DCC 17- A shocking Stygoth fight

[toad]

I started my group on DCC17 this last weekend. They are a group of 6 (3 3rd levels and 3 4ths). They trek through the swamp and find the wagaon tracks. They follow them until the sounds of battle discribed in the first area.

Stygoth starts his attacks. Me being the nice DM that I am move him in and just do the bite attack first round. They return attack or cower away (the warblade was in a stance the helped everyone's Will save vs fear so all but one guy made it- BOO!).

Second round big Sty attacks 3 times (being nice again and not unloading on the party- won't happen again) and turns to leave. They attack back and hurt him a little.

3rd round and Sty is ready to fly away to harrass the group another day. WRONG! I will mention now that we use the Critical Hit deck from Paizo, which I love for things just like this, and the group got 3 folks with AoO on Sty as he went to move out. No big deal I think since he is still over 100 HP and has a good AC. WRONG again. The rogue gets his crit and confirms it. Pulls his crit card- Double damage and 2 bleed damage every round until a successful heal check 15 is applied. Stygoth is dead. Not now but soon since he has no way to heal. He will fly off and die in the swamp alone and scared by bleeding out 2 points every round. Hurray for the party. But wait- the warblade gets his AoO yet, and he crits too. Damn I say to myself. He pulls his card- Double damage and target loses natural flight movement until a heal check is applied. I drop my pen and weep for the mighty black dragon as he crashes to the muck.

The group steps back for a smoke and a couple cures. A few rounds later after a few arrows from the ranger to hurry up the process we have a CR9 dragon brought low by a group of 3rd and 4th levels. It was a great way to start the night and get everyone pumped. A while later they found Graah and he damned near killed a few.

Thank you Goodman Games for making excellent adventures and making them so damned fun.

[Harley Stroh]

Toad,

Yow! Great story. I'm glad your players are enjoying the adventure (and that Graah got in a hit or two ).

Off topic, Stygoth has got to be the unluckiest dragon in existence. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard of the poor guy sitting on the receiving end of a train of critical hits.

Amusingly, the lowly lizardfolk ambush in the marsh seems to garner more than its share of close calls.

The dice giveth, and so the dice shall taketh away.

//H

[toad]

Little add on to the story. After defeating the Witch and claiming the Forge as their own for now the group (good aligned) decided to save the slaves. We need food for that they say. Food. Food. Meat. Dragon meat. Hey maybe we should feed the slaves some of ole Sty.

I was about to start changing alignments when the wizard thought better of it and decided to search all of the Forge for supplies. Blasted wizards and thinking. They were about to infect close to 30 slaves with Blight.

And I could have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for you blasted adventures.

[Harley Stroh]

Now THAT is just too great for words.

Blasted heroes.

//H

[JediOre]

Cool. It's neat to read how other DMs ran a module you've done as well.

Different outcome for the slaves in your group. The slaves all died when the Forge collapsed.

[toad]

They haven't gotten that far yet. They set up a triage center in the forge. Now they are going to go get the skull. Hopefully they think ahead to get everyone moved away before tossing it in.

[Warduke]

They haven't gotten that far yet. They set up a triage center in the forge. Now they are going to go get the skull. Hopefully they think ahead to get everyone moved away before tossing it in.

crash .... whoosh .... noises of swamp collapsing.

pcs survey the wake.

"guess that takes care of our food problem."