Sister Helena leaves Amicus' Service

Since the Skull Collectors' trip to Jotunheim, Sister Helena - Blessed of Juno has leveled. In preparation for taking her to the next level, she needed a morale check to stay with Amicus which was a failure of epic proportions. Consequently, Helena has left Amicus' employ. I'm going to take the liberty of saying that she doesn't leave Gatavia immediately with all her loot and stuff. Maybe she at least stays civil with King Amicus. I want to say she still believes in what the Skull Collectors are doing, she is just sick of being in Amicus' shadow and wants to perhaps set to work building an cloister for her order. She did have a vision that one time she died, after all!

Would anyone else like to take a shot at recruiting her? She is now an 8th level Bladedancer, flush with a whole lot of cash and blinged up with some magic swords. Alternately, we could offer her as a character to a new player who joins us at the table. Failing that, I'll leave her to become another NPC in the Gatavia area.

Session 45 - Action Shots

The Skull Collectors storm Archbishop Wardrick's retreat.


Pay no attention to the demons!

Seriously! They are just here because I have no where else for them.

The first level.

The second level.

The first and second level.

The Skull Collectors enter the dungeon level.

The Skull Collectors fight their way down the stairs to the lower level.

Treasure Haul from Last Night: The Retirement of Hackamaam

Turning everything into cash,  Whang, Murderface, Rinaldo and Masked Archer each get 14,652 gp  from the Bishop assault.

We have a nice pile of magic treasure,  including The Golden Spurtle of Angus McTavish!  I have them all carded up and stapled together to be distributed next time.   I put the monster parts on a card (40,000gp equivalent of Elf hands, useful for making magic bows and arrows).   I'm assuming they have no cash value.

Oh, I also put our prisoner, Kneivel Rampage's, card in the draw deck, because I'm sure someone will want to take him home.

Also, Hackamaam is retiring.    Both of her legs were lamed in the battle, requiring crutches to walk around.   Tried "Restore Life and Limb" but ended up with the legs being restored by something on the Reincarnation table, so now she has wee little pixie legs and has decided to take her treasure pile and very slowly drink herself to death in the country.

The Aftermath of the Attack on Bishop Wardrick's Workshop

Sorry we went so late last night. I really just misjudged when the first act ended and completely lost track of time.

By process of elimination (I have all the treasure you didn't manage to take) this should be the complete treasure list:

40,000 gp in monster parts suitable for creating magical bows, bolts, and arrows

2,000 Gold in bars
5 wrought silver trinkets (200 gp)


2,000 Gold in bars
1 chalcedony (275 gp)
1 chalcedony (375 gp)
1 pearl (250 gp)

2,000 Gold in bars
1 topaz (500 gp)
1 tourmaline (500 gp)


2,000 Gold in bars
1 ivory jewelry (800 gp)
1 Agate (125 gp)
3 Fine wood jewelry (100 gp)


2,000 Gold in bars
1 Garnet (250 gp)
3 jasper (250 gp)

2,000 Gold in bars
1 jasper (500 gp)
4 jet (100 gp)


1 opal jewelry (3,000 gp)

1 moonstone jewelry (1,000 gp)
3 pearl (250 gp)
1 amethyst (100 gp)


2,000 Gold in bars
1 Garnet (250 gp)
3 jasper (250 gp)

2,000 Gold in bars
3 sardonyx (500 gp)

 
2,000 Gold in bars
5 spinel (200 gp)

 
1,000 Gold in bars
4 topaz (500 gp)

 
2,000 Gold in bars
1 wrought silver jewelry (1500 gp)

 
3,000 Gold in bars

 
2,000 Gold in bars
5 chalcedony (250 gp)


1,000 Gold in bars
15 Fine wood jewelry (100 gp)

 
2,000 Gold in bars
1 Garnet (250 gp)
3 jasper (250 gp)

1,000 Gold coins
15 Fine ivory jewelry (100 gp)
1 draw from the magic deck

 
1,000 Gold coins
1 Garnet (250 gp)
3 jasper (250 gp)
1 Jet (300 gp)
1 draw from the magic deck

