Quote from: Wofl on April 18, 2025, 02:00:45 PM

We (they're) fighting fume drakes which are like flame drakes but with poison gas, three of them!

sounds nasty are they even vulnerable to physical attacks?

They should have been vulnerable to wind attacks, Joy would have fixed that but SheShe wanted us (them) to face these as is. They were vulnerable to cold because they were poison vapor. They were immune to a lot of things but physical damage wasn't one of them.

It started out well, Gwen used her equivalent of burning hands and Bear rushed them but we discovered that the cavern they were in was filled with poisonous vapor so Bear started taking 1d4 per turn which wasn't so bad since he had 40HP but all three used breath on him and he tanked that but he was down to 12HP Gwen's next attack fell flat, my attack missed entirely, then they attacked again, and the one that hit brought him down to 4 by some miracle he was ok but before I could heal him the gas took him out with 1d4=4. Then Gwen had to get close to use her equivalent of burning hands again but it hit poorly and when they attacked her she went down to 3HP away from instant death and since Summer is death locked to her that almost TPK'd us.

So Summer managed to get one down and ran back to get help, we were in a cave fighting them for myconids (mushroom people) so one of them came to help, he wasn't strong at all, but two drakes against a mage with 12HP is bad odds so when she returned with the myconid he ran up to them and she cast heal on Bear which popped him up with 5HP, the drakes by chance only hit the myconid which brought him to half, then Summer cast buffing magic on Bear and he has a sweeping strike that hit them both, knocking the second small one down but there was still a big one left; it still looked dire. Summer was out of mana and had only cantrips and she can propel stones with her staff but they only do 1d4+4. So she buffed Bear again and he critically hit the drake, the myconid attempted to charm it but that failed.

Summer had to stabilize Gwen and all she could do is buff because her attack is so bad. The drake attacked again and missed, it could have taken them both out if it hit well, it had a draconic furry which allowed two bites and a tail whip per turn, each doing 1d8+3 and 1d6+3. Thankfully its breath didn't recharge because that does 3d6 or 6d6 for critically failing or 3d6/2 even if you pass the save in an area that could have taken Bear and the myconid out.

It was down to Bear who moved out of the gas and again attacked, he had a good hit the myconid also hit and the drake went down finally.

Gwen had two levels of exhaustion, it would have been three but we don't get exhaustion for being downed which SheShe and Joy argued about but that's how SheShe wants to play as opposed to Joy.

We tried to rest and Gwen hadn't even healed enough to get up yet before another monster came out of the room that had been hiding, it was a crystalline scorpion. Summer has something like a charm spell ability that works only on creatures of 7 or less intelligence and thankfully it worked on this one. So they had an hour to somehow kill this thing knowing the first hit would wake it up. It might also get initiative and could easily take out Bear, so he had to do massive damage with a single strike or it would be very difficult. Summer woke up Gwen with her 1MP from a focus Gwen had, then Gwen still had 2MP, we had time so we quadruple buffed Bear, Summer has Bless and Guidance and Deadly Aim, Gwen has True Strike  Together with all that, Bear critically hit and with the buffed damage, and he barely knocked the thing out in one blow before it could roll initiative.



We then moved to a safer part of the cave so we could rest.

This was the second close call and we moved to level 3 after that. In this run SheShe is allowing us to level because we were given magic feathers by a giant crane, a goddess that visited us on this secluded island. We have enough to get us to level 4 but then we need to escape the island and get to civilization after that.

[Ashley] I got an idea, what if my sunmons and you just keep grappling, we can have multiples grappling the same large creature. They'd all get advantage on hit, in fact everyone does. I'm not sure if Yulya could cast certain spells without hitting the grapplers too though,  but the dragon won't be able to attack well or breathe on the grappled creatures.

So, our heros did finish the quest for the kobolds and their leader, an admitted bronze dragon with a warded shapeshift to a human form. She vowed pacifism and locked her form, so when there was a minor revolt of the kobolds at the arrival of a blue dragon wyrmling, our heros had to settle that. They killed the wyrmling, barely, and managed to reunite the kobolds.

After that, they left the island and walked to the nearest port to charter a boat to Neverwinter. When they arrived they were questioned and released and found lodging, sold their spoils and were sitting on a few hundred gold plus Gwen's original funds. They went shopping for new clothes, this is two years before you so at this point Neverwinter didn't have such tight restrictions for identification, and then went to settle their identifications.

