CO GM Diary: E6, house-ruled, custom setting: Planar Invasion

[Brainpiercing]

I've just been wanting to put down some experience from my new E6 campaign, which is a bi-weekly table-top, or rather, laptop on table-top with scrap paper for tactical maps campaign.

Here's the meat, the setting being ripped straight from our extensive house-rules.

The Setting

Consider a hexagon map. Each cell represents a plane. Each plane has six permanent gates to an adjacent plane. Some gates are obvious and known, some are hidden. Planes vary in size from infinite to very small, with only a few square kilometers (or even smaller). There are still the usual overlapping planes: The Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane and the Plane of Shadows, etc.. In an E6 setting, it is largely impossible for individual characters to traverse planes on their own, they must use portals, or Ritual Magic. However, planar travel is still quite common, especially on the smaller, outlying planes. In this case there are often entire caravans that traverse the planes together, for defense and ease of travel.
The planar world contains all published game setting, as well as many other worlds. The published large game settings (Greyhawk, Faerun, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dark Sun,  etc.) all exist on different versions of the “Prime Material” plane. Others, like Planescape, are on smaller planes.  They are also adapted to accommodate an E6 environment, i.e. no one is above 6th level. Legendary figures are all level 6 with additional feats. There are monsters that significantly surpass E6 level of power, but these are VERY rare, and if they appear, always pose significant threats to the world. Due to the different sizes of the settings, and the fixed number of six available natural gates, planar travel is much more common the smaller the planes are. While artificial gates exist via Ritual magic, these are reserved for powerful groups that control great amounts of resources, and above all, spellcasters.
 Sometimes pantheons change from setting to setting, this represents varying divine activity on different planes. However, this has no effect on character availability of deities or other principles of power. Everything is available everywhere.

The PC setting:

The PCs all derive from their own small plane (<1000km²), in which they are heirs to a particular position of power, be it king, field marshall, head mage, etc. Their position is guaranteed to them by birthright, but they still need to achieve an appropriate measure of experience before being allowed to assume it. Each PC must provide a write-up of his own plane, and a brief history, as well as political standing (defensive, neutral, expansionist, etc.). He must also pick a hex on the hexagon map, and state where his six gates go. (I.e. must provide a brief description of adjacent, known, planes.)
Each small plane must follow a constant theme, i.e. it’s a jungle plane, a desert plane, an aquatic plane, etc.  It can be large enough for one city and several small villages, but CAN be smaller, too.
Each plane can give its PC one significant recurring benefit, usually of a material nature.  The PCs should be aware that this benefit can be lost, if the plane is destroyed or conquered, or otherwise afflicted in a detrimental way. However, a PC cannot as of now make large decisions on his plane, he can only attempt to influence those people who are at present holding power.
In addition, PCs can be brought back from the dead on their home plane at no cost, while they would have to pay for this service in most other places.

Relevant House-rules

Everyone starts with a HP bonus equal to his CON SCORE, in addition to HD and bonus, including all NPCs and monsters. Everyone important gets one bonus feat at level 1.

All PCs (and important NPCs) pick their stats off a single page of ability score matrices, which are rolled as 2d6+6. This makes for pretty mad ability scores

Partial Gestalt is in effect using the Tier System. A max of 1LA worth races or templates can be taken as a RHD which is integrated into the Tier system, i.e. it is possible to gestalt the RHD with something. Each race or template has been evaluated individually. There are still some notable offenders, which get off a bit too good. PrCs cannot be gestalted!
PrC prerequisites have been partially lowered, most notably all skill-point requirements are lowered to 4. Also, alignment and racial prereqs are waived.

All WoTC sources are allowed, with the limitation that players are at all times responsible for world consistency.

Obviously this game goes to level 6, and then only feats are gained. The progression is slowed by making PC ECL equal to Level +1, and by halfing all XP gains. This means that actually quite a few encounters can be had at level 1.

There is a mechanism that relevant classes can get a single Level 4 effect, e.g. a spell or maneuver, once per day after level 6. Also, all higher level spells are available via ritual casting. So, for instance, it is possible to raise the dead or reincarnate them, given considerable effort.

Death at negative CON gives a further protection against PC-instagibs.

The PARTY

*updated*
Takuya - Aasimar Samurai with aspirations for Chameleon, the groups only potential primary caster; Now Aasimar/Samurai1//Chameleon1 at level 2.

