EPTThere are six players who submit themselves to torture by me(GM).
Arim - Halfling Rogue
Sumer - Human Paladin
Miro - Halfling Sorcerer
Linnor - Human Bard
Puk - Gnome wizard
Raul - Half Elf Cleric
A few items to know beforehand (not in-depth at all):
- Continent is being invaded by distant empire
- Party is a squad in a legion formed together of the remaining cities unconqurered
- Party has been dealing with attacks here and there, no fullscale battles yet.
- Large orc bands have allied with defending legions
- Recently given task to find the bounded ones (a group of saboteurs to 'clear' the path)
- While investigating, a village the party was staying at was attacked by a combined kobold and giant force.
- The attacking force took special care not to kill villagers, they only sought to maim and injure.
- The party is then tasked to take the survivors to the city of Tanwick(nearest major city and base point for free legions)
- On way back they meetup with other large caravans of wounded all reporting the same attacks.
- The defending legions now have to deal with thousands of wounded and thousands of new mouths to feed(logistical nightmare)
- Next task is to check on status of other villages, they come upon one that was captured by the enemy
- Huge battle ensues, party defeats many kobolds, ogres and hogbolins. As well as a few 'bounded ones'
Note recap below is very point for point -
So we start off, the party standing outside a now burning inn. Corpses liter the entrance and inside piles of them stand around a large hole in the ground (the enemy used the hole to gain entrance into the town, party did it also using it to sneak up on the enemy). The party quickly release the prisoners(the enemy did not slay them, but kept them prisoner). The released villagers quickly bring order back to the village, party is thanked - victory celebration etc.
Party investigates the room the bounded leader chose (escaped during the chaos). They find several documents and plans - but the best clue is a map that shows the location of other 'strongpoints' the invaders are using. Party say their goodbyes and leave the village returning to Tanwick and the legions.
Upon returning back to legion camp they are ushered into the commanders tent and given an update. Short story party is told they will send squads to the spots marked to see what can be found, the party is given a task to strike the location nearest the village they liberated. Party hopes to find and capture the leader who escaped. The party gears up and heads out.
This is what I wanted to focus on for the recap of this session:
Afflictions and how amazing they can be.
The party while traveling set up camp within a quiet forest glade. During the night, the player currently on watch - Linnor - was quickly ambushed. Appearing out of nowhere a gigantic spider bites him then quickly disappears. His cries rouse the party up, just in time for the spider to return and bite another player. Battle begins and the players come against their enemy: A Phase Spider.
Phase spiders are deadly creatures from the ethereal plane. Capable of delivering out an incredibly powerful poison. Phase spiders(in combat) will typically bite an enemy, phase shift out of reality itself. The following round it will return and bite the next enemy. Rinse and repeat. Once someone is infected, the spider would simply wait in the ethereal plane until their prey dies to the poison. Come back in and scoop up the corpse.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/upJ53xc.png)
What follows is a very close combat, where our PCs barely hold off against the spider. In the end they successfully defeat it - although the party is in dire straits. Three party members are still infected by the poison and are slowly dying. Arim, Sumer and Linnor all slow begin to die from the poison. Our cleric is capable of casting Delay poison, giving the first infected(Linnor) - a better chance of surviving.
What follows is a tense scramble to find a cure. Normal heal checks are not enough, and no one has any spells capable of dealing with this. The players scour their collected knowledge and recall a special flower capable of some anti-toxin properties. The players (who are even capable of running) charge into the forest looking for the flowers. This is all still during combat rounds - so during this the infected are slowly ticking away. Sumer however proves strong enough to beat the poison.
NOTE: The poison deals 1d2 CON damage per round. CON damage above all else is the most dangerous, while dropping to zero in any other stat normally causes the damaged to go unconscious. CON damage will straight kill you if you reach zero.
Now two players remain infected (Arim & Linnor) although Linnor is safe for several hours thanks to Delay Poison. Arim however...not so safe. Arim being a halfling and a rogue as well, does not have that much CON - (she has 10 to be exact).
Time passes, Arim continues to fail those saves and she has now sustained 8 con damage(2 more and dead). During this the party has a hard time finding what they are looking for (lots of bad checks). The members searching the forest return with what they have and begin to mix a poultice. She is given the poultice and after a cliffhanger survives. The party right now has to decide if they continue on their mission or return to the legion to recover from their damage.
I'm amazed that an encounter like this could become such a close call. It's rare that an encounter could cause such a large chunk of roleplaying. Because of that single poison it turned a seemingly random encounter (players will hopefully look into why a phase spider just attacked them, and not think oh look random fight) into something memorable. I'm going to ensure this is something used a lot in the future.
This Wednesday will be our next session, I've been streaming every week on twitch : simkyren
The recording for the session detailed here can be found here(as well as previous sessions) Sorry before hand for sketchy audio levels; http://www.twitch.tv/simkyren/c/1972257
