On Top of the World: Session 4

This was by far the worst of our sessions in terms of combat and the blame for that falls squarely at my feet. Our party having beaten Melgoroth of the Eternal Blight finally got a weapon for Katarakis (The Smith's Hammer) which Du'nn'o fished out of the lava with her face given that she took 45 damage (12d6 Fire damage) because I was still annoyed about not killing her character a fortnight ago.

At the top of the ridge on the far side of the lava river was a great crater of glamoured forest in which dancing multicoloured lights weaved between the gret deciduous boughs. In the centre of the forest a massive oak rose out of the canopy and dominated the area around. Perhaps not the most original of glamoured forests to be sure but it worked quite well and for a while the party were wandering in circles. Eventually they reached the great oak* and decided to wander in opposite directions around it to reach the far side in a direction that was roughly north.

Halfway around Caradoc and Du'nn'o noticed they were being followed by dryads and a few minutes later realized they were no dryads. These were the deadly Malboro's we had been building for a week and I was quite pleased with how tough they were; as it turned out they were too tough. Here's three thing I learned:

1) Stunning is brutal and takes people out of the game and should not be given to 4 monsters in an encounter.

2) Stunning should most certainly not be a rechargable power with a 1/3 chance and auto-recharge at bloodied.

3) Taking people out of the game for near enough 5 rounds can be classed as a 'dick move'.

My lust for tough monsters made the Malboro's overly powerful and I was forced to give them a raft of 'on the spot' changes; lowering some defences, giving them the fire vulnerability they sould always have had and amending their bad breath to 'dazed' instead of Stunned.

All in all it was a bit of an underwhelming session, I think in order to make it up to the players next week might have to involve a trip into the 'awesome' bucket for encounters. At the end I polled some of the players for things they'd like to see and will use some of that feedback. Next week will be a session as normal although hopefully with more roleplaying and less unkillable monsters.

*Katarakis is officially insane. Our journey to the centre was a skills challenge and I was eager for a little bit of 'out of the box' thinking. To this end I told the players they could use any skills as long as they justified it. Given that the party were under the impression they were being watched Katarakis attempted to intimidate the hidden parties into revealing themselves... By shouting at the trees.