TOM - Synad Ardent/Warrior and his Elemental Steward variant psicrystal thingy; Most significant contributions so far by using a greatsword and big Str. The elemental steward actually has three outsider HD, so had good to hit and lots of HP, but puny ability scores compared to the PCs, so he does little damage in combat. Still, having a guy around who can fly should prove invaluable in the future. I doubt this thing is worth the investment of two feats, though. I think he went Ardent2//Warrior2, or Ardent2//Warrior1/Adept1 for saves.
TOM's replacement - name unknown as of yet: Grig savage progression//Fighter AFAIK.

Dale - Whisper Gnome Swashbuckler/Monk, but will advance as a ranger, TWF, and his pet Magebread Warbeast Riding Dog, which could be group's main tank, IF its AC weren't too fricken high. (Actually everyone COULD have brought a pet, the others were just too lazy.); Levelled to be Swash1/Mystic Ranger1//Monk1/Adept1.

Roscoe - Halfling Rogue/warrior, suffers a bit from poor build choices and player skill. But you just can't help the guy. Levelled to be Rogue1/Scout1//Warrior2. I guess going for Daring Outlaw.

Galriff - probably  Mineral Warrior/Fighter, spiked chain tripper build. Didn't level due to not being around last fight.

Ugluk The Reborn -non-permanent NPC, Dragonborn Water Orc Psywarrior2//Warrior1/Expert1, Recharge+Battle Jump build

The PCs get one expensive item as an heirloom, as well as quite a bit of gold for which they can buy non-magical stuff, or pets, if they wish. It's noteworthy that noone is playing a wizard, nor a cleric, as partial gestalting has successfully scared them away from these Tiers.

The setup, and first session.

I wrote up a bit of a teaser for the setting and read it out to the group. It basically contains that the "Union of Independent Planes'" fortified border is being attacked by an unknown foe. The military reacts, sends a brigade to retake and strengthen the border, and then totally loses contact with them. The council of this Union is then assembled, and a scout mission devised. For political reasons this is made up of a lot of young and inexperienced, but hopefully aspiring young "nobles", who are each assigned to one "emissary", who will take control of the situation when it becomes clear what is going on. These nobles, among which are the PCs, are first set up in a large hexagonal multi-floor tavern building in the overcrowed headquarters city. Many refugees are also there.
During the night, the PCs (minus the NPC, and the Rogue, who was not there for the first session, and minus Dale's dog), who have miraculously all ended up in the same room, are awakened by a civilian drooling over one of them. When he attacks, they cut him down, stabilise him, and decide to investigate. On the main stairwell they are met by a fleeing young woman who is being chased by four further drooling, frenzied civilians, who are also dispatched without too much trouble. They at this point meet TOM's elemental steward (who was "forgotten" previously, and hence had stayed in the main hall of the tavern to investigate) who reports that all hell has broken loose, and that there are mad people everywhere (it seems that it's mainly the refugees who have gone mad). The group decides to go back to the room with the woman and take care of her wound, since she has been bitten. Of course discussion ensues whether they should not dispatch her, too, as zombie clichés are thrown around, but they decide against this, instead treat her wound.

As they are waiting, four more frenzied civilians, including one with a level of rogue, try to enter their room. Dale casts ghost-sound out in the hallway to distract them, then silence on himself, and attacks them from behind. The others follow up. Dale is then hit pretty badly, as the frenzied rogue tumbles past him, flanks, and lays down some sneak-attack. Luckily, everytime one of the frenzied civvies grapples someone to bite him, he is killed before he can succeed.

It then becomes clear that the city guards are taking control of the situation, and are hunting down the mad people. The PCs are told to wait in their room until they are summoned. They have to stay there until late morning, when they are called to the council, and their mission is explained to them. They ask some more questions, and are then ushered off to the military storage to complement their gear. The also "meet" their emissary, a legendary spellcaster called Dorian, but who remains in his coach with curtained windows. They talk to his "bodyguard", the Mineral Warrior/Fighter Galriff.
The party gets two healing belts at reduced price, a few potions of CLW, and are set up with light warhorses or ponies.

This concluded the first session.

Observations

When you give people their CON score as bonus HP at level 1 things end up with quite a few HP. This means that Level 1 isn't nearly as deadly as it usually is - at least, one round of bad rolls usually won't kill you. The PCs mostly took ability scores which gave them lots of Str and Dex, as well as mental stats, but CON is only a base of twelve for Dale and TOM. Hence their ACs are all very good, but HP actually lower than I would have thought. The mook enemies, who were basically 1HD Barbarians with 11s in phyiscal and 10 in mental stats, 25HPs and assorted simple weapons, were really no match for the huge ability scores and the partial gestalted PCs. While I think they are not nearly optimised, the sheer numerical superiority worked out, here. Most PCs have to hit bonuses in the range of +6 to +8, and AC of over 18, while the mooks had to hit of 3-4 with their Rage-boosted Str, and AC of 8- 12. Even the one level 2 mook, who got better scores, some leather armour, and actual class features besides the purely ability improving Rage which all the frenzied guys have on by default, proved a fairly low threat. Admittededly in these tight quarters he came to bear late. The mooks needed really good rolls to even hit, and then did comparatively little damage. Still, one PC, the Moshbuckler Dale, was mauled pretty badly. The fights didn't take as long as I had feared, as raw damage output from the PCs was quite good. Even the elemental steward, who defaults to his D4 slam/flyby attack, ended up with a notable contribution.

