm not sure about that. However, Beater chose to use improved invisibility and move away while other characters were being finished off. Out of sight, invisible, in a room with shut doors you might expect to be safe - but that was never likely as several demons came hunting him both by opening doors and using teleport without error. Beater did manage to dodge round and make his way back to the entrance and tried to leave. The statues couldn't see him, so he seemed to have a realistic chance - but this time there was a reason he couldn't leave as one of the others had had the required stone. He was about to try and search the bodies when the game ended. I don't know what caused that, but it was an instant death effect - I suspect probably a Wail of the Banshee.
Retour en haut
. Ironically, I'd deliberately led the last 2 badly wounded paladins to the merchant as Bob's inventory was full and I thought that would save time going back to pick up their armour to sell (not that he actually needed the money anyway).
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