December 20th

On the 27th of Mirtul (the 5th month), the party headed into the Frozen Blood pass lead by Tyrone. They were looking for Fridmund and the other townsmen who had gone into the mountains. It was a long, hard, cold climb. There were rocky ledges and steep trails, making it apparent that few people came this way. Part way up the mountain the dwarf heard a magical message from Zargofoop that, when they get the chance, they should all come to Candlekeep.

http://tyrion.net/gaming/silverybits_2.pdf

On the second day they spotted a group of trolls, but in brave fashion they avoided contact. That evening they unfortunately found many of the townsmen, but they were dead. They had clearly been set upon in the night be a party of orcs. They managed to kill six orcs, but because of the surprise and numbers they really had no chance. Apparently a wounded Fridmund was dragged along by the orcs. Some wild beasts had also found the campsite. The wizard turn himself into an Umberhulk, dug graves, and laid the fallen men to rest with his giant claws.

The trail was easy to locate, but still a hard march. It took two days before the trail descended into a wooded valley. The party saw smoke, and they identified an orc outpost in the valley among the mountain ash, birch, and crab apple trees. It was not a village, as there were no women or children, only a group of angry male orcs. Two humans were tied up in a pen, but they were too far away to be identified. The party prepared themselves the next morning and attacked boldly at dawn. It was clear the orcs fought individually without much overall plan. It was also clear that a lot of them enjoyed tripping people with spiked chains, the most ridiculous weapon in the known world. It was learned that tripping an enlarged dwarf is difficult, and some people found that fact depressing.

http://tyrion.net/gaming/orc2.pdf

With victory theirs, the party argued over whether they would or would not take the spiked chains and battleaxes in for sale. Meanwhile, the badly beaten and near-death pair remained restrained, eagerly hoping someone would untie them. It seemed the wizard wanted to sell the items, but he couldn't carry them all himself. The people who could carry them didn't want to bring them. These people had been beaten for days, so a few more minutes wouldn't matter. Eventually they found that one captive was Fridmund, and the other was Lorna Tenstar, a monk from the same order as Sunny.

Lorna said that the monastery had been destroyed. A powerful white dragon had come at night and appeared suddenly in the monastery, killing everyone. His name was Skanterathmar, and he was looking for something. He kept shouting "she stole it" and "she must have hidden it around here somewhere" in nearly a rage.

That night the wizard teleported himself and Fridmund back to Hilltop. He sold the weapons while Fridmund let his son and the town know how things were going. Then they both came back to orc camp and everyone set off for the monastery. This was high in the peaks of the Nether mountains. Along the way they encountered a small band of frost giants, and the party apparently assumed that if they let the frost giants go then they'd take care of the trolls they'd seen earlier.

When they reached the monastery, they found it was mostly rubble now. There were bodies scattered about, including Sunny's uncle. Many of them were apparently uninjured bodies that must have been frozen by the breath of the dragon as they ran away. Unable to help them, the party followed Lorna's directions on where they had seen the female dragon flying around weeks ago. Eventually they located the lair of the female dragon and her young. The cave was hard to find because it was under an overhang, like a nose. The climb up was difficult, but they made their way into the cold cave.

They discovered a pile of coins and a chest. The rogue took away most of my fun by again disarming the traps, and inside they found a ring of three wishes with two wishes remaining.

Setting out from the cave, they learned that a certain dragon had been following them somewhat. They learned this because he suddenly appeared behind them blasting them with his cold breath. A great battle ensued. The party thought of using one of the wishes because they thought they may have met their demise among the bitter peaks (I did too), but eventually the battle turned and they killed the ancient dragon from the beyond the Spine of the World.

With Fridmund and Lorna safely returned to Hilltop, the party teleported to Candlekeep with Tyrone to see what Zargofoop was going on about. What he had to say was that Kalina Yomaris, their hated enemy, was sitting in a lovely green dress. The hem was torn such that she had clearly walked a long way. She smiled prettily and said hello. Zargofoop handed over a note that he said was pinned to her dress.



On the 12th day of Kythorn, 1385DR, the party is ready to debate what to do with Kalina and eventually head to Suzail and Castle Kilgrave.

I'd like to point out that ONE member of the party enjoyed letting the trolls live, since they apparently roamed/hunted so close to the human settlements, which at some point would introduce some hilarity as a bunch of farmers tried to defend themselves against trolls with some pitchforks.

Similar hijinks would occur if the group of frost-philic/fire-phobic giants happened upon the trolls. Marchosias would like some ringside seats to that battle.