With the adjustments to XP, there was little gained this session. They are less than a quarter way to level 2.

Of further note is that I really shouldn't be GMing when I can hardly keep my eyes open. At the end of the session I was really tired and couldn't nearly create much of the atmosphere I had hoped for during the council scene.

Session Two
The session begins with the PCs still at the military storage. They here meet Roscoe, the Rogue, who’s scouting party was disassembled due to member loss (as a means of introducing him into the second session). After a bit of introduction they start out.

Under way:
They now start their planar exploration, always entering the small themed planes by a gate, traversing it, and leaving through another. I hadn't made a plan of the planar map yet, so I set them up with something of a travelling route by advising them to stick to small planes that can be traversed in an hour. I rolled a D8 against a quickly compiled list of characteristics to get the environment of the planes, and then gave them some random encounters, mostly animals which were afflicted by the same frenzy as the refugees at the headquarters.
On the way, nearing the border, they pass through a forested area where they are attacked by a frenzied black bear. Unfortunately it cannot even reach the party before it is peppered with arrows, mauled, tripped by the dog, and finally killed with an AoO. They find an unknown white powder covering patches of ground and also the bear’s fur, in this plane.
Later, in a small desert world, they find a pack of eight frenzied Hyenas, who have already killed those of their pack mates who were not frenzied. In the ensuing fierce battle, TOM’s horse is bitten, and Dale is also bitten twice. (I had to give him some heat, as his dog was one of the main contributors during the fight ). This battle was quite good fun. The PCs have miserable means of controlling the battefield, so this super-tripper dog is actually presently more valuable than a single PC. The Hyenas, in spite of getting bonuses from Rage, needed good rolls to hit, and their AC was sufficiently low. Their rolls were bad enough that they only succeeded in biting a single PC - however, when they did, they hit fairly hard with a d6+6. I tried tripping the horses with them, which didn't work - a large quadruped simply regularly beats a critter without Improved Trip. Well, at least I managed to get one PC bitten, and he didn't make any saves , so I now have some ordeal set up for him, as the frenzy tries to take hold of him. The PCs were also stupid enough to not try heal-checks this time, even though they did it on the woman during the first session. That was a bit of luck, on my part, as this would become quite trivial otherwise .

When they finally reached the border post where their investigation is to begin, they find the burnt remains of a beacon tower near their entry gate into the plane.  The plane is a roughly five mile diameter hollow sphere, with gravity pulling outwards.  They can see main guard tower and some more smoke on the other side above them. Below the beacon tower are the mangled remains of a few goblinoids. This was meant as a warning that the guards stationed there are not to be taken so lightly, but it was totally wasted on the players.

The group proceeds towards the main guard tower. Upon approaching they see some movement around it, which looks like the guardsmen on duty there. Takuya (rather stupidly) races ahead to meet them, and as he approaches they form up into a group and come towards him. Now here I had actually hoped they would try to separate the group of guards, or somehow wear them down piecemeal. I didn't intend for them to attack head-on. However, with this start, there wasn't much they could do. And these weren't really mooks: Every guard was under the effect of Rage and had Martial Study(Shadow Blade technique) and Martial STance(Island of Blades), to improve their to hit, as well as Power attack. I could have made it worse with overlapping Ironguard's Glares, but thought that would have been a bit rough. They also had reach weapons, which noone in the group can cope with, well. (Except, technically, for the rogue, who FORGOT to tumble. Duh.) The sergeants were even worse, they had better abilities, and were effectively Barb1/Crusader2s. They still got Island of Blades, but they had Combat reflexes, too. They also had nearly 50HP.

Well, Takuya retreats to his compatriots. Dale sneaks off into the bushes by the road, the others stay with the coach. As they close to 300ft, they see the signs of frenzy on the soldiers, who form up two groups of five and run towards them, halberds readied. These are not stupid zombies, they are mad, but intelligent killing machines now. TOM and Takuya fall back behind the coach, Roscoe “hides” behind it.  The coach, anticipiating battle, maneuvers to stand at right-angles to the path, so that Dorian can have a view of the attackers. The group somehow had not anticipated something like that. They fire arrows at the enemy leader, hurting him somewhat.

