Sebastian D.
Germany
Berlin
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Previously: Session 1, Session 2, Session 3, Session 4, Session 5, Session 6, Session 7, Session 8
This will be our last session in this campaign and all of you know what that means. So let’s see how it all came together.
At beginning of session:
CONQUEST TOKENS: Heroes: 121, OL: 10/111; Total: 232
Player 1 (Andira): {Quick Casting}; Cone of Fire, Cloak of Mists, Mana Weave, (Pacify, Drain Life, Staff of Fire); 1 black 2 silver dice + Pico
Player 2 (Varikas): {Able Warrior, Tiger Tattoo}; Serpent Blade, Morningstar, Chain Mail, Belt of Strength, Ring of Protection (2 Iron Shields); 2 black 1 silver die
Player 3 (Landrec): {Vampiric Blood, Marksman}; Staff of the Grave, Cloak of Deception, Ring of Quickness, Ghost Armor; 1 black 2 silver dice
Player 4 (Ronan): {Shadow Soul, Swift}; Flying Death, Crystal Shield, Wizard’s Robe, Bag of Holding, Archer's Charm, Scorpio Helmet, (Mace of Kellos, Falcon’s Claw, Backbiter, Ripper)
Heroes at Riverwatch. They have ca. 1200 gold, Staff of the Wild, Enchanted Ship, Guide and Kerak’s Map. Upgraded market (1) and city walls (2)
OL Avatar: Demon Prince, XP: 10/111
Plot: Obsidian Shackles
OL Upgrades: Sir Alric F. (at Dawnsmoor), Endless Hunger, Silver Eldritch, Lord Merrick F. (dead), Kar-Amag-Atoth (at Tamalir), Event Treachery (1), Gold Eldritch, Monster Treachery (1)
City Status:
Greyhaven razed, Nerekhall razed, Tamalir at 3 tokens
Week 21
[+3] (13/114), Dawnsmoor +1 Siege Token (now at 1), Tamalir +1 Siege Token (now at 4). I buy 1 additional Event Treachery (now 2) [-10].
Heroes move to Smokeblue Hills. They figure, the Twins rumor doesn’t help them much and would only provide a more difficult last level in the dungeon, giving me more resources than they want. They basically want to get money for a training week before attacking Kar-Amag at Tamalir.
On their way they find a hidden treasure (+375 gold) and then enter the dungeon (+1)
Smokeblue Hills Level 1 – # 35 Pull of the Depths
On the first turn Ronan runs, activates the glyph (+3) and hides behind the rubble Poor blocking skills on my part, my priority was protecting LoS to certain monsters, which backfired like this. Everyone else moved to town, finding Black Widows Web and Lifedrinker on the market (buying nothing) and buying two potions. A razorwing and two hellhounds attack Ronan but do negligible damage. On the second turn, Meladon the leader is easily killed (+2). The chest proves empty (+1, +700 gold, +1 potion) and on their third turn the heroes move out with rest orders ready.
Besides my mistake of not blocking properly, great play by the heroes, fast, efficient, beautiful.
LEVEL SUMMARY: 3 turns; Heroes: +6 (128), +1500 gold, +1 potion, OL: +0 (3/114); Total: +6 (242)
Smokeblue Hills Level 2 – # 37 Entangeled Lives
Varikas opens a door and stands in front of it, blocking the path for the monsters behind it. Ronan runs and opens the other door, placing his Shadow Soul besides Varikas so the spiders are now trapped in front of Varikas. Andira clears remaining monsters with a breath attack and Landrec kills the skeleton on the glyph. With a couple of monsters rendered ineffective be smart placement I spawn beastmen and attack Andira, killing her with the help of the last skeleton and the Widow spider leader [+3]. The heroes easily kill everything (+2) and move into position to grab the villagers, also activating the glyph (+3). I have an opportunity and spawn sorcerers, who kill Landrec [+3]. The chest contains the Bow of Bone. After 5 turns they finally exit.
LEVEL SUMMARY: 5 turns; Heroes: +5 (133), +500 gold, +1 potion, OL: +6 (9/120); Total: +11 (253)
Smokeblue Hills Level 3 – # 41 Den of Snakes
The naga boss is killed on the first turn (+4). Varikas moves into the big room to cover spawns. Ronan runs and gets the empty chest (+1). On the few spaces remaining I spawn dark priests. Player 1 wants to Prevent Evil but it fails. So I kill Landrec [+3]. Andira’s way to the portal could have been easily blocked with a monster but I’m more worried about hiding it from attacks. Thus they swiftly move out, Ronan knockbacking Varikas for the missing final space.
