Session 30: Rolling in the dirt Part 2

General Summary

Summary: 3 points plus 1 for map mgmt.
After this session and feedback I raised some Logistical Concerns.

Further fracas

Round 5

• Maya calls down a lightning bolt, catching the two guards. One successfully dodged the worst of it but the other isn't so lucky.
• Sunny uses a Defensive Flourish and lets loose a charge from Deep Rumble on the stone figure, shaking the creature and knocking a piece out of the center section. He lands a second hit and knocks off a few more pieces, surmising that the creature is probably now more damaged than whole.
• Kolvonnin lands a solid hit in an upswing and a critical on the downswing, driving the stone creature to its knees, sundering its head and removing a solid chunk of it.
• The stone figure responds by clouting Kol twice with his maul, inflicting significant force damage.
• The prone chanters rise from where they fell, and confer briefly in Terran. The move towards their foes, make a few mystical passes with their hands, and summon forth a series of Spiritual Weapons around the field. These attack a few people with some success.
• Harb lofts his Potion of Stinking Cloud vial towards the chanters and the demon, cloaking them in an obscuring vapor.
• Leucis casts a (L3) Healing Word on Kolvonnin, then lights the last standing crossbowman with Sacred Flame, ending him. (rule clarification #1)
• The recently summoned creature in the Stinking Cloud conjures a cloud of his own over the group around the stone figure.

There was some difficulty about this point with how the various clouds obscuring vision was working; Matt in particular had some issues with how his view of the battlefield looked (specifically, Ctrl-L didn't seem to have an effect). We couldn't figure out what went sideways here; a map refresh didn't help, and James lost the ability to select some items on the map. Toggling Dynamic Lighting on the map didn't resolve it, either.

Round 6

• Maya charges into the cloud, but takes some poison damage from the noxious fumes.
• Sunny chokes on the fumes (successful save) and realizes this is like Stinking Cloud but significantly worse. He pulls the Wind Fan out and blows away the fumes, coincidentally blowing both the stone figure and Maya's boar form south in the process.
• The stone figure is blown further away, but uses his movement to get back to Maya, and lands one hit of two with his maul.
• The chanters cough and sputter in the Stinking Cloud, and several stagger out somewhat disoriented. Their Spiritual Weapons flail ineffectively.
• Harb exits the cloud and uses his Second Wind.
• Leucis Channels Divinity for his Twilight Sanctuary.
• The summoned insect claws at the cleric and lashes out with a trident, but is foiled by Sunny's Silvery Barbs, causing him to catch on the cleric's armor and drop the trident entirely.

Round 7

• Maya charges at one of the chanters who emerged from the cloud, catching him beneath the breastplate and tearing him open up the front.
• Sunny swing his theorbo out and clobbers a nearby guard (expending a charge), impacting at the neck joint. The guard folds to the ground.
• The rock figure exits the wind and takes a mighty swing at Kolvonnin, dealing a significant force blow with additional thunder damage. Kolvonnin is knocked out.
• The remaining guard swings at Leucis but is foiled by Sunny's Silvery Barbs.
• One of the chanters attempts to Command Leucis to "Leave!" but the cleric's will is too strong. A few others attempt to grab Leucis or Harb but are unsuccessful.
• Leucis disengages from the surrounding crowd and calls upon Selune to Healing Word (2nd) Kolvonnin.
• The summoned insectoid makes a strange swipe motion and disappears, reappearing next to Leucis.

Round 8

• Maya calls down a fresh bolt of lightning in a crowd of enemies. The rock figure, a chanter, and the last guard are struck. The guard takes the worst of it and collapses in a charred heap.
• Sunny clouts the rock figure in the midsection, breaking the main body and ending it. He dismisses the Gust of Wind from before, then slides over to a chanter and lands a heavy blow to the knee joint.
• Kolvonnin gets up and calls up his deity to Turn the Tide, recovering some damage on both himself and Maya's boar form. He then uses his Lay on Hands (10) to recover further and closes in on the insect.
• Harb flicks out with his rapier and stabs a chanter in the foot, collapsing his windpipe while he's distracted. He then reverses direction, pirouettes and offs the other chanter.
• Leucis calls out a Word of Radiance on the last chanter, and the cleric's Sprititual Weapon swings on the summoned creature.

Round 9

• Maya charges the remaining chanter, attempting to replicate his earlier success with disemboweling. The druid lands a significant blow but doesn't completely drop the foe.
• Sunny two-hands Deep Rumble and lands two solid hits on the insectoid (used one charge) - the chitinous exoskeleton cracks in places but the creature stands firm.
• Kolvonnin gestures at the insect creature and attempts to Compel a Duel; the creature fails. Having engaged his foe, Kolvonnin lands a pair of heavy blows and Smites with the might of Pelor, knocking off a mandible and causing it to ooze an unhealthy-looking fluid. It seems to be on its last legs.
• The last chanter swing his stone club at Maya and lands a hit, but he's trying hard to hold his innards inside his torso.
• Harb goes after the summoned creature with his rapier, and the weapon skids along the outer shell before punching through and skewering its vitals with a squelch. It falls unceremoniously. Harb slides over and lands his second attack on the last foe standing, finishing him off.