The battle starts in earnest as the enemy sergeants charge towards the coach. The one who was injured attacks a carthorse with Crusader’s Strike to heal himself, the other hits the Bodyguard Galriff for one point passing the DR. Roscoe moves out from behind the coach, trying to sneak up on one of the enemy sergeants, but is detected, forgets to tumble, and eats an AoO. He also can't sneak attack now, which means he does basically nothing much. He is consequently mauled by several of the four other enemies, who move up after their sergeants on their turn. Of the four others, two pursue Takuya, who moved off towards the left flank to get a better angle to shoot, two face TOM, who moved behind the warhorses. Dale and his dog charge the sergeant at the warhorse from behind, mauling him somewhat. A long battle ensues, during which Takuya eats two blows for almost 30 damage, and Roscoe is first hit again normally, then hit with a Shadow Blade technique well into the negatives - but his good CON of 19 keeps him alive for a while. Dale and his dog mainly fight the one sergeant. With some good and some bad luck, they remain unscathed, but it takes them a while to beat the sergeant in front of them by themselves, after boxing him in between them and the carthorse.
After Takuya was hit so badly, one of his enemies is roasted to a fine crispy crust by some scorching rays from Dorian,  but that intentionally remains his only contribution to the battle. Actually I think now that it might still have worked without it. Even if I had beaten another player into the negatives, the risk of killing him outright wasn't so high, and it would have increased the threat factor of the encounter. The other enemy sergeant, after being tripped in front of the coach, 5-foot rolls underneath it and proceeds to poke one of the cart-horses to death to heal himself with Crusader’s strike and Martial spirit.
TOM’s elemental steward uses his fear effect on a group of the enemies, shakening them, which proved very valuable. His melee contributions, however, in spite of flyby attack, remains rather piddly, with a penchant for rolling 1s for damage. TOM himself cuts up his two enemies with his greatsword and then moves to assist. The group of enemies in front of the coach is slowly but surely tripped and beaten into submission by Dale and Galriff.
At the end only the sergeant under the coach is still alive, and also he is finally confronted and killed.

Observations

I had thought the stupid bear would already threaten the PCs, but that was a total waste of time. He went down so quickly. The hyenas were much better, there being 8 of them, and they actually managed to do some damage. I remains surprisingly difficult to hurt the PCs, though.

The dog and the ardent are the offensively strongest "players" on the field at the moment. Still, the ONLY BFC they have is that tripping dog, and the Fear effect from the Elemental Steward. The mineral warrior is clearly house, but seeing as they don't want to invest much into BFC I'm not going to do it for them, so he won't stick around, even though I made a nice progression of Crusader/Adept for him.
The Samurai/potential Chameleon wants to get mainly divine casting, I'm not sure how this will turn out. The Ardent SHOULD turn into a veritable killing machine, soon. He's going for a dipper route with Psywar and Warmind to maximise power points, and is still wanting to get level 3 powers at level6, with the final level of ardent.
The Rogue is... just useless right now. Granted, he did roll miserably all the time, even when he managed to sneak-attack. But normal halfings are just total wimps compared to Whisper Gnomes, or even Strongheart halflings, and this shows. He also didn't know where to take his build, seeing as he didn't even really know where to put his two initial feats. AND he picked a low-int row of stats for himself, which is just... wrong on a rogue.

So I'm quite interested to see how this turns out. That "final"  battle (well, it was actually really the first real battle) did show up a good many of their weaknesses, already. Their lack of reach weapons, unfocused ranged support (noone even has precise shot), and lack of BFC means they will be very threatened once the bad guys actually start hitting them regularly. Right now they remain standing by virtue of their high AC. Of course this is level one, but it's quite obvious that performance wasn't originally one of their goals. This is surprising, because the same group had pretty strong characters during the last campaign. Well, the rogue's player already said he also wanted to get a pet at the next opportunity. I'm hoping with some levels their BFC abilities will improve - I just fear they don't like the concept too much. A single wizard could have knocked out half that encounter at first turn, and quite possible the other half at second. And with those ability scores, he wouldn't even have ended up too flimsy. Well... that's life, I guess.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

You know, one of the players really should have put his plane next to the sheep port.

[Brainpiercing]

You know, one of the players really should have put his plane next to the sheep port.

I... don't... get it.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Sorry, the whole "small hexagonal planes with a single resource" setup sounds a whole lot like Settlers of Catan.

