I may be obsessed with D&D

Twas the night of 29th,
And the boys were all well;
Stuffed with cheesy pizzas,
Pasta sauce and chicken wings,
And encapsulated by their Nerdy spell.

The night began with a simple situation with Skarburn the Orc, Azure the Dragonborn and Saphira the Teifling stand along a beach with Skarburns incorporeal guardians, staring out at an island floating in the sea.

Thundul, its name was, and it was a legendary island, peeking over the horizon as a sign of peace and neutrality to those passing by. Skarburn was famous for taking on this island to prove his strength, and tearing off a scale of the turtle that keeps the Island afloat.

Skarburns task was to take on Thundel to prove that Skarburn was worthy of his Fathers Heritage. Thundel knew his place and coasted the waves towards them.

And initiative was rolled.

Azure began first. With a bump on the chest from Skarburn, a finger pointing and a gentle order of “Fetch”, he charged into the waves towards the creature and bonked him a couple of times to get his point across. What he was saying in the crashing waves and the threatening roar, we may never know.

Skarburn charged forth, his athletic prowess bounding over the ocean to fall just in reach of his Halberd, thrusting in between the creatures shell to it’s exposed flesh and dealing an aggravating amount of damage.

The turtle enraged by his the headache made from Azures incoherency, and the sword smacked across its snout, he decided to make his rebuttal with his own intellectual motives. With his mind on the job, he surged forward and head butted Azure.

Saphira waddled up from behind the dune, her fear of being captures quite prominent as she stared at the turtle and the gentle swirling whirlpools caused by the turtles failing waterwings, and considered how easily she could float out to sea. With her fears and paranoia overwhelming her, once again, she reached into the turtles mind and attempted to give the turtle a bigger headache with a Mind Thrust. In hindsight, she reconsidered her knowledge of bestial anatomy and figured that the turtle’s brain might be a little lower and to the left.

Azure was enjoying this state of debate. The creature was of similar state of mind and his eloquence was just as phenomenal. This would be a great moment for the Dragonborn courts, were they there. With noticeable evidence, he thrust forward the next subject of argument with solid confidence.

Skarburn knew his objective. He was a cowboy, and he needed a good ride. He must mount this creature and wrangle this beastie into submission. But climbing a turtles shell is much more difficult than expected.

Thundul considered this interruption of Skarburns to be out of order in his court of the seas, but although Azure defended the case and attempted to keep Thunduls attention on himself, Skarburn was still affected by the harsh actions and fell off Thunduls back.

The Turtles was confused, and stomped down to re-evaluate his situation. Azure stood firm to keep his fervor and his state of mind keen, however Skarburn was lost to the words and thrown deeper into the waters.

Back in the real world, I wanted Skarburn to charge. He floated in deep water and all had to stop for a moment.
“I really don’t want you to charge,” Aaron said with disgust in his throat like the frog that changed into a toad. “So I’m not going to let you.”
“Okay. But I want to reach him,” I stated, a simple request to my own credit. I was only six spaces away and swimming isn’t hard.
“Okay, make an athletics check and I’ll –“ My dice rolls across the laminated board. “BWAHAHAHAHA.”
20 stared back up at us with a gleaming smile that only a spiteful bastard could offend with.

Being a Mind Rapist that she is, Saphira knew Skarburns motives. She didn’t need to roll for that. With knowing that Skarburn floated in extreme danger of being caught within the current, she threw him on top of the Turtles back with a wave of her hand and sat contently on the beachside to watch the kiddies in the pool as the turtle debated with Azure in the greatest meeting of minds to date, while attempting to throw the monkey named Skarburn from his back.

Skarburn brought his halberd down again and again, cracking the shell more and more with each of his powerful blows. Thundul had kept his greatest counterpoint until now and felt that it should be taken advantage of. He surged forward and Azure was thrown back to the shores as he followed up, Skarburn hanging ten atop, and expelled a jury for the court.

"They're what?"
"Koopas."
Laughter ensued and Aaron punctuates it with "And they're all taking on Scotty."

Saphira, the content form of mental trauma of anybody that looks at her funny, seated peacefully on the beach was suddenly surrounded by Bowser--- Sorry, Thunduls minions -- trying to start a debate of minds with her as well but with little avail.

Saphira knew what had to be done. She had to brave the waters. See to the Sea and take her chances against the drowning liquid, because that's where Skarburn and Azure were. They're handy men. Surely they could show some plumbers crack and scare them off.

Waving her arms and telekinetically tossing the shelled minions out of her way, her toe dipped into the water and realised that it really isn't that cold, and purely by judging how Azure stood knee deep she probably won't get her knickers wet, hence saving her from embarrassment later on in the day.

The minions flooded around, as hoped, and notice Azure attacking their Master Debater *Snicker* and attempt to help him by flanking Azure. As Azure was slightly distracted, fending off the mini-Thundul, the Turtle lord himself decided to take the moment to attempt to shake off his monkey again.

Tumbling forward and landing with an eye bulging crunch, Skarburn became saddled on the back of Thundul's neck where he retained a level of advantage. "This is a good position," he thought to himself before Thundul reached up with his mandibles and attempted to tear Skarburn from his shoulders.

With the tiny titans dispatched, Skarburn still on Thundul's shell, and Azure still chewing the beef, she re-evaluated her choice in attack against the mammoth creature and weaved one of her more effective spells. With a burst of Psionic energy, the weakening creature slowed down more, its defences lowered to an extremity, and Azure and Skarburn began their final attacks.

Richard had his turn planned. He started by using Strength from Pain to increase his damage, where he is instantly considered bloodied and whatever health he had above his bloodied score instantly becomes temporary HP, and being a Dragonborn he has +2 to damage. He used fighter recovery, a daily on his sword to get back his Daily Power "Dance of Steel".

He then used his action point for another action, which triggered an instantly refreshed Dragons Breath, and used Dance of Steel to deal his damage before ending his turn.

This all amounted to about 100 damage, considering he dealt a good amount of damage through each attack.

I had a simple plan. Barbarians have an ability called Rage Strike, where you sacrifice a Daily Power to make a massive hit against a target that adjusts in damage depending on what level the daily ability is. I had adjusted my powers (A long overdue choice) and replaced a useless daily with a daily closer to my level, level 15 to be exact.

We have also been recording damage, one thing in particular is the highest damage in one hit. My record was 79 damage on a critical. It was a good critical too.

I considered this for a moment and began to laugh.
"Why are you giggling for over there?" Aaron demanded.
"Oh, just considering this rage strike. If I critical, it instantly beats my old critical record."
"Oh yes, your 22 damage plus 6d10 damage."
"That's right, so that makes 82 plus 2d10 plus 3d6," I laughed. "But the likelihood of that is---" I rolled my dice. "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

105 damage in one hit, leaving the poor sap on 487 health out of 500.
The best part? When a Barbarian Criticals with a Barbarian Power, he make immediately make a Basic Melee Attack.

Thunduls head slunk forward and his body dropped to the ground, Skarburn standing triumphant atop it's shell. He had completed his mission and he was very proud of it.

We have been track of our overall encounter damage for these games for a few months now. The pattern we see is that Skarburn has the highest damage output per hit ratio, however Azure retains consistency throughout, while Saphira lingers in the rear with about half as much damage on a good day.

Tonight's encounter rose with Richard/Azure came out on top with 380 something damage, while Skarburn came out with 307 and Scotty/Saphira with a total of 88.

Game on.