Combat summary:

• Total duration: 9 rounds (4 from prior session)
• PC drops: Kolvonnin (7)
• Rule clarifications:
  1. Moving through a Spiritual Weapon
     RAW: "A spiritual weapon doesn't pass through walls. It also doesn't occupy its space; it's not a creature, and it's not described as being large enough to fill its space."
     Ruling: As RAW. No AoO or space-blocking for Spiritual Weapon.
• Kill board:
  1. Harb: 6 kills. (Rapier) on a crossbowman (3,4) two chanters (8), the summoned demon and the last chanter (9)
  2. Sunny: 4 kills. (Shatter) on two crossbowmen (4) ; (Deep Rumble) on a guard (7) and the stone figure (8)
  3. Maya: 3 kills. (Lightning bolt) on the caster (4) and a guard (8) ; tusks on a chanter(7)
  4. Leucis: 1 kill. (Sacred Flame) on a crossbowman (5)
  5. Saf: 1 not-kill. (Nonlethal longsword) on a crossbowman (2)

Inspecting the dead and the strange surroundings

Maya dismisses his wild shape and casts Gust of Wind to clear the Stinking Cloud, then Cure Wounds (3rd) on Kolvonnin and Cure Wounds (2nd) on Leucis.
Sunny and Kolvonnin take a few moments to catch their breath, then start inspecting the tents surrounding the area. The tents themselves seem pretty ramshackle, and they turn up no other people or any gear or furniture of note; the only real equipment in the tents is a few shallow dishes that appear to be for eating. They only contain worms, grubs and the like.
Saf starts dissecting the body of the strange summoned creature. She doesn't locate the stone shard in the body, and notes that its physiology seems alien and she's pretty sure it's a demon. It seems to not have any breathing requirements, bile instead of blood, and bladders full of substances that make it seem unlikely to respond to poison.
Several people go to look at the strange stone slab in the middle of the area. Leucis thinks the designs may be a call or a summon, but don't immediately appear to be fiendish in origin. The sacrifices look both charred and dessicated, but the group is careful not to touch them directly. Leucis casts Detect Magic, notices and aura all around the area and notes that the there's a mixture of Conjuration and Transmutation with a little Evocation sprinkled on. The slab has Conjuration and a powerful Enchantment aura.
Harb looks at both the slab and the ruined corpses, and happens to spot that there's a mark on the bodies where they touch the slab as though the energy was pulled out of them into the pillar. One of the sacrifices (a tabaxi) has a glass eye that seemed unaffected by the ritual, and another one (a half-orc) is missing his leg from the knee down. Harb waves Sunny over to see if the bard knew the tabaxi, but they seem unacquainted. Sunny explains that he doesn't seem familiar, but attempts to sketch his appearance and leaves the matter of the false eye to Harb. The fighter attempts to remove the false eye without otherwise touching the charred corpse, and almost falls into the body but ducks out of the way. He now holds what looks to be a well-made glass eye, and puts it in his pouch.
Maya starts checking the bodies of the fallen crossbowmen for the item in their clenched fist - they have gray stone shards similar to the ones the group collected from the bodies of the earlier foes. The druid collects the shards in a cloth and starts dragging bodies towards the refuse pile. The other corpses didn't seem to be holding
Leucis turns his Detect Magic on the summoned creature, noting that it has some Conjuration (likely from the recent summon). Folks are unsure whether a summoned creature would return upon its death; it seems to vary based on the magic used. Its trident is well-made, but seems to be non-magical aside from having been summoned.
The cleric spots several auras coming from the heap, but many are buried beneath other items. He can spot a few humanoid corpses, some discarded gear, hides, rocks, and so on.
A few items he can spot directly with auras:

• One of the corpses wear a helm
• A bowl with a stick poking out of it

Harb suggests potentially removing the gems from the slab and possibly trying to wreck it in some way. Saf evaluates the effort required to remove the gems; while they are not large there are several and would no doubt sell. It seems they could be removed, but they're set into the stone in a way that would make them hard to remove without damaging the slab itself.
The party muses about whether (or if) they can or should destroy the slab.

Next steps:

1. Interrogate the prisoner.
2. Work out the loot/junk pile.
3. Carve bodies in search of shards.
4. Figure out what to do with the stone slab, its gems, and/or the shards.
5. Cleanse the area.
6. Burn the bodies.
7. Out of Character tasks:
   • Resolve camera issues (Meg).
   • Finalize Sohmweyr (Heather, John).

Session Feedback

Eddy: Attacking stuff was fun. Didn't realize how much was left at the end of last session. Folks getting to use new abilities was cool. Curious as to what the hell is going on; these guys have to be new since Sohmweyr didn't know about them. Teamwork was cool.
Heather: Fun beating stuff up. Rolling better damage would be nice.
James: Lot of solid teamwork. This was a very dynamic battle. Overkill on the effects - too many things at once. Consider not using the dynamic lighting for the clouds, since that introduces difficulties. The cloud was helpful but it made it harder to use the lightning.
Jeremy: Harb made an ultra-kill. Sunny is always a cannon. Big ugly effects (Slow, Cloudkill) are getting handled quickly which is great. Effective healing from Leucis. Good use of lightning. Help actions were nice. Doing the tank thing, fell down but got back up. A good healthy combat. We dealt with the rock guy longer, and when the insect showed up he didn't do a whole lot.
Matt: Strongly against not using the lighting effects. I don't like missing that much. Rolling better damage would have been much better.
Meg: Why they all gotta swarm me? Annoyed that there's no connection with what's going on and what has been happening.
John: This was a longer combat than I usually make; I didn't think we'd get to 10 rounds, and we got almost through round 9. Wasn't expecting the cloud right before another cloud. Super effective, but two right together made kind of a mess. Lightning and tusks were both super effective. I felt like this would be a hard combat but not likely a TPK. Glad I got to knock someone over, wasn't expecting it to be Kolvonnin, but he was taking a lot of damage he couldn't reduce. I wasn't sure if the group would consider the rock or the bug the greater threat; the numbers said one thing but I didn't know how that would come across.