[Brainpiercing]

Sorry, the whole "small hexagonal planes with a single resource" setup sounds a whole lot like Settlers of Catan.

Damn now I feel stupid. Actually, it's only the small planes that are really strictly thematic...

[Brainpiercing]

We played again last night, here's what happened:

Session 3:
Session starts out with collecting the loot from last battle: 10 Halberds, 10 Breastplates, all of which look masterfully made, and 10 short swords, plus a teeny bit of cash. The party burns the corpses for fear of spontaneously animating undead, and then replaces the dead cart horse with one of the warhorses.  Coach and party move towards the guard tower – warily, for a change.
No further hostility is being met, though, and they arrive at the tower without further problems. At the bottom of the tower they find the arranged corpses of several goblinoids and their weapons on a pile next to them.  
The tower is searched from top to bottom (not in that order), which brings to light 10 normal longbows, some grub, 10 potions of lesser vigor and minor amounts of cash, as well as the guard tower log book. The PCs are fascinated by the ballista on the top of the tower, and immediately get the idea of mounting it on the coach. Luckily, they abandoned this plan. The log book reveals only that the tower had been attacked by ferocious goblins, which were beaten back without losses. There is no dramatic last entry – the cause for the transformation of the tower guards into frothing – but still intelligently fighting -maniacs is left in the dark. Neither is there any mention of the white powder which has been encountered everywhere.
The party rests for the night within the tower. They need Dorian to take a look at the loot with his permanent magic detecting artificer’s goggles, to tell them that they have two magic halberds and two magic breastplates. (Dorian, being a Warmage, and a crappily built one at that, is remarkably inept at everything and needs items for all the important stuff -except blasting, and even that he doesn't do well .) However, they don’t use either of them, instead they plan on selling them. Dorian also tells the PCs that he and Galriff will stay at the guard tower for now while they investigate further.

In light of the increase in HP I’ve suggested that resting should restore HD+CON bonus HP, which is accepted by the players. After resting Roscoe heals up by gulping down his two potions and then they continue on across the border. They find a small grassy plane, with another guard tower, although this time probably maintained by goblins - and deserted. Towards planar north-east is a large desert plane, which is not searched due to its size. Instead, they move planar north into a medium sized (up to 1 day of travel to cross) warm plane with mixed terrain and vegetation. Here they find a goblin village within some plains, which is deserted, albeit with many bodies being left strewn about, as well as dead cattle. In spite of me mentioning that a path travels north-east from the village the party neglects this course, and instead returns to the small plane to now move planar east into another medium sized grassy plains plane. They see another village from the distance, and some smoke rising from there, as if  from a fireplace.
Instead of immediately investigating, however, they move back to the guard tower to report to Dorian.
The next morning they move back towards the plane where they saw the smoke, and again see the village, but without smoke. They approach the village carefully, and decide to leave their horses a few mile away to be able to approach it more quietly. But after moving only perhaps 120 yards they hear panicked neighing from their horses, and rush back to find these assaulted by three Fleshraker Dinosaurs – frothing fleshrakers to be exact. (This was a bit of a bungle on my part. They shouldn’t have been berserking fleshrakers, but I couldn’t apply my reason why they shouldn’t be. With +4 Str and Con they WERE a bit harder than normal.)
One horse is almost killed in the first round. We roll initiative after that, to find that Dale, who was fastest on his killer riding dog, will arrive at the horses first, but then have to endure a full round of pounding by himself, because the others are far slower.
Dale thinks he can take it, though, quad-moves his dog into melee, slashes a Fleshraker once, and then two dinos pounce him and slash, bite and rake him straight into the negatives – only barely so, but nevertheless. Dale fails a fort save and takes three points of Dex damage (on the HALVED poison dice.) The third, who was next to Dale, tries to charge one of the horses that is almost dead, but is immediately bitten and tripped by the killer dog. He never manages to get up again, either. The rest of the party closes as far as they can. The dog then proceeds to mash up the remaining dinosaurs. Tactically poorly it bites the one lying down already, unfortunately the others are also within its threat range. One full-attacks it with a Claw/Claw/Bite combo, but misses. The other tries to pounce on TOM, is bitten and tripped, too.  TOM, Takuya and Roscoe join the fight from melee or range and finish off the lying Fleshraker. Next round the dog again bites a prone dino (or didn’t manage to trip the other, I forgot).  The one left standing then five-foot steps and attacks TOM, and with just three hits mangles him into the negatives, too. However, just a round later it too is tripped, and then the fight is basically just mopping up. The killer dog definitely takes the cake on this fight.
Some licking of wounds is done, then, and some fortitude saves have to be made. TOM takes some dex damage, and also fails his save against the berserk disease. Now it’s two people that have to make will-saves before every  fight . These saves are fairly easy, since they are against their OWN DCs, but I still suspect one will fail sooner or later. Still, the party gets enough XP to level, and are now level 2.

