Something for everyone!

Meh – not writing in-character this time.

Something for everyone this week! A fight that was a complete clusterfuck – fun for the DM; and a boss fight that did not go at all well for the BBEG – fun for the players.

We fought our way through the giants, Xavier was low on spells – as was everyone. Oh, and he’s been socked by some sort of permanent Reduce Person effect which actually does not gimp a sorcerer at all. If anything, it works out quite nicely thank you very much. Extra AC, extra to-hit. What’s not to like? Slower speed, but Xavier packs Expeditious Retreat so it’s not really a thing.

I tried to make Xavier a blasty sort of caster, but it’s simply not how I play. For the boss fight, my moves were:

1. Dispelling a Solid Fog
2. Bringing down a Wall of Force with a Disintegrate
3. Counterspelling a Dimension Door
4. Counterspelling a Disintegrate

And that’s all he did. The rest of the work was our ranger lobbing several grand worth of giant-bane arrows and the barbarian doing the usual with the axe. Healing from Aeona; triceratops from Vik; and Zoran, sadly, spent much of his time retching from a Stinking Cloud but came good at the end.

Countering the Dimension Door was key. It kept the dude in pounding range of the barbarian and stopped him dropping more AoE spells. Xavier packs a Headband of Counterspelling and Improved Counterspell.

The game forces you to make a choice, because Charisma-boosting items may only be in the headband slot. Using that prime real-estate for that headband is quite a commitment as to how you are going to play. But it was a good choice – having Xavier there completely gimped the high-level caster we were up against. The big thing about that headband is the once-per-day power:

Furthermore, once per day the wearer can attempt to counter a spell by casting the appropriate spell as an immediate action instead of doing so with a readied action.

It puts you in “caster duel” mode, effectively winning that first initiative roll.

Anyway. The DM is off for a while, so we’ll be playing something else for a bit. When we come back, we will be level 14. Xavier will be rocking – ohh, I dunno. Limited Wish, perhaps? It’s the ultimate in versatility. Pathfinder doesn’t have that pesky XP price, and arguably Limited Wish+Improved Counterspell will let you counterspell anything 6th level and below, at the cost of burning a 7th level spell slot. Heck – even without the feat, arguably, but with the feat probably definitely.

You still have to provide material components, but Xavier is packing Blood Money. In an emergency, Xavier has most things covered – particularly since Limited Wish lets you duplicate metamagiced spells up to 6th-level equivalent. Protection from Evil (Communal), for instance.

Yep – it’s the way to go.

Xavier blows (a bubble)

We continued on. Our plan was to find where the tunnels led, then to teleport out. We decided to send a scout – Zoran, the obvious choice, cannot see in the dark, and so I went under cover of invisibility.

I came after a short distance to a partially worked cavern, full of carefully sorted and classified junk. There was a Kobold there, and I took the risk that it might be able to be reasoned with. Sadly, it attacked without provocation and I was forced to Dimension Door away, back to the party.

That’s not quite how it happened, but Xavier is telling the story.

We proceeded forward. Gorlax has a permanent Enlarge spell on him. While this makes sense when fighting giants, it’s a great nuisance when attempting to get through squeezy little tunnels. It so happened that Zoran and Bahlek were the first two out, and the kobold attacked them. The little creature turned out to be a savage fighter, and at home amongst it’s piled of junk.

Difficult terrain, and we forgot that most of us had FOM.

It in swift order managed to nearly kill Zoran and Bahlek. Vik summoned an anklyosaur, and Aeona teleported Gorlax into the room. But it was too close – I cast Resilient Sphere around the Kobold to give us time to regroup.

First time ever using that spell – it worked great.

While the Kobold frothed at the mouth in a rage and pounded at the sphere, we healed the worst of the damage. Then boulders started being lobbed into the chamber from beyond, the first of them hitting Thumpy the Dinosaur, of whom we have all become somewhat fond.

Zoran, Bahlek, and Gorlax went to deal with the giants. I wandered along at my own pace, as I was nearly out of spells, and really these three do not need a great deal of help. I was in time to see Bahlek down a giant with a flurry of five arrows, and Zoran slice up a rather bigger and better dressed giant a treat. This one eventually consumed a potion of Gaseous Form (I assume) and retreated.

OMG, so many crits! Both Bevis and Andrew managed to roll and confirm three crits in a single round. The regular giant just went down in a hail of arrows. The tougher guy has a splendid ‘Z’ carved into him.

We returned to the Kobold. Vik, frankly, has gotten mostly nowhere attempting to reason with it via the subtle art of mime, and so we surrounded it and I dismissed the sphere. It lasted about ten seconds.

Then we thoroughly looted the place. After carefully surveying the chamber, (I also fixing the place in my mind), Vik conveyed us to Magnimar.

It has been two days. Aeona mostly healing, and the rest of us shopping. For myself, I have prevailed on certain local mages permission to scribe into my spellbook certain useful spells – divinations, mostly. Oh, and Darkvision, which I can transfer into my ring should we need to spend time underground. Also Teleport, which I can cast from the book twice a day. This should relive some of the burden from Vik. And Invisibility Sphere, as there will almost certainly be a welcome waiting for us when we teleport back in.

A wand (perhaps two?) of Infernal Healing, one of Gravity Bow for Bahlek, one of Reduce Person for Gorlax, and a wand of Eagle’s Splendour for myself (I am not willing to give up my headband of counterspelling, and so I must resort to the spell).

Ah – and a Lesser Metamagic Rod of Widen Spell. Not cheap, but multiple times I have been able to get only two giants in a fireball. This should even things up a little.

