Slain by Elf

The DM can always be looked to for the keenest insights:

'All weapons are one-handed, unless they are two-handed.'

Mmm, thanks!

The current session of Iron Heroes is going quite well. We've survived a couple of encounters, explored a strange relic of an old civilisation, and found some loot that will help with our mission of subterfuge. As the tension grows with the excitement we must eat more crisps with dip! Bert reaches behind him, where the small stack of bags is, and starts pulling a large bag of crisps back with him when disaster strikes! His dropper-mentality kicks in and he knocks over a vase of flowers, spilling them and the large amount of water in the vase everywhere. And 'everywhere' includes the host's Freeview box.

Being gamers, we are used to being in high-pressure situations, dealing with the unexpected. As Bert fumbles around with some towels trying to soak up all the spilt water and Appo rescues his electronics, the rest of us wonder if we should be doing anything to help.

'We could perform the 'aid another' action', suggests Barry, quite wisely, we think. He rolls the D20 for the check and, unfortunately, rolls a natural 1. Whilst that may not be an automatic failure we clearly don't have enough ranks in 'domesticity' for it to succeed in aiding the clearing up of a spilt vase. Instead, we sit around watching and waiting for the excitement to die down so that Bert can open the bag of crisps.

The next session will see us on a mission to investigate what a vase of flowers is doing in a gamer's house.

Pets in World of Warcarft are pretty cool. There's little more comforting in the harsh world than knowing your frog (or cat, bunny, mechanical squirrel, whatever) is by your side. If it's not by your side, it is running to find and catch up with you. Pets are the most loyal companions you can have. And, yet, there is something lacking in their companionship, a trait that would be great to have in a pet whilst battling demonic forces bent on world domination.

I would like a new pet, one that shouts 'HOLY CRAP, TIGER! ADDS AT SIX O'CLOCK!' Personally, I think that would be a marvellous addition in a pet.

One friend remarked that he'd rather have it shout 'Thurgen' instead of 'Tiger', but I thought that was being a bit selfish of him.

Another had the brilliant idea of having the pet shout out only when there actually are adds behind you. I think this shows the merit of brainstorming ideas before implementing them.

Continuing the introduction prior to beginning the adventure proper, we are led further in to investigating an area rumoured to have been occupied by monstrous humanoids. Our captain fearlessly leads from the front, striding down dark corridors, through decaying rooms, and right in to a spider's web. This leadership is vital to our survival, though only because we get to understand how the healing aspect of the system works through his being pierced by javelins, poisoned by a spider, and beaten to death by an undead abomination. Perhaps he shouldn't have chosen the 'bullseye' shield design that seemed to draw most of the enemies' fire.

My Thief is not much of a fighter, particularly when compared to the others in the party who were striking heavy blows to our foes. Even so, I made good use of my performing skills to demoralise the enemy. I played a song of doom, shaking our opponents in to a less competent state. I had to point out my contribution to the battle afterwards. 'My 'Doom' song worked really well, as they didn't manage to hit us after I sang it!'

'Did they even get another atta-'

'Shh!'

After an introductory week with Iron Heroes our characters have been tweaked a little. Our GM notes that after the tweaks the Beserker is the only character able to take advantage of the token system that Iron Heroes uses.

I point out that 'I have the Devious Manipulator feat, which gives me access to tokens'.

'Do you get them by lying to people?' asks the GM.

'...no.' I then reach out and take a token from the pool.

The flaw in my plan is pointed out to me, not when the GM says that 'You can't do that to the GM', but by another player who notes that 'GMs don't count as 'people''.

My Night Elf warrior was flying about killing orcs on the Netherwing Ledge, enjoying the subterfuge quests the undercover goblin fellow had assigned to me, when I got an in-game tell.

<Paladin> Are you a tank?

<Tiger> Yep.

And with that, the paladin invites me in to the group! Hey, maybe I have my own things to do, and it's not like just because I'm a tank means I'll help out any random bloke, particularly if he doesn't even stop to ask if I'm even in the area. The nerve of some people, just randomly inviting others in to a group to suit his own whims. I don't even recognise his name, so I doubt I've been in a group with him before. Let me just check his guild with a quick /who.

With the results of that /who I realise what's happened. His location is given as the Mechanar, and I remembered that half-an-hour previous I had used the Looking For Group tool to show my availability and desire to enter the Mechanar with a group. Thankfully for me, I hadn't just turned down his invitation request, and joined the group for a pretty decent run through the instance, allowing me to pick up one fragment of the Arcatraz key, which was why I wanted to go to the Mechanar in the first place.

Botanica next. Let's hope I remember more quickly when I've used the LFG tool.