LEVEL SUMMARY: 2 turns; Heroes: +5 (138), + 900 gold, +3 potions, OL: +3 (12/123); Total: +8 (261)
DUNGEON SUMMARY: 10 hero turns, 7 OL turns; Heroes: +16 (138), +2900 gold, +5 potions, OL: +9 (12/123); Total: +25 (261)
After a short discussion they end the week in Tamalir.
Week 22
[+3] (15/126), Dawnsmoor +1 Siege Token (now at 2), Tamalir +1 Siege Token (now at 5). I buy another Event treachery (now 3) [-10] and am fully prepared for the upcoming fight.
Heroes train in Tamalir: Landrec and Andira both +2 gold dice, the market has nothing. They also upgrade the market for the last time.
Week 23
[+3] (8/129), Dawnsmoor +1 Siege Token (now at 3), Tamalir +1 Siege Token (now at 6).
Heroes attack Kar-Amag
Kar-Amag-Atoth @ Snowy Woods
Treachery chosen is Dark Servant, Ambush, regular Danger and Aim. I’m going for an early kill. After the heroes are placed, I put 3 sorcerers in close range. Before they do anything I discard Danger and play Ambush (The Preventing Evil feat was luckily already played on the last dungeon level.). 2 sorcerer attacks later (one Aimed), Andira is dead [+3]. She was carrying Drain Life and thus posed the biggest threat to the demon.
With one of their damage dealers down, they are pretty helpless. On the 3rd turn I upgraded the demon to a master and reinforced a normal one. Still, after getting around the master demon (which didn’t block very well, I seem to suck at blocking.) and close to Kar-Amag, Varikas dished out surprisingly good damage, bringing Kar-Amag down to 40 wounds over the course of two turns. The location prevented Landrec from sprinting closer with fatigue and thus prevented the group from getting more damage in. The demons then killed Varikas [+5], Ronan gets the heck out and Landrec gets killed, too [+3]. No TPK but a loss nonetheless.
ENCOUNTER SUMMARY: 6 turns; Heroes: +0 (138), OL: +11 (19/140); Total: +11 (278)
They pretty much give up and don’t visit any building afterwards.
Week 24
[+3] (22/143), Dawnsmoor +1 Siege Token (now at 4), Tamalir +1 Siege Token (now at 7).
Heroes ask about my treachery choices, I tell them I would play the same cards and they basically quit, doing nothing. We still play it to the end.
Week 25
[+3] (25/146), Tamalir BURNS on the first roll!
Comments:
Only short comments, I’m rather exhausted today…
No end-session summary needed  .
Fighting (and defeating) Merrick seems to be an easier task than fighting Kar-Amag-Atoth . I made some blocking mistakes and was surprised by Varikas’ damage output but still walked away with an easy victory. Ambush was considered a “take one hero off the board immediately”-card and a little too strong.
Throughout the campaign their dungeon game became better and better (the last dungeon on this session was a real blitz despite going through all three levels). They learned the value of dice upgrades and the value of raw damage in general even if it didn’t help in the end. Piling Lts. on Tamalir at the switch to silver seems awfully strong, too, even if I know that with Obsidian Shackles it’s my only winning move (I still think a diamond demon might have some chances against not fully dice upgraded heroes, I really wanted to see that fight).
They still want to play another campaign, so their whining over the course of our game was really more situational then general  . For added fun I let them choose their heroes and draw the skills as per the rules, this time we will have it all, from WoD over AoD to ToI. I will also play an Avatar as far away from Tamalir as possible to give them some breathing room with their still-to-improve map play. In dungeons though I will fully challenge them, with the sorcerer king!
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joel cuthbert
United States
fort collins
Colorado
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Re: Campaign #3 - Demon Slavemaster - Session 9
ahh good luck. just a helpful suggestion, try a different avatar. sorcerer king is upgrading the same monsters, eldritch. or let someone else take a crack at being the OL.
your RtL campaign ended about the same as mine 2 weeks ago. we just started another at silver campaign, to see how far we can get into gold, and maybe even the final battle.
the reasoning for this is so we can experience the game more where we left off.
good luck and can't wait to see another session report.
