Shard Saga – Whirlwind, ramps and platforms part 2

I’m continuing the story from part 1.

Previously, you read about Kepler squeezing between the griffon and dragon, and cast Flame Spiral.

The reason why Kepler never got to do his burn-adjacent-enemies trick was the DM got the artillery draconian at the 20 feet platform to blast something around Kepler. Which also moved the griffon and dragon 1 square away from Kepler.

My DM had learned his lesson from the rat swarm back in the jungle ruins…

The griffon and dragon were taken care of, and we needed to take down the artillery draconian. That’s when the avenger flew into battle with it.

The artillery draconian didn’t stand a chance…

We moved up to the 3rd level. There were the (by now) standard 1 monster per platform. Then my DM placed something new on the battlegrounds…

One of those lightning crystals apparently gained sentience, and was out for blood. Beside it, was a siren. And a very annoying one at that.

So the avenger did his thing, and went after the artillery draconian on the 20 feet platform. But there was a twist. The draconian did a backlash attack against the avenger, and the avenger was stunned and knocked prone.

The blue dragon attacked Kepler, and the halfling used his Triggered Chaos to escape. Kepler still got hit (I think), but as a result, he was able to slide the dragon 1 square. So the dragon was hovering 30 feet in the air. Then the siren made its move.

The siren flew in, landed near us, and screeched. And pulled everyone closer. And immobilised everyone. Here’s where it got strange.

“Despite being stunned and prone, you feel a strange compulsion to roll over the edge, fall 20 feet down, and roll over to the siren.” my DM said to the avenger. “Take falling damage.”

Mechanically, it’s correct. But it still sucks. The avenger was now basically out of the game. The player went on to flip through some of the game guides. I guess I’d do that too. Oh well…

Kepler thought the artillery draconian was too dangerous to be left alone up there. So he moved closer, and used the power of the lightning shard crystal to pull it down. And succeeded (thank goodness!). Then he attacked the dragon and scored a critical hit. *yes!* And knocked the dragon prone (Kepler was on a critical rolling spree…). Then he teleported away from the centre of the fight. Thought: how does a dragon keep afloat while being prone?

The sentient crystal floated down and joined the fight. I think I blanked out during the attack. The crystal did something nasty to the fighter, and I believe it was some ongoing damage on top of its normal damage. Very irritating. The fighter was barely holding up (I believe he was down to 4 hit points).

The fighter took out the siren, and Kepler took out the artillery draconian. (Or was it vice versa?) The barbarian shook out of the immobilisation, but it was too late, for she had seen that there was no love in his heart. And as punishment, she transformed him into a hideous beast, and placed a powerful spell on the castle, and all who lived there.

Wait. Wrong story…

Anyway, the invoker was free to move as well. And he has plans…

Wielding his hammer/maul/shield combo, the invoker saw an opening and went after the dragon.

He planned to do something nasty to the dragon. Then the DM told him that he already used up a use of a magic item (hitting the daily limit of one magic item use per day), and can’t do the nasty thing to the dragon. Wahahaha… Crestfallen, the invoker invoked a spew of curses at the dragon instead.

We took out the crystal, and the fighter managed to shake out of the ongoing damage. Then we cornered the dragon. The invoker then sputtered another series of curses at the dragon, and scurried off.

Kepler wondered where the invoker was going to…

Kepler also wanted to use his Poison Thorn Form on the dragon. What I thought up was

Plant tendrils shoot forth from your body and wind their way around foes, with thorny stalks causing poisonous nicks on their bodies. Your body briefly merges with the plant tendrils and reform at another location.

I wanted Kepler to morph into plant tendrils, shoot around the dragon, and reform on top of the dragon. Turns out, I couldn’t do that. My DM stopped me because

Before the attack, you shift 5 squares. You can move through occupied squares during the shift, as long as you end in an unoccupied square.

I think shifting means “on the same planar level”, to use a math term. The dragon was flying away, and I was thinking of the halfling blasting spells at the dragon while riding on it. That would be cool.

The dragon was finally disposed of. And I found we took a long while, because the combat escalation came to this:

This meant we played for 5 full rounds. This was the sixth. But we didn’t get to use the 19-20 critical range…

All the lightning shard crystals gathered together and formed a lightning shard. The avenger took it. And that wrapped up the game.

Afterthoughts

The lightning shard crystals were a nice touch. And I appreciate the thought put into it by the DM. I just think the mechanics for using it were too severe.

In the end, only the fighter rolled against an Endurance check to increase his speed (which turned out to be insufficient for the player’s plans). And Kepler used one, and rolled against his Arcana check to pull the artillery draconian in the last fight.

I think a better way would be to just let us use the added powers. We could be given less shard crystals (say one after each encounter). The DM gave one for every defeated enemy. He gave more crystals, but made them harder to use (it was a standard action to pull an enemy. That’s assuming you passed the Arcana check.). In the end, the other players simply ignored the crystals.

That’s a waste of possible coolness.

And now, to answer the real question. What didn’t the avenger do in this session?

He didn’t pick up a monster’s body, shake it, and cry, “Where is my wife and children?!?”.

I guess they weren’t important anymore… I kid, I kid!