V3 Session Twenty-Seven -- 6 August 2010 -- "Shadowfell Ambush"
Story
May, 1120
After returning from a mission to explore a ruined keep at Glimmer Lake, the party settles in at “The Foundation Stone” to wait for Erasmus to reach Hammerfast.
One night, as they pass the time in the common room, the other patrons suddenly stop talking and a darkness settles over the building. Soon, the party realizes that many people in the room have become undead – and the others have vanished. A lengthy and deadly battle ensues. In the end, Oin is killed, but the undead are destroyed.
After the last undead is killed, the room slowly returns to normal lighting and the original living people return (including those thought to have been turned into undead).
A search of the premises reveals that a man unknown to the party, in a room upstairs, had performed some kind of ritual to transport the party to the Shadowfell. However, the ritual caster was now dead – either because he sacrificed himself to the ritual, or lost his life when the party defeated the undead.
In addition to the ritual book, the party finds the following loot:
Game
Encounter 1: Pale Reavers
The first encounter was a home-brew using the “The Foundation Stone” map from “Hammerfast”. Most of the party was seated at a table midway along the back wall of the room (near a fireplace), while Ibiza and Imbo were at the bar. When the fight started, the undead appeared randomly throughout the room.
There were a total of 9 Pale Reavers (from “Open Grave”, p.176) and four Shattergloom Skeletons (“Open Grave”, p.181). The 9 Pale Reavers consisted of one “Lord” (described throughout the fight as a female – since we were using a female ghost miniature), three regular, and five “Creepers” (minions).
The Pale Reaver Lord stayed back in the first round to assess the situation1). By the time her second round came around, she had been pushed away and immobilized – so she was not able to use her “Terrifying Shriek” encounter power. She was, however, able to dominate Oin with her “Entrapping Gaze” encounter power.
Meanwhile, the other Reavers and the Skeletons moved to attack the two groups of PCs. The party split up and spread the fight out around the room – which had the positive effect of making the Pale Reaver Lord's “Terrifying Shriek” encounter power mostly useless2). However, it also had the negative effect of spreading the damage among the enemy – which may have made the combat last longer.
Once the Skeletons started becoming bloodied, their “Shadowy Rejuvenation” encounter powers kicked in, making the room much harder to navigate. It also gave the undead total concealment in most cases – making them that much harder to damage.
Because the fight took a full four hours to resolve (not finishing until about 11:15) and was much tougher than anticipated, there was no time for a planned second encounter.
| # | Challenge | Type | XP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pale Reaver Lord | Elite Controller/8 | 700 |
| 4 | Shattergloom Skeleton | Soldier/8 | 350 |
| 3 | Pale Reaver | Lurker/5 | 200 |
| 5 | Pale Reaver Creeper | Minion/6 | 63 |
| Total XP | 3,0153) | ||
| (6 PCs) | 503 | ||