DF Whiterock Session 56: Spider Temple

Date:

2019-07-12

Weather:

None, session entirely underground

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 320 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 393 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 388 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 376 points

Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 407 points

Significant NPCs:

Logan, summoned Wolverine

Drow Martial Artist / Torturer

Drow Warrior

2 Drow Rogues

2 Phase Spiders

Drow Priestess

3 Spider Swarms

We resumed in mid-battle, inside a hidden drow fortress in a giant stalactite, inside the Immense Cavern, under Castle Whiterock.

Zaber, still Invisible, flew silently behind a drow rogue, preparing to backstab.  The drow torturer, annoyed by Logan's attempts to bite her, punted him brutally.  She achieved a critical hit and knocked him back into a wall, but didn't knock him out.  Polly went for a flying rapid strike on the torturer, but she backflipped away from it.

Garreth re-readied his katana (which he had dropped and his lanyard had caught) and then used Kiai on the drow warrior with the hammer.  The target used Luck to resist it, and called Garreth a "muddy surfacer" in Undercommon.  Then he tried to smash Seépravir with his hammer, but Garreth sacrificially parried it.

A phase spider tried to bite Elias, but Elias blocked it with his shield.  Then another, not yet seen, phase spider phased in and tried to bite Polly.  Luckily for Polly, it was a side not rear attack, so she saw it coming and got to dodge at -2, and her dodge succeeded.  The drow rogue tried to run up and stab Polly, but missed.

Elias activated his Heroic Grace and Heroic Strength, and glowed with the holy green of Elyr.  Seépravir tried Rapier Wit on the torturer, but she just ignored it, and asked if surface elves were using mental defectives as wizards now.  Seépravir then tried Great Hasting herself, but critically failed, causing a bad smell of brimstone and rotten eggs.

Logan overconfidently tried to bite the torturer on the backside.  The torturer parried the blow with her foot and sent Logan flying into the wall, knocking him out.  She then threw the potion that she'd been holding at Polly.  Polly parried the potion, but this just caused it to break on her katana, still inflicting the freezing grenade attack on Polly's hex.  Polly took some freezerburn damage, but not enough to slow her down or inflict a stun check.

Polly retaliated with rapid strikes against the torturer, despite the shock penalty.  The torturer, not realizing Zaber was at shoulder level in the hex behind her, tried a retreating dodge into that hex.  Because it's not legal to retreat into an opponent's hex, I gave Zaber the option of staying low and blocking her retreat, or staying high and letting her under him.  He stayed high and she dodged.  Polly followed up with two more attacks, but she dodged those too.

Garreth went after the hammer warrior with drunken deceptive overhead attacks.  He blocked the first one, but since he'd Committed Attacked he couldn't parry, so he could only dodge, and that failed.  Garreth smashed through his scale armor for a major wound.  Garreth then landed a second blow, badly injuring the drow.  Realzing he was doomed, the drow went for an All Out Attack (Double) on Garreth's face, but Garreth parried the first blow, and the second one missed.

One phase spider tried biting Elias again, but Elias blocked it.  The other spider tried biting Polly, but she parried.  The drow rogue tried to stab Seépravir, but she retreated and dodged the rapier.  Elias, with extra DX from Heroic Grace, tried to Rapid Strike flail a phase spider in the skull twice.  It Phased away from one blow, but failed to dodge the other, and took huge amounts of damage.  Somehow it didn't pass out.

Seépravir used Rapier Wit on the drow rogue, causing her to pause for a second and reflect on her life choices.  Then she Great Hasted herself.  Zaber, a bit upset that the torturer had punted his wolverine, Invisibly backstabbed her in the eye.  (Technically a frontstab, but Invisibility allowed the kind of total surprise needed to get backstabbing bonus damage.)  The knife did enough damage to destroy the eye and penetrate into the brain, and the torturer missed her stun check by enough to be knocked out.

Polly went after the stunned rogue with a skull hit, and knocked her out.  She then went after a phase spider with a skull hit, and knocked it out too.  Garreth went for eye stabs against the drow warrior who had foolishly All-Out Attacked him, managed to hit once, and knocked him out with a badly failed stun check.  He didn't let his opponent's unconscious status deter him from attacking again, and stabbed him in the other eye, rolling a critical hit.

The surviving phase spider tried to bite Elias again.  Elias rolled a critical block, causing the spider to stumble.  Elias then smashed the spider in the skull with his flail, and killed it.  Its body disappeared.

With the fight over, Zaber grabbed the wineskin of healing potions to revive Logan.  Elias cast Stop Bleeding on Seépravir and Polly, and followed up with Major Healing on Seépravir and another on Logan.  Logan, once revived, marked his territory on the body of the torturer than had punted him.  

Polly noticed the torturer's backpack was magic.  Seépravir cast Seek Magic and found something near but not quite in the backpack.  Zaber looked inside and found a potion, a lot of little knives, and some thumbscrews.  Seépravir noticed that the drow warrior's hammer was also magic.  Garreth tried throwing it, but it didn't do anything noticably special.

After resting a bit, Zaber and Polly and Logan went down the stairs on the south end of the room.  They spiraled around and ended in a landing with a door.  Zaber tried listening to the door, triggering a trap he had failed to detect.  A blindingly bright light came out of the door, followed by the magical essence of acid.  Fortunately all three managed to dive back and only took half damage.  Unfortunately half damage was still a lot.  It was enough to knock Logan unconscious and leave Zaber and Polly in bad shape, and all three still blind.  After some yelling, Garreth came down the stairs with the wineskin of healing potions, and started passing it around.  After awaking, Logan blindly attacked the nearest wall.  (Fortunately for him, it wasn't the trapped door.)