I think the residents of the Silver Marches were going to lynch you soon.


I believe everyone wished to discuss their potion purchases and spells.

Yep, I think that we should stock up on health potions. We have enough gold that we should be able to get a reasonable number of cure critical's. Maybe even a heal or two.

If memory serves, I am really close to 11th level, which would finally allow me to cast heal. IMO though, I think that we are somewhat limited by having only one healer in the crew, so you can't all be 100% reliant upon me being able to keep everyone's health topped up. I'll do my best though.

We might also want to get some spell's like Bark-Skin, etc, that boost our AC so we will take less damage, etc...

The party was spoiled by having two priests for a while. Keep in mind some parties have no priests... of course, they are always much weaker for it. You're doing a marvelous job of keeping everyone alive. Think of yourself like the Duggers. You could go out and slay some critters yourself, but instead you're keeping alive a quiver full of arrows to go out into the world. It's far more effective that way. Unlike the Duggers, you're sadly not a clown car.

Barkskin would be a fantastic potion. Stoneskin would be as well, but that'll be expensive. Thinking along the lines of defensive buffing potions....Mirror Image, Displacement, any of the ability increase spells (Bull's Strength, etc.), Restoration and/or Lesser Restoration, Freedom Of Movement, Heroism....I think I've exhausted my ideas for now.

Jon, you should also consider taking some spells from the Vigor spell group, like Lesser Vigor, Vigor, Mass Lesser Vigor, and Mass Vigor. They can be cast pre-battle, and will have a duration of healing per round. You'll also be getting the Mass Cure spells soon, which will greatly improve your healing abilities while in battle.

I am still carrying a bunch of displacer pelts. Maybe I should look into having a cloak made?

Looks like at 6th level I get mass bull strength and the like. Which I think will definitely help us out.

I have no problem healing folks, but I'm just one Cleric. I think that we all need a contingency plan

Completely agreed. Everyone needs to be carrying a supply of potions to help themselves in a pinch. However, remember that my cleric in the past campaign was built to be a militant cleric - he sacrificed some of the "typical" attributes that a cleric might have (skill points, feats, etc.) in favor of things that helped him beat a bunch of ass, including taking 4 fighter levels. He would've been a much better healer/buffer had I built him a different way. Not sure of your plans/goals for YOUR cleric - remember that a cleric who can buff before a fight and heal during a fight is a HUGE advantage on the battlefield. You don't always need to be doing damage to swing a battle in our favor. Think of what happens when you can cast heal - an unconcious dwarf bleeding on the ground is all of a sudden up and pounding enemies with his fists again. That's almost as if the damage is coming from you.

Yeah, it's not usually a position seen as glorious. However, once another character takes their full amount of damage, then all damage they do after that is really because of the priest.

In 2nd edition, there were things that were broken. Primarily, bards were broken. They got the full list of arcane spells, and their experience chart was way easier. For example, a wizard with 1.6 million experience would be 14th level. A bard with 1.6 million would be 17th level. So let's look at fireball...

A wizard gets it at 5th level, which is 20,000xp for him. Right then he casts it as 5d6.
A bard has to wait until 7th level, which is 40,000xp for him. However, he will cast it at 7d6 at that point.
When that wizard hits that same 40,000xp, he becomes 6th level and casts at 6d6.

Obviously, that's broken. If a wizard and a bard both have 40kxp and cast fireball, the bard does 1d6 more damage. They just didn't think it through.

Yes, I know I'm rambling now. I'm getting to a point in a round-about manner.

Enlarge was also a bit different. Basically, everything got a multiplier. That multiplier was equal to 1 + caster level/10. So if a 3rd level wizard were to cast it on someone, all of his damage and stuff would be multiplied by 1.3. At 10th level that was 2.0. At 20th level, it was 3.0.

This campaign went on for a while, and I had a very high level bard. I cast enlarge on a fighter poised to make an attack on a shadow dragon that was close to turning us into shadow dragon poop. I had already run out of any other useful spells. With the ridiculous multiplier, the fighter did just enough damage to kill the dragon. He shouted "I killed it!" I responded "No, I killed it! All that extra damage was mine." I was right, he was wrong.

Exactly this. If you have a guy that on average hits for 30 points of damage a round and is focused first, and the cleric heals him, then everything after the point where he would have dropped over dead is fully because of the cleric.

