Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Ratpack – Shattered Star Book 2, Session 29

[Day 61 – Incubus and the Goatheads!  Live at the Lady’s Light, but only for a short time!]

[This game uses the Pathfinder 1E roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened August 2, 2021.]

[SPOILERS!  If you are likely to adventure through the Shattered Star Adventure Path from Paizo, this campaign will be spoilers all the way down.]


Player Characters

Zitch Grimreaper – male ratfolk 6th level Witch with a donkey rat (capybara) familiar

Roscuro – male ratfolk 6th level Monk

Swamprover – female grippli 5th level Wizard

Marativy – female ratfolk 6th level Ninja


Via Roll20

Hrefna – female changeling 5th level Omdura

Templeton von Trapp – male ratfolk 6th level Summoner (Synthesist)


NPCs

Gridik Stormstride – male blue kobold 3rd level Wizard (Invoker)

Ariphi – female tiefling 5th level Rogue

Mel Sharples – male halfling Cook (Expert of unknown level)

Alice Hyatt – female halfling Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)

Flo’ Castleberry – female gnome Bodyguard (Warrior of unknown level)



Autumn

Day 61

Mid-Morning

After the unexpected fight with the animating statue heads, the Ratpack examined the heads.  They were clearly automatons and yet another sign of the prodigious amount of magic available to Runelords.  The two least-damaged heads were placed in sacks for later retrieval.  These sacks were placed in Gnaeus’ old room.

Marativy scouted ahead.  The corridor turned back west shortly, where Marativy found an alcove with a mural and a pit trap.  The mural showed Sorshen, the Runelord of Lust, in front of a temple with throngs of admirers in front of her.  The temple was fronted with pillars and chained between each set were naked slaves.  While trying to safe the pit trap, Marativy accidentally triggered it.  Her ring of feather falling prevented her from being speared by the poisoned spikes at the bottom of the pit.

Marativy called forward the rest of the Ratpack.  The mural was checked for secret doors or compartments.  None were found.  A rope was secured in place, one end tied to the last pillar the heads attacked from and the other tied to a spike hammered into place on the far side of the pit.  There was a 6-inch ledge around the pit and that combined with various other skills allowed the adventurers to pass the pit trap easily.  The rope was left in case the group needed to retreat this way and were in a hurry.

Further down, the corridor ended at a door.  After verifying the door was not trapped, Roscuro opened it.  Beyond was a tall room with mural-covered walls, splattered with dried blood everywhere.  The room extended to the south, but a bat-winged human male stood across the room to the west, in front of some statues.  In front of him were two goat-headed minions of some sort.  The bat-winged human greeted the adventurers as his new playthings.  The Ratpack was having none of that.

Zitch called out to the adventurers that the bat-winged human was an incubus, a type of demon, and the goat-headed things were schir, another kind of demon.  All would have spell resistance and some other resistances.  Templeton charged the first Goathead and attacked it, his claws causing it to start bleeding freely. Hrefna used a Destruction invocation and attacked the other Goathead.  Swamprover cast Acid Arrow on the incubus, hitting it on its bare chest to no effect at all.  Marativy advanced to flank the first Goathead, taking an attack of opportunity, and then backstabbed it.  Ariphi moved to flank the second Goathead, but could not get in an attack as well.  The first Goathead split its attacks between Marativy and Templeton, hitting only Templeton.  The other Goathead split its attacks between Hrefna and Ariphi and hit both.  The incubus cast Crushing Despair – most but not all of the Ratpack shrugged it off [my notes don’t specify who failed, but I recall Marativy was one].  Roscuro stepped forward and punched the first Goathead in the throat while taunting the incubus.  Gridik held back and cast Mage Armor on himself.

Zitch put Protective Luck on Templeton, who attacked the Goathead four times, raking it with his claws twice, nearly dropping the schir.  Hrefna attacked and hit the second Goathead twice, discharging a spell through her sword and bloodying the schir.  Swamprover cast Rain of Frogs on the incubus to little effect.  Marativy slashed the first Goathead with her wakizashi and killed it.  Ariphi attacked the second one and killed it.  The incubus, stung by Roscuro’s taunts, attacked Roscuro with its sword, hitting critically and nearly dropping Roscuro with one blow [Roscuro saved against the secondary effects of the attack].  Roscuro attempted to return the favor with a flurry of blows, hit twice but to no effect [the incubus’ DR was high and Roscuro could not get past it].  Gridik cast Magic Missile at the incubus, the bolts harmlessly splashing off the incubus [due to spell resistance].

Zitch cast Protective Luck on Roscuro, who clearly needed it and cackled.  Templeton pounced on the incubus, but his claws did nothing to the demon.  Hrefna cast Cure Serious Wounds on Roscuro, restoring two thirds of the damage done to him by the incubus.  Swamprover cast Create Pit under the incubus, forcing the demon to fly in place to avoid the fall.  This initially annoyed Marativy as she could not flank the incubus for her next attack but it turned out to be the key to the battle.  Marativy was able to draw first blood from the incubus with a flurry of attacks, one of which landed.  Ariphi moved behind the statues in an alcove to hide from the incubus and then threw a dagger as a sneak attack when it lost track of her.  The incubus, judging Roscuro no threat, turned its attentions to Marativy and attacked her multiple times, hitting twice.  Roscuro used ki to leap high above the incubus, landing on the demon’s wings and grappling the wings, forcing the incubus to work at staying aloft.  Gridik cast Magic Missile again, hoping to pierce the incubus’ spell resistance but failed.

Zitch cast Protective Luck on Marativy and cackled, maintaining the active castings.  Templeton cast Improved Evolution on his eidolon.  Hrefna activated Divine Might and attacked the incubus twice, hitting once normally and once critically.  This caused the incubus to drop ten feet down into Swamprover’s pit.  Swamprover waited to see what happened next.  Marativy jumped down onto the incubus, swarming with Roscuro, and slashing the incubus.  The incubus, furious, broke free of Roscuro’s grapple.  Roscuro leapt up and over, attempting to repeat the trick but the incubus was ready this time and it did not work [Roscuro had surprise the first time].  Gridik held his action, waiting to see who would come out of the pit.

Zitch cast Protective Luck on Hrefna and cackled.  Templeton flew down into the pit, pouncing on the incubus, clawing it two times and causing it to start bleeding.  Hrefna animated two chains with a spell and tripped the incubus down in the pit.  Swamprover stepped up to the edge of the pit and cast Snow Ball at the incubus, hitting it.  Marativy used her ki for an extra attack and hit the incubus twice.  Ariphi jumped into the pit and swung on the incubus, killing it!

Swamprover canceled the pit spell, the extradimensional space lifting all in it back up to floor level.  Hrefna activated a Rapid Healing aura as many of the adventurers were seriously wounded.

End of Session


Rat Whispers

[Relatively short session due to the big fight, but we were all satisfied with how things went.  The incubus required us to come up with new tactics and the Create Pit casting that was originally considered a mistake became the key reason we won.  I personally do not like the grapple rules in Pathfinder (I think they are too powerful) but was able to put them to good use FOR the party as opposed to them being used against us in the adventure text.]

[Next session we make much more progress than this session, so stay tuned!]


Ratpack

Book 1:

Session 01 – Start

Session 32 – Conclusion


Book 2:

Session 1

Session 10

Session 20

Session 21

Session 22

Session 23

Session 24

Session 25

Session 26

Session 27

Session 28


Session 30



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