The following fiasco was known as the Second Assault on Stormbringer Castle:
The cast was very much the same as the first time around. Rerolled characters were of like classes with few exceptions. A paladin, a fighter, a bard, a sorceress, a wizard, a cleric, and a rogue. (six actual players , the sorceress was a retainer)
Having failed on the first attempt. A kick-in-the-door style assault. The players decided to get sneaky. The plan was that the fighter and the sorceress would teleport to a few key towers along the castle wall. After the fighter eliminates the sentry they would then teleport the rest of the team to one tower in particular that gave them a clear shot at the ogre/hill giant barracks. They would then set the barracks on fire (via fireball) and teleport to the castle gate and enter unnoticed during the confusion.
The plan along okay at first. The sentries are eliminated and the team arrives at the tower to arson the barracks from. They all line up (The wizard, sorceress, and rogue since he has a fireball wand) and shoot the barracks which (naturally) catches on fire. The ogres come rushing out. Confusion spreads.
This part of the game divurged from the plan. The team wizard and rogue were dismayed that they didnt destroy the entire barracks building. (which was hundreds of feet of stone and wood construction) so they fired again at the barracks.
Well now the ogres and hill giants all got a chance to see where the fireballs came from. So they immediately charge the tower the PCs were on. The PCs were pretty much fine with that and fired fireball after fireball into the advancing ogres.
The ogres brought ladders, ropes, and grappling hooks and tried to climb the tower while the hill giants rained boulders down on the PCs. The PCs eventually had to stop shooting fireballs and and focus on the ogres making it to the top.
After a ginormous battle the PCs were victorious. The last few surviving ogres were retreating to the castle keep. The PCs teleported to the entrance (now in front of the retreating ogres) and the wizard blasted them with one more fireball.
An awful lot of fireballs being cast here. Wouldn't you say?
The players noticed that ,too. Right about this point. When they realised they hadn't actually entered the castle but were out of spells for the day (we used a system of spontaneous casting that allowed them to trade higher level spell slots for use as a lower level spell they had already prepared)
Feeling a bit vulnerable without many spell slots left the team enters anyway. The general mood was they were ging to scout around and find a place to rest. Well, the front room area led to a fight with a few ogre mages and an evil druid. The fighter and the paladin spread out and started picking off ogre mages. The bard dropped back behind cover and started buffing the other PCs (in D&D they had spells, edit:the bard and sorceress did reserve a few spell slots. it was the wizard and cleric who were out of spells). The wizard and the rogue dove for cover behind the cleric which made a really convenient bunching up for several cone of cold spells. None of the three made it out of that.
The survivors (fighter, pally, sorceress and bard) rallied by the sorceress retainer who (wisely) had one more teleport available. They again tried to rest in their boat when they were ambushed. This time by the Storm Giantess herself (and her surviving ogre mage minions).
When I asked after the game why the PCs stayed and fought the entire ogre army at the tower (and at such expense of team resources) the wizard told me he thought that was the plan, accompanied by the rogue player nodding vigorously while the fighter player had to hide his face and leave the room.
Christina Stiles wrote:
I hope your players now speak the name Stormbringer with great enmity and shudder when they talk about the module.
Oh, they do. They think it was designed to kill them all, but they do give it a wide berth.
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The Rock says ...
Know your roll!