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Trent Hamm
United States
Huxley
Iowa
See this text? It's a gratuitous waste of GeekGold.
The game itself isn't important. Spending time intellectually jousting with likeminded folks is the real reason to game.
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Re: Campaign #3 - Demon Slavemaster - Session 9
Uh... why wouldn't you now play a campaign where someone else is overlord?
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Corbon Loughnan
Singapore
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Re: Campaign #3 - Demon Slavemaster - Session 9
Wind Pact.
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joel cuthbert
United States
fort collins
Colorado
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Re: Campaign #3 - Demon Slavemaster - Session 9
corbon wrote: Wind Pact.
yeah, they definitely forgot about that. in fact, didn't we talk about what to do in the last session report? guess they didn't listen.
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Sebastian D.
Germany
Berlin
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Re: Campaign #3 - Demon Slavemaster - Session 9
duhtch wrote: corbon wrote: Wind Pact. yeah, they definitely forgot about that. in fact, didn't we talk about what to do in the last session report? guess they didn't listen.  . They will definitely get it in the next game, though .
trenttsd wrote: Uh... why wouldn't you now play a campaign where someone else is overlord? Because noone likes playing OL but me. They prefer the feeling of constantly improving a character. Yeah, I tell them the OL improves, too, but they still don't like it. Perfectly fine with me as I prefer OL .
duhtch wrote: we just started another at silver campaign, to see how far we can get into gold, and maybe even the final battle. Maybe that's a good idea for a quicker run through the stages of the game we haven't seen yet. I will ask them about it.
duhtch wrote: just a helpful suggestion, try a different avatar. sorcerer king is upgrading the same monsters, eldritch. or let someone else take a crack at being the OL. See above and concerning Sorcerer King: What do you suggest? I played Spider Queen before, so beasts and eldritch have seen the table. That leaves us with humanoids and the Titan is too close to Tamalir (as I said I want to give them breathing room on the map). So should it be Beastman Lord? As I told you they already picked their heroes, I just haven't told you their choices yet but Kirga is one of them making spawning humanoids rather difficult (although we might play with SoB dungeons which turn out to offer more spawning chances according to corbon).
duhtch wrote: good luck and can't wait to see another session report. Not so sure about posting more reports. As we might not play too competitively it could be a little boring/uninteresting to read.
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joel cuthbert
United States
fort collins
Colorado
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Re: Campaign #3 - Demon Slavemaster - Session 9
man, i had a long thing typed up, but then firefox just crashed.
i enjoy reading session reports because i can learn from good plays/mistakes. even if your reports are more summarized rather than your extensive write up, i wouldn't mind.
play with what you want as an avatar, i see your reasoning's for choosing the sorcerer king. i was thinking the spider queen, but you have already done that.
just a note that if you start in silver, some have suggested a house rule that once the heroes pick their 2 cities to train at, the OL may chose 1 city to raze. this signifies that a competent OL, will have at least 1 city razed by silver level anyways.
myself, i feel i am really good at OL, but after i have come off my win, it is a really nice change of pace to play a hero and strategize that way. what keeps people from playing the OL is because it seems very daunting, when in fact it isn't. people find it easier to have 4 minds vs 1, rather than the other way around. also if they don't have a lot of experience, if your goal is to get to the final battle, then maybe it would be a good idea that you aren't the OL.
anyways, to each their own. do what you and your team wants. it is just nice that everyone wants to play
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Sebastian D.
Germany
Berlin
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Re: Campaign #3 - Demon Slavemaster - Session 9
Well, at this time there seem to be a couple of questions regarding ratings of hero group combination I thought I’d post what our group came up with for our next campaign. Heroes were handpicked, skills were drawn by the rules. Obviously, copper start is assumed, if that changes during our next meeting all of this will be totally redundant.
Nanok the Blade with Enduring (other choices: Parry, Berserk, Inner Fire)
Battlemage Jaes with Leadership (other choices: Wind Pact, Blessing, Willpower)
Kirga with Precision (other choices: Pick Pocket, Shadow Soul, Skilled)
Runewitch Astarra with Spiritwalker (other choices: Necromancy, Fire Pact, Wild Talent)
They know about the importance of Wind Pact but declined to take it. They felt getting it will be relatively easy since my Avatar (not chosen yet, but probably Sorcerer King) will be south of Tamalir and therefore far away from Greyhaven. Also they felt it to be more effective on Astarra, whom they plan to use as their runner/mage. Nanok didn’t really have anything really great, Enduring will make him an armor monster even earlier. Kirga picked Precision, Skilled was worth considering, too. Astarra was thinking about Wild Talent (for trap protection and damage) but Spiritwalker is just too good (they didn’t feel Jaes would need it with his higher armor so no need saving it for later).