We should return as soon as we may.

Not a fan of tunnels

And so, Xavier – shall I write in third person, do you think? Bah! Such affectations are beneath me!

And so, we – which is to say may new companions and I – arrive at the fortress of the giants. Or, more to the point, to a place in the road where we can see it. A massive tower and other buildings, surrounded by a wall, surrounded by an army, and with a gatehouse of some kind.

We were told that our enemy – the main giant shall we say – lives beneath the fortress. There is discussion as to how best to approach. I make my own contribution, being a keen flyer and able to make myself invisible, I offer to scout. All agree that this seems to be a good plan. Being keen to not make a fool of myself, I am careful to ask what I should be looking for. The truth is that I am not a great student of battle – I should not wish to miss something that might be obvious to another.

Fully instructed, I take to the air.

I tend to have a crap grasp of tactics, so I asked everyone else at the table what my character should look for. Xavier is basically me, after all.

Seeing as I was building a sorcerer with Fly, I gave him 8 ranks in the skill. That is – Xavier does not merely have the spell, he has put time into practising his aerobatics. 8 ranks + class skill + dex gives him a base of 13, and the Overland Flight spell (Arcane bloodline) gives him another +5 (½ caster level) to make it +18. He can do a 180° or fly upward steeper than 45° so long as I don’t roll a 1.

Overland Flight goes for hours, and is better than Fly, but it’s personal only and 4th level. Xavier’s invisibility goes for 11 minutes, and he can pop over a dozen of them if he has to. So Xavier as an aerial scout makes a lot of sense.

It was a fine day for flying, if a trifle cold. The fortress was surrounded by the tents of an army. I shall not say “small army”, firstly because they were giants, and secondly because there were many of them. They appeared to be segregated by race – ogres in one section, hill giants in another. Most of them appeared to be stone giants.

The fortress itself had clearly been engineered by magic – Stone Shape and other transmutations if I was not mistaken. Massive walls, a massive door. There were structures inside, one remarkable and clearly very old tower (perhaps dating back to Azlant?), other smaller buildings, a stable. I did not investigate closely – it would not matter much to us what was in it and I did not wish to get close.

Perhaps the main notable thing was the absence of troops of any kind inside the walls. Politics, no doubt. Teleportation or simply flying in was an option.

The second notable thing was a female giant standing at the top of the great tower. She must have been 20 foot tall – quite magnificent.

Andrew had us all pick a phobia or weakness for our characters. Guathak, Morgan’s character, has a problem with “big women”. Even permanently enlarged, this giantess is bigger than Gauthak. Fun times!

Having seen the fortress itself, I decided to take in a circuit of the surrounds (splendid day for flying!). To the left (the north? Whatever!) a cave set into the mountains. As we had already been attacked by dragons, it seemed a fair surmise that it was a lair, and I gave it a wide berth.

Behind the fortress to the east was a deep, steep canyon. Recalling that our enemy lived below the fortress, I set about looking for cave entrances and saw two – one about 50′ up with bones about the entrance (worryingly large ones), and another further up with spiderwebs.

Needless to add, Andrew’s dwarven ranger is claustrophobic, and David’s summoner has a problem with spiders.

⁂

On my return, I described what I had seen. To my relief, a frontal assault was quickly ruled out of the question. Teleporting in, also, was problematic as Vik is not able to teleport all of us; we would have to fight our way into the tower itself; and who knows what magics protect this clearly ancient structure?

(I simply must scribe Teleport into my spellbook at earliest opportunity – with my robe and my ring, I can manage two per day, and between myself and Vik we can move the entire party. Alternatively, a wand of Reduce Person I think would allow her to move everyone.).

In any event, we elected to try the caves in the ravine. The excellent dwarven ranger conducted us thereto with no difficulty whatever.

The lower cave proved to be the come of three Wyverns, which gave us no real difficulty although Zoran had the bad fortune to find himself poisoned. Still, Aeona was more than up to the task of restoring him. We found the cave to be a dead end, although there was some loot.

The higher cave was absolutely crawling with spiders. Quite disgusting. Vik summoned a fire elemental a dozen feet tall to clear the way. Natural webs are not flammable in the same way that magical ones are, but an elemental from the Plane of Fire nevertheless will do the job. When we entered the cave, we were attacked by three large spiders which proved later to be husks inhabited by colonies of smaller ones. Truly revolting. I used my Metamagic Rod – Reach Spell to place a Protection from Energy (fire) on everyone, and then began firing Fireballs, which is one of the better ways to deal with swarms.

Eventually, between the fireballs, the elemental, and simple hack-and-slash the threat was dealt with. And we found an ordinary, nonmagical secret door at the back of the cave.

⁂

We proceeded through a maze of small, twisty tunnels all alike. And were ambushed by fey – redcaps, I believe. Naturally, they went straight for the dwarves as there are very ancient enmities between the undergound folk. The close-quarters fight did not suit me well at all, and I was eventually reduced to using my last line of defence, Emergency Force Shield. It takes me out of a fight, but in this particular battle it was oddly useful, as my unconscious form with a bubble of force around it blocked off one of the passages.

Still, it was a nasty business and everyone got at least somewhat beaten up. I have depleted perhaps half of my magic, and there is still the fortress left. I need to get that Teleport spell scribed into my book as soon as may be so that we can recoup somewhere safer and return. As it stands, we can continue on at least a little more, and can return to the now cleaned out spider cave once we have mapped out a way into the bowels of the fortress itself.