 
1,000 Gold coins
2 Garnet (350 gp)
1 draw from the magic deck


3 wrought silver jewelry (300 gp)
1 draw from the magic deck

5 fine wood jewelery (250)
1 draw from the magic deck

2,000 Gold coins
1 draw from the magic deck

2 draws from the magic deck

1,000 Gold coins
1 Garnet (250 gp)
3 jasper (250 gp)
1 draw from the magic deck

2,000 Gold in bars
3 chalcedony (250 gp) 
1 draw from the magic deck


4 sets of garnet and diamond earrings (100gp)
4 sets of garnet and diamond bracelets (300gp) 
1 draw from the magic deck


1 diamond-studded decorative trident (2000gp) 
1 draw from the magic deck


1 gold Ardean ship model (500gp)
1 set of navigational maps Baldgath (500gp) 
2 draws from the magic deck

Here is a list of everything you guys killed in the battle. Any equipment you could salvage on the way out I also put on this list:

12 5th level clerics  (12x +1 mace)
4 6th level clerics   (4x +1 mace)
2 8th level clerics   (1x +1 mace, 1x  +2 chain, 1x  +3 shield)
1 13th level cleric   (1x +3 plate,1x  +2 shield, 1x  gauntlets of ogre power,1x  Ring of Spell Turning - 10 charges,1x  Wings of Flying,  Hammer of the Dwarven Lords, Crest of Wayneduke)

3 8th level magi (1x wand of magic missiles, 20 charges)
5 angels  (2250xp)
1 archangel  

6 2nd level fighters
8 5th level fighters  (80x +1 arrows)
3 8th level fighters  (2x +1 greatsword,1x +1 plate,1x +1 arbalest, 20x +1 bolts)


10 4th level paladins (10x +1 sword, 10x +1 shield)
2 9th level paladins  (1x +1 sword, 1x +1 shield, 1x +3 sword, 1x +1 plate armor)

8 Blink Dogs (135xp)
2 Lammasu (1900xp)

12 5th level vaultguard  (12x +1 dwarven plate, 12x +1 spear)

20 ghost knights (1100xp)

The final monster experience total was: 71984 which works out to 5200xp per PC and 2600 per henchman.

Workshop's reopened

My personal game blog "Dr Skull's Workshop" (see the blogroll to the right of this page) is back in operation after a 5 month X-COM related coma.  

Session 44 - Action Shots

Mortal Wounds

I've been thinking that the Mortal Wounds and Tampering with Mortality tables in ACKS were good in theory, but end up being a pain in the schwartz in practice.   It also seems to me that once one PC cleric gets to 7th level, all the risk goes out of the game (except for level-draining undead).  Basically there are no permanent consequences short of a TPK.  Conversely it kind of sucks that there's no way to get a wounded character back into the action while the melee is still going on.

I though that maybe something closer to AD&D1 might be better.  (I'm not talking about the current campaign by the way, just future theoreticals).

How about something like this:

•   When someone is brought to between 0 and negative 3 hit points, he's totally messed up, all he can do is crawl at 1/3 his normal combat speed or drink a potion, or activate a magic item that has a single command word.   If he is healed to 1 hit points he's back in the game.
• If someone goes to negative 4 hit points he's unconscious and bleeding out, losing 1 hit point per round until treated or he reaches negative 10 plus his level, at which point he dies.  If magical healing is used before death, and enough hit points are healed to get him to 1 hit point or more, he's back in the game.
• Instead of the various wound effects and so forth, how about any time you go to -4 or less, and are saved, you lose 1 point of an ability score at random.  There should be no magic work-around for this.  However, maybe adding an ability score increase at levels, 3, 6, 9 and 12 would mollify it a bit.
• If you are raised from the dead by restore Life and Limb, you should lose 1 point of Constitution and save vs. death or loose a second.  (Thus Reincarnation becomes really appealing to the frequently bechopped.)
• Use the Hackmaster reincarnation table instead of the ACKS one.