User blog:Hashimashadoo/Starting...sort of fresh

Doubling the playing sessions has had the effect of the players getting more involved in the game. Going to have to stop doing that next month but until then I'm going to try and make the most of it.

Last session was a bit of a disaster. The group encountered a gorgon during the last segment of the module. One breath attack later and 3/5ths of the party were turned to stone.

Granted, the last two PCs managed to defeat 2 more encounters by themselves after the fact while they were searching for a way to free the rest, but when Despayr the black dragon, blessed by Shar, turned up to test their defences, he found them wanting. Both barely survived the encounter and decided on a stealthy approach but it wasn't good enough. The last survivor limped out of the Plane of Shadow, leaving his three petrified companions (and one corpse) behind.

The survivor was carrying the bag of holding with the party's loot in it and, when he returned to civilisation, he was rather upset when an unidentified jar of magical gunk turned out to be stone salve.

Apart from their characters untimely deaths, the players have seemed to really enjoy this campaign. They insisted on starting the second module in the trilogy with new characters - led by the survivor from the last campaign (who, after selling all that loot has half again what he should have in cash plus the equipment he'd already gathered for himself. His new cohort at least is going to be taking up some of that however).

We're still not totally decided on party composition yet. So far we have:

moon elf Fighter 9 (the survivor)

poison dusk lizardfolk Ranger 3/Rogue 3 (the fighter's cohort)

moon elf Favoured Soul of Solonor Thelandira 9

a Druid, probably a third elf, specializing in shapechanging (planning on taking levels in Nature's Warrior and Master of Many Forms)

a fifth character who is either going to be a Bard or some other kind of arcane spellcaster. Plan was to make a Wizard/Sorcerer/Ultimate Magus but that was scrapped. Now they're leaning towards a pure Wizard or Sorcerer, maybe with levels in Incantatrix. Decision will hopefully come before the session starts this week.