As heroes were handpicked they were also considering Zyla (one player would have really liked to play her (because of both usefulness and coolness), but the others convinced him not to). Landrec was present in all our campaigns (and judged as too slow), Carthos as too frail, the same with Laurel. So they were trying to consider the high damage heroes (as early damage was their main weakness in our earlier campaigns).
Nanok will get dice upgrades fast turning him into a tough melee with some good hitting power. Overall, dice upgrades will be their first priority as they don’t really have damage boosting hero traits or damage boosting card skills.
What do you think of this team? Maybe it doesn’t really have to be a super team as I plan to be a little “easy going” as OL. But please don’t consider your comments worthless because of this, they will read your assessments and hopefully be happy with comments like “great strong team”, “way to go!”, “OL will be crushed”, etc., so write accordingly  .
And I will keep posting some reports on this new game, though they will probably be shorter. Or really detailed turn-by-turn if the action calls for it. By now I feel more confident in judging the importance of in-game events so hopefully those sessions will still be fun/mildly interesting for anyone reading them.
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joel cuthbert
United States
fort collins
Colorado
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Eh, your skill choices are quite poor, but overall, I think you made correct choices. I wouldn't consider Jaes as a top magic user, primarily because he starts with 1 less attack dice. Astarra will be attacking every once in awhile, but she will be utilized as a runner primarily I am guessing so I don't think Spiritwalker is the correct choice, I probably would have went with Wild Talent.
Good luck, the Sorcerer King is fun to play.
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Corbon Loughnan
Singapore
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BastiRand wrote:
Umm. fail?
They've only got one combat-oriented starter. with no combat bonus.
They've picked Nanok, who is down a dice, non-damage special, and not given him a damage skill. They've picked Jaes, who is down a dice, non-damage special and not given him a combat skill. Kirga is a good hero, and precision the best of the skills there, but that's still another hero with great non-damage extras but no damage dealing bonus at all. Finally they've picked Astarra as a runner and then picked a great skill for someone else, instead of a damage dealing skill that also gives her a boost (runners suffer more traps) in her role or a runner skill.
The net result is very good party (you'd expect that when picking your own heroes) with lower than average damage-dealing capability (especially against tough monsters where you need high max damage) which is exactly the opposite of what you state they were after.
In short, they appear to have been sucked in by the coolness available to them and completely lost focus from their perceived problem.
To be fair, only Jaes really got other useful picks, though I too would have gone for Wild Talent with Astarra - her role will not be at the back killing things.
And they didn't choose Wind Pact after suffering it's lack so badly.
They will not have any sympathy when things go wrong in the next campaign... (though that will be a damn tough party if they are disciplined about keeping Astarra hidden at the back).
Quote: What do you think of this team? Maybe it doesn’t really have to be a super team as I plan to be a little “easy going” as OL. But please don’t consider your comments worthless because of this, they will read your assessments and hopefully be happy with comments like “great strong team”, “way to go!”, “OL will be crushed”, etc., so write accordingly :D.
If you go lightly then they may have a great time, because they have a really strong all round (except damage) set of capabilities. But they are very weak in damage dealing and a smart OL will screw them badly with that - I wouldn't expect this party to make it into gold level, though if they get a good start with the right dungeon levels and get a jump on the OL (and get some early damage boosts and good kit) then they could win the whole thing.
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Cross Haven
United States
Texas
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Thank you for putting up your Campaign, I roughly used your layout for my own.
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Alain Gottcheiner
Belgium
Brussels
Unspecified
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I don't agree with Corbon (nihil novo sub sole). Apparently, the characters were chosen (and they're good, although I would have piched Karnon in lieu of Nanok if he was available), and the abilities were drawn. Now, it's a pity that two very good abilities (Wind Pact and Leadership) went into the same draw, while Nanok didn't draw anything cool. True, they won't have any damage-enhancing ability, but they didn't draw them.