In D&D, I consider healing powerful but balanced. In other words, if Yenrab was a barbarian, wizard, or fighter, our group would be weaker, but we WOULD have the ability to deal more damage from the get go, there would be more beatings faster- but they would peter out. More importantly, a character reduced to 0 health is helpless, and COULD be finished off by an opponent who suspects he won't win, but may have to fight us another day.

When World of Warcraft was new, the "buffs" you could bring as some characters (like a paladin) were seriously powerful. A fully buffed character would do probably 30% more damage or so than one without buffs, and if you got the powerful windfury totem (dropped by a shaman, all in range of it had a 20% chance whenever they swung a weapon to swing a second time with the same weapon instantly) and were, say, a warrior, your damage would probably go up by about 15% just from the totem. You would definitely bring a dude who brought buffs if you didn't already have one, even over a really good player of a class that doesn't bring buffs but has a lot of damage or what have you.

In D&D, buffs are often *even better*. This is because you are assumed to be losing a round casting them, and "your round" is a limiting reagent. Said WoW Paladin spends ten seconds buffing people, but that's before the fight- when I enlarge Sunny, that's usually during the battle (and if I can cast it before the fight starts, it is simply amazing). Haste in particular adds up very quickly, usually being worth casting after two rounds have played out, assuming at least two full attacks go off each round. Additionally the buffs are much cooler because they stack geometrically- Yenrab's Bull's Strength adds +4 Strength, then my Haste adds an extra swing and a +1 to hit, and so you are hitting more total times and each hit does more.

Healing in WoW is amazingly powerful- if you walked into a boss fight with no healer, everyone would be dead inside of 30 seconds of a fight that should take five minutes, and the tank would be dead within 10 of those 30. It's assumed that everyone is constantly receiving heals, and a healer *only heals*, and you have quite a few of them. However, healing is more interesting in world of warcraft- you have 1.2 to 2.5 seconds from the time you cast one heal to find the next dude that will need a heal- while your character is casting (or your global cooldown is spinning from applying an instant cast spell), you are seeking out the next injured target, or predicting who will take damage a moment before your next heal lands. In D&D, healing can become boring after the third round of it, because you are just rolling your d8s and hoping for the best, and your positioning in the fight is mostly a choice between providing a flank and putting yourself in a defensive position. Healing is also a lot weaker, as a cleric cannot actually keep someone alive as long as they have spells- someone could easily take enough attacks in a round to end them before the cleric can act again, and this is not his fault- unless you want to blame him for not casting, say, hold person.

I agree, Jon, you have been very helpful as a healer. I think there a few battles we may have been in pretty bad shape if you hadn't given me or Jay a heal. You are sort of like the offensive line in football, you are the main reason we win even if you don't get to be on the cover of Adventurers Illustrated or have your own action figure.

This.

And I guess you can all be on the cover of AI with me...

Nah, I'll stick to my usual location of the back page. Thanks, though.

After working very hard with all of your charms and shopping around with the benefit of rapid transportation, you come up with the best prices on potions...

Heal 110 hp: 3250 gp
Heal 130 hp: 3550 gp
Heal 150 hp: 3875 gp (only 2 available)

Cure Serious +5 hp: 740 gp
Cure Serious +15 hp: 1245 gp (only 4 available)

Cure Critical +7 hp: 1375 gp (only 3 available)
Cure Critical +20 hp: 2475 gp (only 2 available)

Restore: 9999 gp (only 1 available)

Barkskin +3: 575 gp
Barkskin +4: 850 gp (only 2 available)
Barkskin +5: 1160 gp (only 1 available)

Heroism: 725 gp

Fly: 800 gp (only 3 available)

Bull's Strength/Bear's Endurance/Cat's Grace/Eagle's Splendor/Fox's Cunning/Owl's Wisdom: 265 gp

Stoneskin 70hp max: 1740 gp (only 3 available)

Restoration: 1210 gp

Freedom of Movement 70 min: 1430 gp (4 available)

Looking for the following spells:

1- Phantom Steed (PHB, 3rd level)
2- Invisibility Sphere (PHB, 3rd level, 4th in this game)
3- Greater Invisibility (PHB, 4th level, 5th in this game)
4- Fear (PHB, 4th level)
5- Telepathic Bond (PHB, 5th level)
6- Eagle's Splendor (PHB, 2nd level)
7- Fox's Cunning (PHB, 2nd level)
8- Magic Jar (PHB, 5th level)
9- Permanency (PHB, 5th level)
10- Overland Flight (PHB, 5th level)

Given that they are all in the PHB and you currently have access to a big library, you can find all of those. Cost to copy is 40% of the scroll cost.