The siege begins!
The characters (The Vingaardians):
- Drystan Silverhart – Level 9 Aasimar Paladin (Knight of Solamnia)
- Yseult De Lorimar – Level 9 Human Warlock (Noble)
- “Fletch” Siannodel – Level 9 Kagonesti Elven Ranger (Folk Hero)
- Sabelina – Level 9 Human Cleric of Gilean (Acolyte)
- Sidekicks: Hrigg Roundrook and Tem Temble
This session was basically all combat.
This session opened with the characters on the walls, the night before the main attack, as the characters take on an approaching group of Dragonnels carrying Bozak sent to feel out the defenses. The party took command of the Ballistae on the walls, and I let them use skill checks and magical abilities to help speed the reloading the process so they could fire more rapidly. This was a fairly quick combat, particularly with Fletch’s ludicrous attack modifier helping his ballista crew aim.
After repelling this attack, I moved on to the encounter where a Lesser Death Dragon was sent by them with a message for the party (that they could read if the Death Dragon didn’t kill them). This monster also went down in a couple rounds, with Sabelina basically sitting out the fight on the walls, while Fletch’s massive range basically went he could take pot shots at the dragon from the walls with impunity. This didn’t mean it was a cake walk necessarily.
The members of the party who were going to get up close and personal Dimension Doored over, with Drystan’s player deciding he wanted to do a Final Fantasy Dragoon style attack from above on the dragon. This did get him an earlier attack, as the dragon was surprised by this plan, but he didn’t stick the landing. He didn’t fall from high enough for falling damage, but he ended up missing his second attack as he had to recover from being mechanically prone. I did let him make a Charisma check to make it look like everything went according to plan to the spectators on the wall (though I did bust out the line from Black Widow of “You’re a poser, you’re always posing!” with one of the soldiers heckling him.)
After this fight, the party found the letter attached to the Death Dragon by Kansaldi Fire-Eyes, and as they weren’t impressed, sent a response of their own, which they sent attached to an arrow shot by Fletch. I let Fletch find a group of soldiers to shoot it into, and with his perception and attack modifiers, I basically let him roll to see whether he actually hit one of the enemy soldiers or put it in the middle of them – he hit the shot.
After these fights, the party went to check on whether Lord Bakaris’ plan to escape by boat, and got a tip-off that Bakaris and some soldiers were at the docks. The party arrived and tried to talk down the soldiers that Bakaris had persuaded to come with him – they succeeded at getting 3 of them to change their minds and stay, leading the party to fight the remaining 3 and Bakaris. This ended up being particularly short, as the party had picked up some Lightning Javelins earlier, and Drystan put two of them into their boat, rendering it “bloodied”, which I interpreted as that it was starting to leak. The attack made enough noise to draw soldiers over and prevent Bakaris and his remaining men from finding another boat, so he just surrendered, and he and the men who stayed with him were taken and held in the dungeon for the remainder of the battle.
The party was able to take a long rest after this, at which point the battle in full began – with the party returning to the walls to take on a quartet of Sivak draconians out to destroy the ballista. The party managed to take them out, and even managed to keep most of the defenders alive, only to see a small group of enemy Dragonnels slip through a gap in the defenses that another group of draconians had succeeded in making in the air defense, where they begin to firebomb the city, as the session concluded.
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