With that, the session is concluded, since I was relying on public transport.

Observations

YES, the party is pretty much outshone by the riding dog, in this fight more than ever. I might just have to convince the player who runs it that lowering it's AC is actually a good idea, because as it is, his PCs gets mauled now most of the time, because the enemies can't hit the dog.
What's also rather funny is that the Ardent player doesn't use his powers. I guess this will change, though, in the future. The Rogue is still acting as waste of space, I'm already expecting that he won't manage to use the tactical possibilities of the Scout. In any case a melee scout isn't nearly optimised, IMHO.
I have high hopes for the Chameleon, though. With the right spell choices he should not make a bigger contribution.

And finally: Their choice of stats really showed in the crappy amounts of HP at least two of them have. This kind of blows, because I want to give them realistically hard encounters.

Note on the enemies: Fleshrakers rule, although they suffer from being only medium sized and their strength scores aren't originally that great. I needed to roll really well to keep them standing. However, in this system giving them a Rage effect was really quite powerful: They gained 12HP, and their attacks were appreciably a lot more deadly.

[Brainpiercing]

I have no idea whether anyone is reading this. I must admit time constraints destroy my writing skills, and the recount sounds a bit dull, but I guess there's not much I can do about that.

Session 4

Session started off with a quarrel, as TOM's player is unsatisfied with the system. He doesn't like E6, and doesn't like partial gestalting, and also doesn't like the general CO tendencies present in the GM - i.e. me. BUT he likes the group enough that he will stick around, albeit with another character. He made a Grig (savage progression)//Fighter/Monk whatever, taking advantage of tiny size, throughout the session, whom he will bring in next session.

Another note on the GMing: The world isn't ready made. Every time the group enters a new plane I roll a D8 for the dominant characteristic, and a D3 to decide on the size of the plane (small, medium, large).This means that I myself don't really know where this is going, and I have to make stuff up on the spot, all the time -with the exception of encounters, of which I have a certain set that I can bring at any time.

