D&D Endurance

A heads up, this is actually a very long post. So unless you have time underneath your belt, you may want to return to this later.

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Tonights game of Dungeons and Dragons (4.0) was several levels of FUCKING EPIC.

Our D&D Group consists of 3 characters at the level 15 region.

Azure, the Blue Dragonborn Fighter, runs around with two swords and tanks quite well. On top of that, he has a rather impressive D&D Figure. Too bad his roleplay isn't as impressive.

Saphira (I probably spelt that wrong), the horny crazy girl with wonky boobs with psychotic powers. By horny, I mean that she has horns. She's a tiefling after all. And psychotic... well she's a Psion. She's a little bit home brew as well, but mostly plays a disruptive role by denial and such.

Skarburn-slash-Gretchalina, the Jamaicanesque Ex-Male-Orc, Ex-"What IS their gender"-Elf, Now-Female-Goblin, Bisexual Barbarian with Uncertain Accent Syndrome. There's storey behind all of that, and it comes down to experimental reincarnation can kick back some karma. To his luck though, he has a very heightened sense of smell that he keeps all the way through.

Skarburn and Azure were separated from Saphira after trying to locate some information on an invading force of strange ogres who last attacked several years ago and have begun again. So far, the only information we gathered was a rumour of similar ogres appearing in a town north of the city we were in.

At the point where everyone was meant to gather, the usual "Meet back here in an hour" situation, we find Saphira is missing, in which case Skarburn begins to worry, since Azure can't tell the difference between a Bargaining Gigolo and his Elbow and trying to figure out the difference occupies his mental capacity.

So going for a search for the poor girl who could be anywhere from just a little bit lost and stuck in the labyrinth of the slums, to slaughtering hapless hostile people and simply drenching herself in their blood, to being arrested and she's playing along to see where it leads.

Skarburns amazing sense of smell leads her to a small crowd outside a slightly dilapidated church which is well guarded.

Seems suspicious enough, and the scent of Saphira was a sure sign that she was around at some stage. But to get in? That was a tricky part.

The church had a second storey. After a little bit of searching and climbing, she leapt from a nearby building unseen onto the second storey. Looking about, a window was broken open and two 'craters' were punched into the floor of the second storey. Odd, but I move on.

She climbs into the window and finds herself in a small study room, and suddenly pause at the sound of a conversation behind the door.

"You move ahead and ready the cage. We'll organise a craftsman to board up the broken window and repair the roofing."

Peeking out the door, trying to be sneaky, Skarburn looks and finds an elderly priest walking towards the room she stood in. Quickly reacting, she hide behind the door--

This is where we got a little silly.
Me: "I hide behind the door... Not behind the actual door."
Aaron: "Yeah yeah, I got you. I can see it now, you stand behind the door and hold it shut. The old man will be trying to push it open and can't budge it because you're this small mass of muscle that works as the immovable doorstop that doesn't notice anyone trying to open it."

For those who may understand, I have a Strength of 22. For a Goblin, you'd think that sort of strength would make it look like a Midget Michelin man packed with muscle.

The old man enters and surveys the room. Skarburn takes this as a moment to keep being sneaky and duck out the door. Being a Barbarian, she's not exactly sneaky. Even so, the old man noticed that someone left and called out to them to stop, but there was nobody blocking the way to the exit of the back door and she legged it.

Probably about an hour later, and a poor dice roll on behalf of Myself and Richard (Both rolled Fours on a d20), Skarburn and Azure were wandering around town searching for clues by calling out Saphira's name and hoping someone would come up to us and say "I saw her get carted off to the place and I suspect it's for the thing so that someone can get the stuff!"

Or something indistinct like that. Aaron usually gets pretty... expansive with the way he tells you where the milk is.

They were of luck! A large authoritative man with two standard grunts came up to them and inquired whether their identities were of Skarburn and Azure. With a vague confirmation, he demanded that Skarburn and Azure join him regarding the missing party member, Saphira.

Skarburn and Azure are not of the sort to be demanded of, so they played the bastard. "I might know who you're talking about. Why would I want to know? What makes you think I'll play sheep and come along?" The authority raises his hand, preparing to click his fingers. The two guards weren't really a worry to Azure and Skarburn, one knowing that they could handle the three of them easily, the other still trying to figure out their location. But to add a little spite, Skarburn lean forward and say to him "I hope you're not going to ruin your manicure doing that."

With a click of his fingers, a gust of wind flows past us and two large thuds come from 'about 10 feet behind' (Aaron's words). Large, heavily armoured figures had dropped from three metres to the ground and left indentations in the ground, and both were prepared to start a fight.

Eventually, to get things moving on, Azure said he'll join them. The pair were lead out of the city, through one of the city gates (I'm still not sure which way we are on a compass) and to a small clearing at the bend of a road where farmland had been abandoned and had long since overgrown.