A few minutes and several healing potions later, Polly and Zaber got their vision back.  Everyone except Zaber went up to the top of the stairs, and Zaber disabled the trap on the door.  Then he opened the door.  Behind it was a large room featuring two female drow and something drow-sized wearing scary spider armor (including huge fangs) looking right at the door.  Behind them was a large statue of some kind of drow-spider hybrid.

Zaber put the Ring of Invisibility back on, flew back upstairs, and grabbed Logan and shoved him back in his magic bag.  A taunt came from below, in Undercommon, "Come back, cowards!"  Garreth, who spoke Undercommon, yelled something back.

Seépravir started handing out Great Haste spells.  First Zaber, then Garreth, then Polly.  There was a bit of confusion, then everyone started flying down the stairs to attack the drow.  Zaber was first, but he didn't want to charge in alone, so he Invisibly flew off to the side of the room while All-Out Defending just in case.  Polly flew into the room, and fired a bodkin at the nearest drow rogue's vitals.  She failed to dodge, took a major wound, rolled terribly on the stun check, and was knocked out.  The drow in spider armor said "Foolish weakling, learn to dodge!"

Polly fired another arrow at the other drow rogue, but this one had Reverse Missiles up!  Then arrow turned around and came back at Polly, who dodged it.  She fired another arrow at the one in spider armor.  That one came back too, but she dodged it as well.  Polly gave up on arrows and fast drew a long knife.

Garreth flew into the room, fast-drew his katana, and chose to All-Out Defend.  The drow with the rapier nearby also All-Out Defended.  Elias flew into the room, before Seépravir could Great Haste him, so she followed him into the room.

The drow in spider armor cast a spell at Invisible Zaber, at rather long range.  Somehow it worked despite the range penalty, and caused him to start glowing, rendering his Invisibility ineffective.  He took the ring off, as he flew forward.  Polly flew forward and swung at the spider armored drow's skull, but missed.  She then feinted, and followed up with a body blow, that was acrobatically dodged, then with another stab at the other drow, which was parried.

Garreth, abusing Great Haste, went for an All-Out Attack (Double) for his first maneuver, with one of the attacks being a Rapid Strike, then a regular Attack on his second maneuver so he could defend. This resulted in an unreasonable number of attacks on the spider-armored cleric.  The first was blocked, the second was parried, the third was dodged, and the fourth penetrated her heavy armor and drew blood.  The drow called him an insolent half-breed in Elvish (which he didn't speak), and instructed the rogue to kill him.  The rogue then tried to drab Garreth in the face, but he critically succeeded on a parry, causing her to drop her rapier.  But she had a lanyard, so it didn't go far.  

A phase spider appeared right behind Elias, and backbit him with surprise.  Unfortunately for the spider, its bite failed to penetrate his heavy armor.  A second phase spider appeared beside Elias, and tried to find chinks in his armor, but he blocked its fangs with his shield.  Elias responded with a couple of rapid flail strikes at the spider's torso.  He had to use Luck to avoid a critical miss, and achieved two hits.  It failed to phase, then failed to dodge, but avoided getting stunned.

Seépravir used Rapier Wit on the nearby rogue, in Undercommon, mocking her inability to hold onto her weapon.  She failed to resist and stood there with her mouth hanging open, trying to think of a good comeback.  The cleric cast a spell, and 3 spider swarms appeared.  Unfortunately for them, they were ground-based and not very tall, and all 5 PCs had Flight on, so they couldn't do much unless someone was dumb enough to land.  Zaber flew around the drow, landed on their statue, and tried to break it with a kick.  This failed to do anything, as it was heavy stone.

Polly stabbed the stunned drow rogue in the skull, and she failed to dodge, then failed her stun roll by a lot and passed out.  She then feinted at the cleric, then stabbed her several times, penetrating her heavy armor twice.  Garreth smacked her a couple more times with his katana, drawing more blood.

The cleric started praying to Tororthun to smite all the unworthy surfacer invaders.  Her divine intervention attempt fell on deaf ears.  Seépravir tried Rapier Wit on the cleric but she just ignored it.  Zaber went for a flying tackle on the cleric, grabbed on, and then used a Judo takedown to knock her prone.  

Now the cleric was slowed by her wounds, prone, and grappled, for a total defense penalty of lots.  Polly threw a whole lot of attacks at her, causing a lot more blood, but somehow she stayed conscious.  Until the last one, which finally took her to -5 * HP, instant death.  The fight was over, but we were out of time, so the PCs stayed to loot the stalactite next week.

GM's Comments:

Some of the drow were pretty tough, but there weren't enough of them in one room, and 5 PCs with Great Haste were too much for them.  Reverse Missiles is a good trick, but the cleric only cast two of them, rather than three, for some reason.  And Polly is pretty good in melee now, so it doesn't completely stop her.  The phase spiders are pretty good at sneaking up behind people, but bad at penetrating heavy armor, so Elias was a poor target to pick.

Some of the enemies had Luck and Bless, using some of the the PCs' favorite defenses against them, but this only slowed down the outcome of the fight rather than changing it.

The nasty blinding acid trap fooled Zaber, but didn't manage to kill anyone, and the drow in the temple stayed in there rather than charging out to kill those affected, so it really only burned some healing potions.