They were at the hall of Justice, standing in line to register when it all went sideways. Bear was arrested for kidnapping "in the 9th degree" meaning of royalty, among 6 other charges. Wrongly accused of course, by the Queen of Neverwinter and thrown in the castle dungeons.

Gwen and Summer had to clear him and make a deal with her father, the king of Altus near Hillsfar, using portal technology to communicate over long distances, and was ordered home by the king.

It turns out her cultural age of independence is 20, and she was only 18. So she was ordered to return and also give up Summer who was sent to Luskan where she will later be rescued by Bear of course. Summer has of course the "Ring of Summer" bound to her by powerful magic so it can't be removed and she doesn't outwardly age as a result, so she may look 10 but her real age is unknown.

In your timeline she is slightly different, so she may be actually 10-12.

So Bear was conditionally released and banned from interacting with nobility or royalty for two years and so he was unable to go back to his cartwright business, he joined the guild and is now on a quest with...

It's a little weird here because apparently Ashley's "body" in the material plane is itself a summon, so before Yulya found her, she had been summoned to the material plane as an older person (20-25), a "death thief", and she understands that her soul at this time is still on the negative plane under the 'care' of the Raven Queen, two years before her appearance to Yulya as her true self, the stubborn, quirky and boisterous purveyer of cat summons you know (the self that she was on industrial Earth, 14).

So she, Winter in this body, recruits Bear as a frontline hauler and they leave for Hotenow Mountain just Northeast of Neverwinter to find a portal to a crashed space ship, not Alice's ship but another, much larger one, that is trapped in a pocket dimension held magically aloft and unable to touch soil. Winter is given instructions to aquire a lich's phylactery, containing its soul. They arrive through a labyrinth, fight a band of bandits with silver brooches, and enter through a porthole using a key Winter was given to complete the quest.

There in that region the floating ship, once repuposed by a mad scientist as a laboratory, has been repurposed again as a monastery built on it by a high level Bone Devil, akin to the strength of an adult dragon but without breath attack, that is capable of 6d6 melee damage with 20ft reach instead.

After negotiations failed for the acquisition of the phylactery, they narrowly defeated him and two half-orc champions with powerful cursed swords, then had to fight off two waves of berzerk zealot monks. Now they are in the process of freeing prisoners and will return to Neverwinter to sell their loot before Winter leaves him to return the phylactery to the questgiver, a season's journey SouthEast.

She understands she will despawn shortly afterwards and has only two years to complete it, she was summoned for this purpose.

Bear will head North to rescue Summer as is his wish. Of course that will not please the king Luskan who negotiated for her the moment her lineage was discovered.

After being freed, they may travel to Leilon, the place where your Summer lives now, or elsewhere.

Bear will then reunite her with Gwen around your timeline date, but as a free person, shortly before your campaign starts.

Bear and Hali left Neverwinter to go to Luskan where Summer is about to be enslaved again but to the Duke of Luskan.

She was recognized as royal tier quality and was only available to Duke or Royal caste, so Bear couldn't just offer a sum to purchase her directly, but because of his Duke in Waiting status and Hali as his proof, he was able to register intent to bargain and the Duke was sent a letter of allowance. He could refuse the meeting but he won't because he has the upper hand and there's no reason not to have a tea party for his invited guests. The registration is sent via crystal ball so at that point anyone who checked the registery now knows that Bear of Neverwinter, Duke in waiting and his attendant, a royal tier Avariel (not specifically banned from enslavement in Neverwinter or Luskan) would be traveling North soon to Luskan. Their levels are also known by a quick cross reference at the guild or hall of justice.

So this all means, they can't travel the High road without risk of kidnapping by bandits or "bandits" in the employ of a noble for the purpose of extortion or as a trap for enslavement.

Traveling the wilderness of the Neverwinter woods is safer from bandits but far less safe from wild animals. In the first quarter of their journey so far, Hali was almost one-shot by a cougar, they were besieged by 4 champion tier wolves (like normal wolves but higher HP) and managed to get past that without dying. They have 110 or so miles left to walk to get to Luskan then they need to arrange a meeting with the Duke. They don't have anywhere near enough money to bargain and Summer is physically and legally secured so they're going to have to give it all they've got to get her out.

Life can be cruel and their legal options are limited. Short of a heck of a lot of gold, they're going to need a miracle to achieve this or die trying.

[SheShe] I want to see them succeed but if either of them do die, at least they can come to me in the ethereal plane.

If Bear dies here, the campaign will go on without him, when Gwen returnes, she will likely have enough coin to resurrect him.