SoW Campaign Log

[Melblen_Cairn]

Session 1-

Game group finally has gotten back together. Since all of my previous campaign's materials were lost when my previous computer shot craps, the group decided to give 4E a whirl. Being new to the version, I went looking for a good adventure to run from Dungeon. When I read the Scales of War I immediately got excited about it.

Spending a little time, I converted it to the new FR. Instead of 100 some years in the future for the realms I pushed mine further off more like 500 years from the events of my previous FR campaign. Brindol will be Loudwater. Overlook is replaced by Sundabar and Bordrin's Watch is Citadel Felbar renamed Warcrown's Watch.

My player's having never played 4e before either, began devouring the books we have picked up. Most of our first session was character creation. The party they came up with is as follows;

Ash, Longtooth Shifter Paladin
Vondel, Dwarf Cleric
Baryn, Human Wizard
Niola, Eladrin Warlock
Holgar, Half-Orc Barbarian

Both the Dwarf and Shifter are from the same Dwarf Hold near the Sword Coast. The shifter having been orphaned, then rescued and raised by Vondel's clan. Both are followers of Moradin. Vondel will be part of a side plot I have in mind. All he knows of his family line is that his Great-great-great-grandfather joined the clan under unknown circumstances and Vondel has a small amulet that has been handed down through the generations since. So they journey north following some leads to look into the origins of the amulet arriving in Loudwater enroute to Sundabar.

Baryn and Niola have a connected recent backstory. Niola's fey pact is to a capricious power of the Feywild that has held her sister captive for many years forcing her service for it's own unknown ends. When she steals an item from a magic guild in Silverymoon, Baryn is tasked with capturing her and returning with the item or not returning at all. Niola is able to send the item to the one she serves just before Baryn catches up to her between Loudwater and Evereska. After a quick fight she surrenders and they arrive in Loudwater as a stopover while Baryn figures out how to get back what she took.

Holgar is a distant descendant of two Half-Orc characters of my previous campaign. He is the Bartender at The Green Tankard, the inn all the PCs are staying at. A former mercenary who has settled here after a battle that went wrong. He made his recovery here in Loudwater and took a job at the Tankard intending to settle down here. He has become more restless of late.

I am sure there is a few more details we will be fleshing out at our next session, but everyone is very excited to get to it. None of them have any clue what their in for really. from the moment I read the first two encounters in the first SoW adventure I fell in love with them. I tweaked the first encounter quite a bit by adding a second floor containing the inn rooms and a walkway around and open to the taproom below. I added a third door and back stairwell to the second floor. Two thick support beams run across the open area. Hanging from one is an old standard banner from the Red Fist(yeah changed the name a bit) invasion 50 years previous ( a suggestion from something I read previous about giving the enemies some goal for being inside that paticular inn other than wanton destruction). I am also going to vary where the enemies come in from. Having the first two wave come in the front door, the third wave in from the back door on the first floor. the last wave will appear on the second floor, the goblin lobbing his torch at the card game table below and the hobgoblin with him heading to the beam to cut down the banner.

Since I run my games from Excel to track things I added a worksheet with a sort of map of the inn and a couple formulas to help track where the fires  randomly spread to during the fight. So I expect it to be pretty chaotic once the fire starts spreading to more of the inn.

I played with the second fight a bit too by adding NPCs to get in the way and avoid. I figure when the ogre first appears around the corner a host of npc townsfolk will be fleeing before it and one takes an arrow through the leg at the intersection and falls while carrying his child. Will have the mother near the PCs stop and shout to save her child and husband. Should make for an interesting fight. Ogre bearing down on them while the PCs decide to save the NPCs or get into better positions to fight the ogre.

Will see how they both play out this Thursday.

[Melblen_Cairn]

Session 2

Mostly my Players rounded out their characters and messed around the whole time while they came up with their "wish lists" of items. One player wasn't available and with the holiday approaching, we ended early and decided to begin the adventuring this coming week.

Vondel's and Ash's players are busy coming up with some mis-adventures they had leading up to the story's start. I simply said just somehow end up in Loudwater for the beginning.

In the mean time I have put some finishing touches on the maps I made for the first few encounters. I use Dwarven Forge pieces for dungeons but since these first few occur in town or outdoor locales I needed something else. The first encounter takes place on two seperate maps at the same time. One for the first floor and the other for the second floor with a view of whats going on below. I have the maps made for the Ogre fight next, almost a copy of whats in the adventure. Same with the possible Kruthik encounter. I created a map for the possible Cave Bear encounter which has several narrow paths running along the side of a steep hill with the cave in it.

While most of Rivenroar is going to basically be displayed using my DF pieces. I have begun planning what I am going to use for the second adventure in the SoW path. I have read in several spots of people creating elaborate pieces for the nexus. I will be creating something similar. I have several pieces of PVC in my basement left over from a remodeling project I can use. We'll see what happens when we get closer to that.

[Melblen_Cairn]

Session 3

[Melblen_Cairn]

Session 4

[Melblen_Cairn]

Had to put off last two sessions. Two weeks ago I had to work late (and I found out one of my players was in jail). Then tonight's session was a bust after the snow storm we just had kept one of my other players busy at his job for like 48 hours straight. We'll be back at it next week.