The group continues on towards the village they were intending to investigate, leaving the dog behind to guard the horses, this time. They find a pyre, and a strange draconic humanoid sitting next to it. He challenges them, and they respond peacefully. He introduces himself as Ugluk The Reborn. They find out that the remains of another investigation team lie in the pyre, along with a good many goblins. They also hear that the group had been deserted by their “Ambassador”, Balgarad, who had before driven them mercilessly through many planes. Finally he left, because “they were holding him back”, and flew off on a huge batlike animal. Ugluk requests to be taken back to their border post to inform the proper authorities of this betrayal. Before they leave, the group searches the village to recover  a good many masterwork weapons and armour from fallen goblins.
The return to Dorian and the border post. When Ugluk sees Galriff, he nearly attacks him, because Galriff looks (racially) just like Balgarad. He finds out his error, but not without Galriff noticing, and hearing Ugluk call Balgarad a traitor. Galriff protests angrily, and a spirited DM-vs-DM conversation ensues, during which it is revealed that Balgarad is Galriff’s father, and that he cannot believe that Balgarad would betray the Council or the Federation. Dorian, however, is not surprised much by the news, and characterizes Balgarad as a self-serving individual.
It also becomes clear that Balgarad had not in fact been cowardly, but had rather deserted across the border, deeper into what now seems like enemy territory.
The group decides to rest for two days to cure their ability damage, to which Dorian grudgingly accedes. They then set forth – with Ugluk - to investigate further. After crossing the plane with the village they had visited earlier they are forced to rest in a small desert plane.  During the night they are found by a roaming demon, a HD-reduced Babau. The Babau approaches the camp during Dale’s watch, who is well hidden, but notices the sneaky demon. He first tries to distract the demon, and wake his compatriots, by placing a ghost sound spell behind the demon. The group (mostly) awakes, the demon changes direction to circle the camp. Dale then casts detect evil, and upon finding it decides that this newcomer must be hostile. At which point he FAILS his will-save, and begins the berserker transformation! He begins frothing at the mouth, just like all the others they had encountered so far. He also falls into a Rage, like that of a Barbarian. He feels a hunger for raw flesh, and his compatriots look cold and unfriendly (and tasty). However, unlike the enemies encountered so far, he is not forced to attack them on sight. Instead, his ability as a partially gestalted PC saves him from that: He only has to replace one side of his first level with aspects of a Barbarian (D12 HD, full BAB, loses class features of one class and gains the automatic frenzy, also Power Attack as a bonus feat.) Luckily, this does not mess up his build entirely, he loses Weapon Finesse, retains TWF, and due to the benefits of Rage is none the worse off – with a few HP more, actually. (Although it does hamper his Mystic Ranger casting, by now, which is a bummer, I guess, but it can’t be helped.)
He then charges the Demon, and starts off with a good crit, which manages to penetrate the hefty DR and do some damage. (This starts off the crit-fest that takes down the demon, since non-crits hardly do anything, obviously.) His weapon is immediately covered in the Babau’s acid. As his Heirloom it is entitled to a save, which fails, and takes some acid damage. Luckily, it was made of adamantine and gets some bonus HP, so it survives, damaged. The demon retaliates, but it can’t flank, and hence is deprived of its main source of damage. The party eventually joins the fray, and together they beat down the demon, luckily without loss of a weapon (but with several severely damaged). Takuya, who has taken up archery, is a little frustrated by the inefficiency of his arrows. TOM and Ugluk use their greatswords to good effect, and the demon finally falls. At which point the PCs must deal with Dale’s transformation. However, with the threat gone, Dale stops raging automatically, and vigorously tries to convince them that he is still master of his own wits, and won’t attack them. They hesitate, and decide to keep a close watch on him from now on. He is ordered to go to sleep a short distance from them, and not continue his watch. With that out of the way they examine the corpse of the demon, which is slowly dissolving into a gooey mass,  and find some gold and jewels.
The group proceeds with their night’s rest, extending it to make up for the sleep lost. Later in the morning they proceed. The first find some larger planes, from where they retreat, until they find a large hollow-spherical jungle plain in which a large Pyramid can be seen far away on the slope of the sphere. They decide that this must be some important point and begin making their way there. (Upon which I miraculously transfer my previously planned encounters to this plane – who would have guessed?) There is, as usually, a narrow footpath that runs away from the gate, and they follow it through the jungle. Dale and his dog move ahead – but not far, since they don’t trust him yet, to scout. He moves through the undergrowth at the side of the footpath. We roll some hide and move silently checks, as well as the obvious listen and spot checks. At some point he hears whispering voice which he doesn’t understand – without it he would have walked right past the ambush, without the ambush even noticing. He halts his progress and alerts the group. They keep trying to detect something, but fail, cast some buff spells or manifest some powers, (it becomes clear that Ugluk is a psionics user), when out of the foliage at the side of the path, several nets are thrown at their horses.  All save Ugluk’s horse, and Dale’s dog, whom they never noticed, become entangled. They now see their attackers: Small sized Lizardfolk, frothing at the mout, all of them. Initiative is rolled and the fight commences. The Lizardfolk grunts (Elite Array level 2 characters, all four of them) go first and hurl javelins at the party, and one of them rapid-shots someone with a shortbow. Several people are hit, including Ugluk, but everyone makes their fort saves against the poison which coats the weapons. (Which is the cop-out poison – 1D6 additional damage upon a failed save. I didn’t feel like delaying progress again with copious amounts of ability damage. Next time they will just take the damage without a save, I forget too often if I don’t do it automatically.) At some point TOM’s Elemental steward uses his fear effect on the Lizardfolk, but only manages to shaken one of them.
TOM goes next, and dimension hops next to the Lizardfolk captain and cuts him with his swiss cheese-looking greatsword. Dale – who had begun to rage as soon as he saw the hostilities – charges a Lizarfolk and skewers him with his rapier.  He does take an AoO from the spear that particual enemy was holding, which hits the dog. (He had decided earlier that his dog was too strong for the group and decided to leave him out of fights. He has to make ride checks now, though, as his dog is a little unnerved by the frothing guy on its back.) The charged - equally raging- Lizardfolk looks back at Dale with hurt surprise and snarls something – which Dale can miraculously understand to mean something akin to “what the fuck are you doing?” Dale proceeds to explain in great detail to his enemy as to why he is attacking his rage-mate. Who doesn’t care anymore, really.
Takuya shoots an arrow, but has horrible, horrible luck today with his dice. He may have hit that first one, but he didn’t hit a lot, later.
TOM’s enemy, the Lizardfolk captain, drops his bow, five-foot steps and quick-draws (by virtue of a weapon-crystal) a longspear, and skewers TOM with it, who takes something like 14 points of damage.
Ugluk goes last, but does nothing other than failing his fast-dismount check.  The next round begins and the Lizarfolk retaliate. One goes to flank TOM with the captain, but misses. Another tries to trip someone with Bolas, I think Ugluk, but fails. Dale’s enemy skewers him with his spear.  One tries to charge Takuya, but charges the horse instead. (I  -apparently- love killing horses in this campaign.)
Then TOM misses the captain and is in return felled with another 14 damage spear hit on the Captain’s turn. Seeing as he wanted to change his character, anyway, this is not a problem. He even ALMOST manages his dramatic death, by not stabilizing right until the last round of combat, in spite of using Autohypnosis. 
Ugluk reveals what he can do, runs up a tree and smashes down on one of the Lizarfolk, dealing quite massive damage. Dale full-attacks, and I think crits, his guy, but he’s not down yet.
I don’t remember the exact sequence of everything that follows, but these are the hightlights: Ugluk gets mauled with a claw/claw/bite full-attack, then fails his tumble check when doing the “triangle”-tree-jump maneuver again, and ends up with five HP, and his guy is still not dead.Takuya keeps missing or doing fairly low damage to the guy attack his horse. The Captain switches back to shortbow and shoots at the Steward who has been harassing him from above with his light crossbow. Dale eventually dispatches his enemy, and helps someone else, I think Takuya. Ugluk decides to not tree-jump this time, misses his guy, is missed in turn, before managing to cut down his guy. He uses a healing belt charge after that.
It goes on for quite a while. All the enemies are eventually brought down. After that everyone licks their wounds, and the loot is collected – another big stash of masterwork items, as well as a +1 Spear, +1 Studded Leather, and a Least Crystal of Return. I forgot to tell them about the flasks of  poison.
In any case the session concluded at that point, at 3am.

