Once the party reached the bottom of the stairs, they heard an extremely painful scream coming from somewhere on this level. It took a while, but I had found a nice mp3 to play for the gang. The first time I played it, their faces said it all.
Ekeraath took the lead and began almost running through the dungeon to find the source of the scream. The party didn't enter any of the rooms until they found the door with the screaming behind it. The only thing they did find was a room of inanimate skeletons.
Here is the text I read the party as they entered the room:
As you enter this massive room, you see the source of the screams. Strapped to a table, on a raised dais, at the far end of the room is an elf. Ancient, even by elven standards, he is obviously in great distress. Standing next to him is a being dressed completely in black. History or Religion DC 22 to determine he is a worshipper of Orcus. It looks as if he is performing a ritual on the elf. He looks up as you walk in and says, you’re too late, his soul will be mine in minutes. He then looks around the room and says destroy them. A wall of fire erupts around the dais and numerous undead rise at his command and attack.
The undead consisted of another blazing skeleton, another corruption zombie, and 2 wraith. The party started combat by concentrating on the skeleton. Little did they know, that the wraith have a daily power that would allow them to reanimate undead. So after dropping the skeleton once, it rose the next turn and continued the fight. The zombie and other wraith continued to pelt the party with ranged attacks, while the being on the altar raced to complete the ritual.
Eventually, the skeleton was defeated and the party began to concentrate on one of the wraiths. It used a power that pushed each party member in range, 3 squares. This put Ekeraath in the flames around the altar. At this point, throwing caution to the wind, he lept up onto the altar, willingly taking the fire damage so that he can interrupt the ritual and hopefully save the life of the elf.
Of particular interest, the party now began to break all the rules they had discussed after the disastrous bridge encounter from the session before. They split their forces and didn't focus their fire. Fortunately, they were able to overcome the tactical issues and defeat their enemies.
Being that it was 2am, I stopped combat once the Crimson Acolyte was dead and it was obvious the party would be victorious. It probably would have wasted another 10 minutes to complete combat, but there really wasn't any reason. I am interested to hear what everyone has to say about that.
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3 comments:
I personally appreciated not having to finish off the last few creatures. I think if you had come up with the in-game reason for not having to finish off the stragglers a few seconds earlier, nobody would have known it was a last minute decision.
As for breaking our own rules of combat, those rules were how to handle combat in an ideal situation. To Ekerrath, the goal of this encounter wasn't to kill all the monsters, it was to stop the ritual. Not exactly the ideal situation for a greataxe wielding fighter starting 125 feet away. In retrospect, I probably should have told everyone what my objectives were. Instead I left the group fighting 4 creatures with no cover.
If you hadn't said that you were cutting combat short, I wouldn't have known either - the reason fit well with the encounter. Definitely didn't mind, since it was almost 2 am.
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