3.21.2011

There And Back Again, A Story of Dungeonfail

So, there we were...having completed our forays into the cultist's temple deep in the Dwarven delves, and returned awaiting reward (?) and our next commands from the liege of the place.

When we finally were able to meet with him, he practically sent us right back from whence we came, deep into the earth, this time to address the problem of undead creeping up from a long-buried tomb.

We geared up, retooled our spell lists, and headed down to the crypt, where we were met with an engraving that Angela's Warlock's Comprehend Languages was able to decipher, naming the place the tomb of a human(?!), whose name I can't recall at the moment.

Gaining entry took a short bit of time, but soon we were navigating the paths of the first true dungeon we've delved in this campaign.

And then it all fell apart.

Kedereckt was doing pretty well, leading us slowly through the place, intent on keeping us from the dangers of pitfalls and other traps...and then he was hit twice by 2 Zombie Minotaurs that had escaped notice by virtue of position. 50ish points of damage do not do a 7th level Rogue good, and he dropped, followed quickly by Oth Ixen and Chymond, leaving our Drow companion to stand against the one standing Minotombie.

She escaped, but healed Oth enough for him to act before heading out. He came to me and healed me enough to get up, then we finished the fight, and pressed on after some healing.

This led us, eventually to a room with 3 Wyvern Zombies, which pretty much everyone ran from except Chymond, who bottlenecked the door and attempted to let the others retreat, since I couldn't exit and close the door the turn prior to them getting to me.

We eventually defeated those monstrosities, thanks in major part to Oth's casting of Explosive Cascade, in addition to some well-placed Flame Bursts, or whatever the Reserve Feat thing is called.

Having healed up yet again, we ended the night trying to decide whether to rest or press on.


My thoughts:
Dungeoneering isn't the best profession for our characters, really. This is a generalist line of reason, but honestly, I just don't see it going well for us. Apparently, we either lack cohesion or we've just built our characters the exact opposite of what a dungeon delver should be.

Part of this, in my case, is that I'm not happy with my character. I don't know what I would do to change my character to "fix" my feelings of uselessness, but the first thing would be channeling positive energy. When I made the character, I felt like he had a solid foundation to build on: A young Dwarf seeking to carve a realm for himself, who wasn't afraid to use any means to do so (money, mind-affecting magics, undead as tireless labor/soldiers.) The game style has shifted from free-range to Go to Questgiver->Get Quest->Complete Quest->Get Reward, and I'm perfectly fine with that kind of play...but not with this character. I even went the "party buff" route with my spells, and only 1 seemed to fit the circumstances all night (Legion's Shield of Faith,) but my domain spells are useless (as they are all Enchantments,) as is my Command/Rebuke Undead, since the monsters are all too high of hit die. I feel useless to my party, which is a horrible feeling for a Cleric.

I have other, minor gripes...primarily, the Zombie Minotaurs hiding like they did seemed a bit too prepared for mindless undead, I assume Taylor didn't think of this...we did make alot of noise, but I feel like, being mindless, they would have just been lined up at the doorway ready to bull rush or overrun as soon as they could see us.

Also, the flow of turns...combat interactions...and questioning of the DM round out my irks.

I still haven't brought up my stuff about Chymond with Taylor....I need to do something to keep myself interested in the campaign, even if it takes creating a new character or changing the one i have completely.

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