My group finally (after seven sessions) finished Thunderspire Labyrinth. In contrast to the Friday campaign (more on which in a later post), the Sunday campaign has been running in a fairly by-the-book and tactical fashion. 

Brief summary:

Friday: 4e, no minis, more freeform, lots of roleplaying and exploration

Sunday: 4e, minis, more combat and tactical play

Due to the holiday period, the attendance recently has been somewhat erratic – anywhere from 2-6 players for each session! They’ve been helped out by an NPC – Splug – but I’ve also been scaling down the encounters.

The encounters in H2 tend to be a lot more difficult than those I design myself; I prefer most encounters being more “speed bumpy” in nature when I design, with a few key ones being more epic. 3-6 rounds seems about right. H2 encounters are more around 6-8 rounds, with the last set taking a lot longer – although this is partially due to some being “two in one”, or the group not having its ideal configuration. (Only having a warlord some of the time… you notice when he’s gone!)

Anyway, the final encounter came along. The three PCs and the NPC are facing Paldemar and his goons. Splug and Cairn advance into combat, with the Warlock and the Wizard hanging back in Paldemar’s chambers, and then disaster strikes! The door to P’s chambers is closed… and it has a Wizard Lock on it which means the group have to bash it down.

They knew the door was Wizard Locked, I hasten to add. This was a big Oops on their part.

With the party divided (and the arcanists wasting several rounds breaking the door down), the battle goes extremely poorly. At its end, Paldemar is the only foe still up (although he’s not bloodied yet), Splug, the Fighter and the Warlock are unconscious (and failing death saves), and the Wizard is on one hit point.

Oops.

“Mesa Give Up!”

The Wizard struck a deal: for the party to become the servants of Paldemar. Well, it makes sort of sense – after all, they’d “proved” their worthiness by slaying his other servants/minions/etc. I’m going to be very interested in what Greg (who plays the absent Dragonborn Paladin) will make of this… OTOH, he’s been thinking about being an evil Paladin, so this may be his chance.

It doesn’t even derail the adventure series that much. Instead of the group just happening on the Pyramid of Shadows, they’ll be sent there by Paldemar, for, as the module notes, he was interested in it himself.

Sometimes, things just fall out right!