We’re half-way through the Savage Tide adventure path! Isn’t that great?!

Most of the PCs have reached about 12th level, which is a little low, but is the result of having 6 PCs. For the most part, I think they’re handling the challenges well enough. The last session was a bit more hairy than normal due to players being missing, but as Martin’s wizard PC now has Teleport, they were able to escape. (Do you know how annoying the PC limit on Teleport is when you have a non-standard sized party? A 4-member group could escape with a 9th level Wizard. A 5-member group has to leave one of them behind!)

Well, most of them were able to escape. Poor Peggy just got slammed to -12 and death. Even with the trial Death or Dying rules, she wasn’t able to survive that. 50 hit points… dead at -12. Poor Peggy. Still, Rich’s cleric was able to raise her, and given that house rule I’m using for death penalties (“permanent” negative level until next level gain) and that she’s really close to 13th level, it won’t be long until she’s up and about again.

I really enjoyed running The Lightless Depths. Descent to the Depths of the Earth is one of my favourite adventures, and seeing another take on it is great. I just needed drow merchant caravans to make everything perfect. Alas, no drow caravans. Fish creatures aplenty, though.

The adventure did suffer from Paizo’s map woes. No, not 5′ corridors – there’s been a blessed lack of them in this AP after the first couple of modules, and I commend them for it – but instead the directions in the text and the directions at marked on the map were often at odds. Like a rotation of 90 degrees wrong!

“The party enters from the South-West”… hmm, it’s north-west on the map…

That sort of thing.

I’m a lot happier with that error than some others I can name (wrong scale printed on map infuriates me), and it is just something that amuses me.

The party is still really missing a high-Charisma character. Why both Bradford and Peggy are playing 8 Charisma characters I don’t know. The 4e Charismatic Rogue is going to be an absolute boon for my group. Actually having rogue abilities that trigger off Charisma? Fantastic!

I’m about to run into a problem, though. In The Lightless Depths, the PCs rescue a madman who tells them a bunch of clues that lead to the next adventure. I can see Martin and Peggy scratching their heads now. What madman? Did I mean the troglodyte? Well, no, I don’t. You see, when the PCs find the troglodyte that is important for TLD, they’re also meant to rescue a madman. Unfortunately, I hadn’t read ahead in much detail, so I missed how important that madman actually was. So, I omitted him from the play of the adventure. Oops.

No matter, his information will make it into this Friday’s session. Somehow. And the PCs will find themselves exploring the centre of the Isle.

I’d like to note that, in response to Bradford’s request last time, I used the battlemat for every combat last session (and there were a few of them as well!) Of course, Bradford wasn’t there, so part of the point was lost.

One of the last combats the PCs engaged in was glorious, though. Competing spells – invisibility of the monster countered with See Invisibility and then Faerie Fire. Invisibility of Peggy countered by the monster’s own See Invisibility. (Peggy was somewhat surprised when the monster attacked her… though that wasn’t what killed her!)

Book of Nine Swords is also getting a work-out and I think it’s going well. How the group will go in 4e when everything is similar to Bo9S? Well, we’ll see when it happens.

City of Broken Idols this Friday! It’ll be fun. Rob will unfortunately miss it (as he will be in hospital, alas!), but with luck the rest of the gang will be there.