There stood Saphira (High Five for unsuccessful search checks!) standing with another odd fellow (that we eventually called "Wayne Kerr Anderson" as his actual name). He was there to convince the party into a deal. They do a job for him and he won't charge them with false allegations. He knew of some of their history, but he was threatening to put everyone up on charges for things like starting a sandstorm (Which none of us can do) and consorting with an old NPC character that Skarburn has actually had dealings with, and Saphira has had a minor interaction with. Azure has never heard of the character before, but he didn't say anything as he was wondering where his hand went as he reached for the sky. His is blue after all, so I can't blame him entirely.

Naturally, with these false allegations, everyone were very uncooperative. But then he tried a very current threat.

"With but a motion with my eyes, I can summon forces that will convince you."
"Oh really? How do you do it? Do you wiggle your eyebrows? I'm going to call you eyebrows now."

So he started a countdown where he was mocked between mississippis. "How will he do it? Wiggle his eyebrows? Ooo! He blinks funny, that'll be it. Real sneaky like. At least he's not ruining his manicure."

And then we rolled for Initiative. The Encounter began as follows.

4 Blockers: The big bastards that air dropped in the middle of the city.
4 Interceptors: Dodgy bastards that appeared from nowhere along with -
4 Psions: Telepathetic bastards that deny a heap of shit to you, such as attack bonuses and your standard pairing of actions.

So there the party were, innocently being accused of a heap of shit that had nothing to do with them, and suddenly Mr Eyebrows sets a third of his contingent on us. Fair enough, there was no cooperation, but that might be a little extreme, don't you think? Meh, screw the rules. I play Dungeons and Dragons.

So the party, Skarburn, Azure and Saphira are in a semi-circle around Mr Eyebrows. Two interceptors and a Blocker appear a few spaces behind Skarburn, Psions a half dozen spaces behind them. Behind Azure were two more Psions about 10 spaces away and two more blockers. Behind Eyebrows are two more interceptors. Behind Saphira is the last blocker and Psion.
Hiding in the overgrown field is the last interceptor.

It starts off alright. Skarburn turns to attack the interceptors and perform her Daily "Blood hunt Rage", along with activate the Troll Skin Armour which grants health regeneration every turn equal to her Constitution Modifier. Azure turns to his blockers and begins marking them as he goes. Saphira realises "holy crap I might die" here and goes into her usual position of "Hide and Pick them off!" headed for the overgrown field.

Skarburn stood where she was for the next 5 turns using the Paragon Encounter Power: Persistent Frenzy, which allows her to attack all enemies adjacent, and w hile raging, roll a d20 at the end of the turn and if the roll is 10 or higher she doesn't lose the Encounter Power. The Psions kept slowing her down, dropping my attack bonus, and generally preventing me from actually getting anywhere. But Persistent Frenzy remained. By the fifth turn, and about two or three criticals, skarburn finally got out of that combat.

When I critical, I start off at 32 (Base 20 +2 for Raging +10 for d10 weapon damage) and then add another 2d10 and 3d6. This usually results in a fairly substantial damage output. I believe our record so far is 78 or 79 damage in a single swing during a Rage Power that added more dice into the attack.

On top of that if I was using a Barbarian Power, which I usually am, I get to make an additional attack. A little excessive, but it got me out of combat.

So my next turn, Skarburn turned around to the Psions and said "I have a headache now. If you don't have any Panadol, you're in a world of hurt." Needless to say, they didn't have any Panadol.

This is where Eyebrows returned in a poof of smoke, flourishing his brow with a gleam. He was losing rather substantial people and thought he should join the fray so that his contingent doesn't fall further than it should.

Just quickly, I'd like to clarify something. All of the other dudes are standard enemies. The Blockers, Interceptors and Psions have 110, 100 and 80 health respectively. Mr Eyebrows is an 'Elite' with 250 health and decent stats and abilities that allow him to survive longer than his cousins. With the Psions floating about, it kept him from being hit more often. To counter, with my regenerating health it made me that little bit more difficult to kill.

But the Psions barrage was slowly becoming more and more painful. Skarburn had already used the healing surge from the second wind, bringing back 32 of the 119 health, and Azure used his cloak allowing her to use another healing surge. With most healing options now lost, safety precaution was taken.

With a Roar, she caved down on another enemy with her Stone Bear Rage. Stone Bear Rage gives the user Resistance 5, preventing 5 damage from each attack. Stacked with the 5 health regenerated every turn, survivability becomes quite phenomenal and ignoring Skarburn for a turn or two can be greatly regretted.

For the rest of the encounter, Azure fended off Blockers and Interceptors, Saphira led off the poor bastards into death traps, and Skarburn stood toe to toe with Mr Eyebrows. Azure was suffering substantial damage, and he didn't have any further health regenerating abilities and the tower that was the Blue Dragon finally fell. With a glorious burst of blinding breath, he fell to the ground, with a kill count of about 5 or 6.

So it was girl time, Skarburn and Saphira, left to take on the rest of this squad. Unfortunately, Skarburn was the poor sap who made such a terrifying scene that all three of the remaining Psions, the two interceptors and Mr Eyebrows turned their attention on her. You wouldn't think that I'd be able to survive.

