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Return to Temple of Elemental Evil

Page history last edited by Lanica Klein 7 years, 1 month ago

D&D: Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil

The GM: Brandon

The Characters:

Claus	Bleysander, the Third Earl Of Moatus
	Helious
Lanica	CHARACTER
Brad	Zairof Ruckaj - Elementalist
Uriah	CHARACTER
MarieLouise	CHARACTER
David	CHARACTER

Game System: Dungeons and Dragons

Game Type: Campaign

Related Games:

None

Stand alone game

Synopsis:

Ever since I got the early playtest versions of the 3e rules, I had a sneaking suspicion that CR wasn't that useful in determining the appropriate challenge for an adventure. Thus, I bought the mega-adventure, "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" by Monte Cook. I allowed just the three core books and started with just four players; Claus, Lanica, Brad and Uriah.

They managed to get through the moathouse with relatively little difficulty, though I was nice with the dragon. After they actually got to the vast volcanic hideaway of the cult, things began to go badly. The bad guys were so tightly packed that reinforcements were always nearby and the group died...a lot. Eventually, David and MarieLouise came into the game, but it didn't help. They group was losing ground as all of their items were being sold to bring back their companions and the bad guys were picking up any items left behinds. The game ended when it was decided by all that there was no way that they could succeed anymore.

Memorable Moments/Quotes:

We ate Subway. A lot. We eventually had standing orders. Here are orders from my PDA:

Subway Order (whose turn it would be in subsequent weeks)

1-Uriah

2-Brandon

3-Coopers

4-Claus

brandon-

12in Wheat, turkey, pepperjack, mustard, lettuce, tomato, grn pep.

David-

12in Wheat, american cheese, Cucumber, tomatoe, lettuse, S+P

Uriah-

12in Random, Veggie delite, american cheese, lettuce, onion, grn pep, blk olive, tomato, mayo

ML-

12in Random, Veggie delite, american cheese, lettuce, onion, grn pep, blk olive, tomato, mayo, S+P

(Brian): I didn't play in this game, but boy did I hear a lot about it. From all the stories it was a brutal, nasty game and Brandon was a brutal, nasty DM. I heard no stories about him 'being nice' with anything. In particular he loved giving every monster nearby listen checks whenever anything loud happened so rather than the carefully crafted encounters of the adventure, the group had to face piles of them at once. He was also legendary for having the more intelligent monsters snag any magic items left on the bodies of the fallen so that when next the group faced them, the monsters were armed with the group's own magic items. I heard lots of talk of 'I'm giving it just one more week' and 'I don't know if I can go on with this campaign.'

Brandon broke their souls.