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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 12h

I occasionally go back and try to beat the Broodmother again, but the best I've done is getting to her phase change one time. I just have a hard time finding the safe attack windows with her, and I feel like she's even more dependent on tool attacks than other bosses.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 12h

I found the Twisted Bud, took it for the Rite of Rebirth, got cursed and infected with a parasite, got that fixed. Doooon't really understand how to use the Witch's Crest.

I also returned to Weavenest Atla to see if it would do anything else. It totally did! I have 2 extra floating tool slots!

Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 3d

I've now beaten the second Savage Beastfly fight (not easy, but easier than the first) and the Disgraced Chef.

I'm currently working on the Broodmother, and the first several attempts have not gone well at all. It is SUCH a tiny arena!

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Reposted by Harbinger of Doom

Alexander the Spooky @alexrineh.art · 20h

37 takes and this is best we could do?

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 19h

I laughed out loud in a therapy practice waiting room.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 1d

I am glad that it works for people who are not me. =)

But in fairness *because* I come from 2e stock, I can't mentally manage "this AC number always means exactly one type of armor" the way OD&D and 1e occasionally need one to recall.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 1d

I'm sorry, I can't read what you posted because my EYES fucking SKEETED BLOOD all over my SCREEN

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 1d

I started with AD&D 2e, and remember the optional weapon types vs armor modifiers (2e DMG p53) that don't accomplish the SAME thing, but are probably intended to gesture in its direction.

The fact that the table is incredibly hard to use during play is, um, another matter.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 1d

I'm not even in that field and I just threw up in my mouth

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

Poor guy got ditched as fuck by his adventuring party.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

Tonight's roster:
14th-level Fey Wanderer ranger
3rd-level Forge cleric/10th-level Diviner wizard
10th-level Eldritch Knight fighter
9th-level Lore bard
9th-level Evoker wizard
7th-level Great Old One warlock

No one leveled tonight, but the cleric/wizard is a breath away from level 14. =)

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

The giant king opens the wax seal (which was enchanted with Finger of Death against anyone not authorized to open it) and it turns out to be the sigil sequence for a Teleportation Circle. So now the party is guessing that that goes to the flying castle.

Everyone seemed to have a pretty good time!

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

They make more observations here, including a ritual-cast Identify, and then head home, not a lot richer in cash, but having wildly more information. (I skipped the part where they had their familiars fly as high up as they could go to look for the flying castle, and think they spotted it.)

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

They investigate this room and have a grand old time imagining how they can manipulate the spell further to turn the tower into a rocket ship and fly it around the continent or back to the flying castle it came from. Then I point out that its gravity manipulation obviously stops at the tower wall.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

They descend to the third and final room. There's a brass seal on the floor - the anchor for the tower's variant Reverse Gravity effect. There are weird brass objects hanging from wall-brackets that apparently control the manipulation of the Reverse Gravity - "an artificer's answer to Metamagic."

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

There's also folded paper sealed with a lead seal on wax, warded with magic of Abjuration and Necromancy. The wizard observes that when it comes to wards, "Abjuration and Necromancy party hard."

The scroll on the desk is a Druidic scroll: Storm of Vengeance. (A legendary consumable magic item.)

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

There's a mention of an arcane device and a request for "another quarter-ton of orichalcum" for the colossus in the room above. This does not fill the PCs with confidence, as it means all that got looted decades ago. Orichalcum is super-important in the campaign for causing and solving problems.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

The warlock, who has the giant king as one of his Far Scribe targets, deciphers the marginalia with what I can only assume was unhinged insight (the player plays him as a weirdo gutter-mutant scumbag), while also corresponding with the king about it in his Pact Tome. Very useful interaction option!

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

...so it can touch-cast Mending. I was absolutely delighted by this. I had explained that forcing the drawer open would otherwise damage documents in the drawer.

The documents include accounting ledgers for this tower specifically, with dense and abbreviated marginalia.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

The writing table has a scroll on top, shattered inkwells, scattered quills, and a stuck drawer. The drawer is stuck because of damage from the fall. In what may be an all-time first for D&D, a moth (the Eldritch Knight's familiar) makes a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to get to the damaged part...

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

The cleric/wizard puts the kibosh on that with a Turning.

They move on to the room (subjectively) below. It has a dining-table set with rich plates, goblets, and so on, faded tapestries, and a writing table with a drawer. The bard shovels the lavish giant-sized dinnerware into his bag.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

One of the PCs is a veytikka of the sort that help the dead move on to the Ghostlands. He chats with Rudolfo, sympathizes with his plight, answers his questions, and sends him on to the afterlife.

The PC also talks to the giant ghost. The talk goes badly and he gets Possessed.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

This room has some humanoid remains on the floor, a human ghost, and a giant ghost, as well as stairs downward. The room is curiously, conspicuously empty otherwise.

The human ghost is Rudolfo, who was killed by falling damage 83 years ago and lingers because of unsatisfied curiosity.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

As he crossed into the interior space, the fighter's plane of gravity shifted to the floor of the tower, 30 feet away. He'd have fallen, but he wears Winged Boots, and in 2014 rules those don't take an action to activate. (Activation is unclear, which is why they take a Magic action in 2024.)

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

There were some unmanifested giantish ghosts outside the tower, which the PCs ignored. The tower was 60 feet in diameter... so six stories tall when lying on its side.

They entered the tower through an opening in one end, the fighter leading the way and the Evoker detecting magic behind.

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Harbinger of Doom @brandesstoddard.bsky.social · 2d

They put together, with some great skill checks and creative uses (I love seeing an Intelligence - Mason's Tools check turn up information!) that the tower had fallen from a great height. From a flying castle.

(There was a sidebar between the wizards and the ranger about the practicality of this.)

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