[Melblen_Cairn]

Session 5

Took a while to get back to it, players been busy with RL. So these updates will be random but we are continuing to meet. Last nights session was short as we all played catch up from the past several weeks. One of my players made an awesome dinner for us all. On to the update.

The left off ready to interrogate the hobgoblin prisoner. Vondal attempts a diplomacy and succeed but part of what he was suggesting was that he tell him what he knew or he would have no choice but to turn him over to his more unruly companions. So Ash and Holgar rolled intimidate checks to look menacing. They were hoping for a quick 3 successes, but they both failed and closed off intimidate. Morrick spits at them and holds out. eventually they fail the challenge but wind up with a map.

They decide to head out the next day. They have a rough time of it durin the next skill challenge too and run afoul a cave bear. The battle map I created was on a steep hillside with several paths on it. The one they started on ran past the cave. I explained earlier that these hills were riddled with caves so after a while they stopped checking them all. The cave bear stormed out and bull rushed Vondal. Nearly over the ledge but he made his save and was worse off.....prone at the bear's feet. The bear ended up with a high init and proceeded to frenzy with Ash, Vondal, and Baryn close by. Ash Divine Challenges the bear and strikes with bolstering strike but misses. Niola Fey Steps and appears on the pathway above the cave. Curses the bear and hits it with Dread Star (locking it in place, doing some decent damage, and giving it a minus 2 to will). Vondal goes next. He gets up, uses Healign word on Baryn (who was thrashed by that frenzy), and then swings at it with Healing strike but misses. Holgar flies into Thundering Hooves rage but doesn't do much damage with the initial strike. Baryn backs up a square and is handcuffed by the narrow path and the proximity of his companions so he just uses cloud of daggers.

The bear slashes at Ash but fails to get past his armor. Ash pulls out Paladin's Judgment but once again his dice aren't with him and its another miss. Niola hits the bear with Witchfire. Vondal slides over a square to back up next round in order to bring his ranged powers out and simply swings at the bear with his warhammer. Holgar dishes out some more decent damage on the bear with his encounter power. Baryn simply tosses a magic missile at the bear still lacking the space needed for his other powers.

This is where the bear starts laying the smack down, frenzy recharged so he unleashes it again (which drops Ash), uses an action point and attacks Vondal nearly dropping him too. Niola plugs away with Eldritch Blast. Vondal now has his back to the steep decline with the path 20 ft below. He uses his second healing word to help Ash and swings again at the bear. Holgar hits the bear from behind again. Baryn sends another MM at the bear.

Unfortunately for the party the bears frenzy refreshes again and before poor ash can even stand himself back up he is trounced to near death. The damage took out Vondal too. Niola, Holgar, and especially Baryn are like "Uh Oh". No tank, no cleric, Holgar is hurting and Baryn is far too close to hope to run away from the bear. Niola hits the bear with eyebite (knowing she could easily survive this, something about not having to out run the bear but simply being able to outrun Baryn). Holgar desperately swings at the bear doing more damage. Baryn chucks and prays another magic missile at the bear.

Holgar falls to the bear's next attack and turns toward Baryn. Conscience gets the better of Niola and she launches one last Eldricth Blast killing it off before the bear would run over the wizard. They stabilize their companions and they spend the night in the bears cave, dine on beer braised bear (we had braised short ribs that evening so it was rather fitting) and set out the next day following the tracks and map.

At this point it was getting late so we called it right as they were traveling down a path flanked on either side by high ridges. It was very little surprise when the bug-like Kruthiks crawled from their hole in the ground ahead.

[Melblen_Cairn]

Session 6

We got a couple hours of play in this week when we were able to all get together. In picking it up with the fight with the Kruthik's it tossed them right back into things. Holgar waded in and was nearly knocked to 0 and stayed low on hp's perpetually throughout the fight. Niola played it smart and teleported up on one of the ridges launching attacks from relative safety. Ash's player continued his bad run with dice. Along with falling into one of the Kruthik's warrens and being unable to get out, he also rolled 3 ones in a row during the fight. But he did finally kill something and he was ecstatic about, even if it was just a minion.....

The fight took a lot out of them so they spent the night in the warren they had stumbled upon. They conversed among themselves for a bit, RPing more about their pasts. When morning came, they climbed out and continued on their way.

The made the ruins without further incident and Niola was sent down first to scout out what they might find (she is fairly stealthy). Upon her return she told them what awaited them at the bottom of the stairs, and with decent stealth rolls from everyone they got the drop on the Hobgoblin and Goblins guarding the entry chamber. Rolling well, they managed to tear into the hobgoblins. After the surprise and first whole round activities, they had the Hobgoblins nearly bloodied and the Goblins unable to much else but shoot. Baryn used his Grease daily and kept the enemies mostly controlled the whole fight even getting the hobgoblins subjected to the mobile hazard flame several times. One goblin, low on health managed to escape and flee through a door and down another dark stairwell. Holgar made to follow but stopped up short when it got too dark for him. As he made his way up, I had the goblin shoot him again and run off. Oh man, was he fuming; player was uttering all sorts of things about once he got his hands on the goblin.

Unfortunately we ran out of time to keep going, but the players have been discussing it a lot since the game about which ways they should go when we get back together so it should be soon.