Saphira gained the attention of two of the interceptors from her, which was very helpful. She was slowly tearing away at them with a crystalline arm, throwing them around and denying them the ability to attack Skarburn. She tore him apart and went to disrupt the Psions from attacking her, putting one into a stranglehold and the other one simply being annoyed at her being there.

So that left Skarburn sitting there between an Interceptor and Mr Wayne "Eyebrows" Kerr. My Persistent Frenzy remained persistent, and she gained more temporary hit points through the use of a few abilities and powers. The Interceptor was quickly mauled and it was me and Mr Eyebrows. I attack and stepped back, allowing him to enter my melee range.

Now I use a Halberd, a type of polearm. I also gained a feat that I have never regretted taking up, which is Polearm Gambit: Once per initiative, if an enemy moves adjacent to you, you may make a basic melee attack against them.

So I attack, step back. He enters melee range, I attack, he attacks. Rinse and Repeat. Slowly we worked our way around Saphira and her battle with the Psions was becoming more and more of an uphill battle. Repeatedly being tied up between two people, it was obvious what was going to happen to her.

Then Saphira snapped. Through the entire encounter, she used up her last 5 healing surges for the day through various abilities she has available to keep her alive while luring poor sods into their demise. But when she loses all of her Healing Surges for the day, she becomes psychotic. Her arms become spinier, her fists become massive shards, and she simply goes on a blood lusted craze. She takes a constant damage and receives temporary hit points based on her damage up to a maximum of 20.

Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to help her. She eliminated her enemies except for an interceptor and one lucky Psion who hadn't been touched all Encounter. Eyebrows knew that she was on the verge of death and decided to take out his secret weapon: A SWORD LAZER!

BOOM! She fell to the ground convulsing leaving me to take on Mr Eyebrows, a Psion called Lucky, and an Interceptor. You would think that Skarburn would be in trouble, but in the turn or two that Eyebrows had missed or not attacked her, Skarburn was still healing. When Eyebrows turned back to Skarburn, she was already on a third of her total health.

He was on about a quarter health of his 250 hp and already used his healing surge to try and survive the onslaught of Skarburn.

This is where Skarburn was in trouble. Three opponents, one of which is more powerful than the others, one that denies stuff like bonus to attack and standard turns, and one who simply attacks and damages.

Slowly Skarburns health wavered down and down, damage increasing constantly as she Persistently Frenzied, over and over again. Eventually the Interceptor was down, re-capping my temporary HP and preventing me from dying from one more hit.

But it wasn't enough. The next few attacks put me under 0 HP, leaving me on -5.

We reached an ambiguous point. I have a Utility power, Deathless Frenzy, which allows me to stay Conscious until I reach death or fail a death saving roll. The problem was that when someone regains health, such as the Regeneration from the Troll skin armour, I regain that health as if I were at 0 hp, putting me up on 5 instead of a flat 0 and Deathless Frenzy expires.

If I didn't heal, then I continue to make death saving rolls at the end of my turn until I die at -60 hit points.

We opted for the latter of the two and Aaron allowed me to turn off the regeneration. I had my turn and hoped for a critical, the massive hit that would end this so much earlier than expected. Unfortunately, I rolled a 3. My bonus of 18 does not allow me to surpass his Armour Class of 30.

I dropped the dice and I began to express my dismay at not getting the eighth critical that I was absolutely desiring when Aaron pointed to me and said
"Did you just roll that?"
"What?" I peer down and there it was. The highest number available on a 20 sided dice glared up at me like a smug little child.
"Yeah, Medway did roll that," piped in Scotty and Richard.
"Medway, do you know what this means?"

Now when someone is 'dying', they make a Death Saving Roll. When you roll a 1-9 you mark a strike and when you get to 3 strikes, you die. When you roll a 10-19, you don't mark a strike. When you roll a 20, you use a healing surge and regain hit points as if you were on 0 hp and regain consciousness.

While I was already conscious, I do regain the 32 hit points from my healing surge.

So with a blaze in Skarburns eyes and a Rage Blood Vigour coursing through his veins, the Female Goblin raised its halberd and struck down the man standing twice his size and with funnier eyebrows than her.

With the towering figure falling, Skarburn turned to the remaining Psion and said "Fuck off."

"Medway?" Aaron looked at the board confused.
"Yes Aaron?" I say with a cheeky smile.
"You beat the encounter."
"That's right," I reply.
"YOU CAN'T DIE," he says in stark realisation.
"NO I CAN'T," I affirm with a grin almost so wide that my head could fall off from a gust of wind.
"With your many Criticals and efforts this game, you are turning back into an Orc next D&D."
"Game on."
"You know this was meant to be an extremely difficult battle, unlikely for you to win."
"Yeah. I figured that by being outnumbered about... four to one? Without Eyebrows?"
"But you beat it," he said with a little bit of pride. "And the scary thing is... is that you're not home brew."

Skarburn (The Figure), turned away from Mr Eyebrows (The Brown Square Stone), with the convulsing body of Saphira (Black Round Stone), and the remaining Psion that will carry my message to the remainder of the forces (Blue Square Stone).