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Corbon Loughnan
Singapore
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Merrimac wrote: I don't agree with Corbon (nihil novo sub sole). Apparently, the characters were chosen (and they're good, although I would have piched Karnon in lieu of Nanok if he was available), and the abilities were drawn. Now, it's a pity that two very good abilities (Wind Pact and Leadership) went into the same draw, while Nanok didn't draw anything cool. True, they won't have any damage-enhancing ability, but they didn't draw them.
Note that they lost the last campaign because they just couldn't deal enough damage and couldn't defeat Alric, who razed Tamalir.
Their expressly stated aim for this party was to improve their damage-dealing capability.
They then chose three defensive heroes and a runner.
Sure, they didn't get a great skill draw, but even then, they chose skills that didn't improve damage even when damage dealing improvements were available (specifically Blessing and Wild Talent). Sure, the skills they choose were good ones, normally better than the options they didn't choose, but they had a specific problem, a specific aim to address that problem and they failed that aim at every choice they made.
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Sebastian D.
Germany
Berlin
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corbon wrote: Merrimac wrote: I don't agree with Corbon (nihil novo sub sole). Apparently, the characters were chosen (and they're good, although I would have piched Karnon in lieu of Nanok if he was available), and the abilities were drawn. Now, it's a pity that two very good abilities (Wind Pact and Leadership) went into the same draw, while Nanok didn't draw anything cool. True, they won't have any damage-enhancing ability, but they didn't draw them. Note that they lost the last campaign because they just couldn't deal enough damage and couldn't defeat Alric, who razed Tamalir. Their expressly stated aim for this party was to improve their damage-dealing capability.
But in the end, maybe they did feel they have too little damage capacity. This party composition was made after we finished our session some time after midnight. Musing over heroes is fun to us so we played around a little and they came up with this. When we met next time a couple of weeks later they had time to think about it and decided to ditch the party. Partly because they felt choosing heroes is just not the way the game is meant to be played (too close to cheating, maybe, even if we all, including me, agreed upon it) but maybe they felt they need damage abilities more, too. So we drew everything by the book and the current roster used in our active campaign is made up of Tahlia-Unmovable, Kirga-Rapid Fire, Shiver-Prodigy and Spiritspeaker Mok-Quick Casting. Sorry if I made you comment about a setup that didn't really see the board  .
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Corbon Loughnan
Singapore
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BastiRand wrote: Thanks for your comments. I think, they would rarely choose Blessing or Wild Talent over any "higher rated" skills like Quick Casting, Rapid Fire, Leadership or the like even if their aim was to get high damage heroes. Passing on great skills is too hard .
I understand and can agree - I probably would have chosen the same, although Blessing is highly under-rated IMO. Sure, it doesn't grow with campaign level, but it is probably the single biggest damage increase skill in copper level (when you need it most) Due to it being able to affect multiple heroes if used well.
But their choice of heroes was basically completely opposite to their stated aim. Good heroes (even great heroes) generally, but actually quite bad heroes wrt damage dealing.
End-of-night 'thinking' I guess.
Quote: But in the end, maybe they did feel they have too little damage capacity. This party composition was made after we finished our session some time after midnight. Musing over heroes is fun to us so we played around a little and they came up with this. When we met next time a couple of weeks later they had time to think about it and decided to ditch the party. Partly because they felt choosing heroes is just not the way the game is meant to be played (too close to cheating, maybe, even if we all, including me, agreed upon it) but maybe they felt they need damage abilities more, too. So we drew everything by the book and the current roster used in our active campaign is made up of Tahlia- Unmovable, Kirga- Rapid Fire, Shiver- Prodigy and Spiritspeaker Mok- Quick Casting. Sorry if I made you comment about a setup that didn't really see the board .
Yeah, I saw the new party and guessed either you smashed them quickly with Alric again or they restarted anyway.
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Alain Gottcheiner
Belgium
Brussels
Unspecified
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The problem with Blessing is that it quickly ceases to be wonderful (compare with, say, Prodigy).
If I understand it well, they were bound to play without Feats. That, of course, limit their anti-lieutenant abilities. Where else are they better used ?
I've seen one lieutenant die in one shot : Merrick, to a Ripper shot from Tobin, using Shooting for Distance. He did 21 damage at copper level !!
Perhaps this is the problem the players forgot to address.
But the best way to do so is to include feats, of course.
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Posted Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:15 pm