A new campaign, and a new system to go with it. We have decided to try out the Iron Heroes system, which includes a lot of advanced rules for combat and mostly eschews magic. It certainly sounded and looks interesting, with greatly expanded skill and feat sections, allowing for far more options to customise a character and much more interesting combat. Most of the session was spent creating characters and deciding what options to take, and then we played a short introductory encounter to get the feel for how the game plays before we take our characters on an adventure proper.

Iron Heroes has an interesting token system, where many character classes and feats offer the player a chance to build up certain tokens, which can then be spent to produce effects or actions that can change actions or introduce new aspects to the encounter. In the end, only one of us picked a class that has tokens from first level, the Berserker, but we got to see them in action during the first encounter.

Investigating some old ruins that have been rumoured to be housing some bestial humanoids, we first come across a rat problem. Mostly the problem is that they see us as breakfast. The Berserker was right at the front of the party, and he was there to take the brunt of the hits, and he gains a token for every hit he takes. It works quite well in that respect. Even though the rats were not terribly threatening, they still managed to nibble on him a bit, and so his token pool started to build up. The player decided to show us the rewards one could reap from cunning use of the tokens.

Apparently, spending tokens on the Berserker allows you to roll really badly on your to-hit rolls. Personally, I can't see the benefit, but the Berserker was getting pretty frustrated. A few more tokens spent and he may have even gone in to a rage.

Still, he managed to kill two rats, out of the eight encountered. Well, one of them was only because I forgot to roll my sneak attack damage, and the rat would have died if I had remembered. And the other one was probably a GM pity kill, as everyone else in the party was busy making rat-tail jewellery whilst the poor Berserker was striking the ground around the rat in a strange, reverse sword dancing way. A good start to the adventure!

The enemy we are fighting casts Invisibility, and disappears from view. This causes some problems with those in the party who are incompetent enough not to be able to cast See Invisibility.

'I don't know what I can do against an invisible enemy. I suppose I'll have to be on the defensive until the spell wears off.'

'How about casting Dispel Magic?'

'It's a good idea, but where would I target the spell?'

'On the invisible chap!'

'...'

The mansion of the father of the girl we were hired to rescue was suspiciously empty of the father and rather more suspiciously occupied by a succubus and some henchman. After killing them off, with my increasingly-more-common 'Arcane Missile them in the back as they try to run away' tactic, we explore the mansion a bit more, trying to work out what's going on.

We find a secret door, after realising there was a small hole in the map drawn on the gaming mat, and find a staircase heading down. Our searching skills are clearly improving, as Metrius even finds a trap on the way down the stairs. It's just a pity that he was neither the rogue nor actually looking for a trap. And even though it is a cliche, it is still fun to have the stairs turn in to a slide, and we get to watch a dwarf slide down through a door and then hear the whole room burst in to flames. After a quick rescue (note: not a rescue attempt, as we are professionals, what with all our experience of setting off traps inadvertently), we explore further.

We search rooms and corridors, finding more secrets and human bones, and ending up heading down in a lift to the depths of... something. When we reach the lower level what we see is rather unsettling. There appears before us to be three individuals conducting a demonic ritual, with two followers standing before a leader. Lightning flicks between them all, as chanting reverberates around the chamber, and a painting of the demon Rakh'likh the Defiler is the main feature on the wall.

The leader notices our entrance, and bellows 'You are too late!' bursting in to evil laughter. It is then we realise his identity: it is the father who hired us in the first place! It is he who is behind the whole demonic plot! Without time to wonder why he hired us to find his daughter in the first place, Wendel comes up with a plan.

'Hi, we found your daughter, but I can see you're pretty busy right now. If you'd just like to pay us the fee you agreed we'll be on our way.'

And, with that, we go in to initiative, as his followers make motions to attack us and the father casts Invisibitlity. The lengths people will go to to avoid paying contractors. I'm insisting on a written and signed agreement the next time we go on an adventure.

We had rescued the maiden from her kidnapped torture and brought her back to her home town. We had consistently reassured her that her boyfriend had most certainly not been found dead with a dagger in his back, and that message could hardly have been much clearer.

We had told her that finding a succubus in her now-apparently-deserted mansion meant her father was either already dead or that if by some miracle he was still alive he'd still be alive the next day, which was why we were running away.

When she tried to run away from us, thinking we weren't acting in her best interests, a quick Charm Person spell soothed her addled mind and brought her back to her senses.

And slumming it in a normal inn for one night instead of her mansion bed was, she was reminded, still better than being in a cage with a huge demon, where she was not too long ago, thank you very much.

And still she tries to escape through the window during the night!

I swear, I need a Comprehend Women spell.