[Hijax]

You know, one of the players really should have put his plane next to the sheep port.

3:1 wildcard FtW!

I have no idea whether anyone is reading this. I must admit time constraints destroy my writing skills, and the recount sounds a bit dull, but I guess there's not much I can do about that.

well, it has over 200 reads. someone has seen it, at least.

[Brainpiercing]

Thanks, yes, read count is alright .

I thought I would share some of my enemy designs, since they are partly what make up a CO DM.

I've house-ruled that Initiator level defaults to 1, due to the general amount of low-level play involved.

Frenzied Federal Guardsmen

These were Standard Array (13-8) Human Level 1 effective Barbarians with Power Attack (b), Martial Study(Shadow Blade Technique)(1), Martial Stance(Island of Blades)(h), using Halberds and Wearing Chainmail armour. 17Str, 16CON (with rage), 31HP, Halberd +5(+7 when flanking), 1D10+4.

Going by my build rules they are actually missing a bonus feat at level 1.

Frenzied Guard Sergeant

Improved Array Frenzy1/Crusader2; (they got a 13/16/12/12/14/8 Array, randomly); Using +1 Halberds and Wearing +1 Breastplates. 49 HP when raging. Halberd +7(+9 when flanking), 1D10+5. mw Shortsword or mw Spikes +7, 1D6+3.

Power attack (b), Combat Reflexes (1), Martial Study(Shadow Blade Tech)(h), Martial Stance(Island of Blades(Stance))(3);
Martial Spirit(Stance); Leading the Attack, Crusader's strike, Vanguard Strike, +2 unused.

Also missing their additional bonus feat.

Lizardfolk Frenzied ex-Rangers

Poison Dusk Lizardfolk Frenzy1/Fighter1 using Nets (medium sized), 2xJavelins, 1x Bola,mw Longspear or Claw/Claw/Bite, and mw Studded Leather that doubled as a mw tool to Hide. Physical Stats of 17/17/20 with rage, 48HP.

Power Attack(b), Multiattack(1),PBS(b), Precice shot(F); Balance +5, Climb +4, Hide +14, Jump +4,Move Silently +10, Spot +6, Survival +4,;

Longspear +7, 1D6+4 +1d6 poison
Claws +6, 1D3+3, Bite +4, 1D3+1.
Javelin +6
Net +5 vs. Touch (PBS)
Bola +7 vs Touch, Trip -1. (PBS)

Lizardfolk Ranger Captain

Poison Dusk Lizardfolk Frenzy1/Fighter1/Ranger2 using a +1 Longspear, +1 Studded Leather, mw Shortbow (Mighty+3), 2x Javelins, 1x Bolas, medium sized net. Physical Stats of 20/17/20, 68HP;

Track(Ranger), Power attack(b), Multiattack(1),PBS(b), Precice shot(F), Rapid Shot(Ranger) Combat Ref(3);, Favoured Enemy: Humanoid(human)

Longspear +11, 1D6+8,
Claws+10, 1d3+5, Bite +8, 1d3+2
Shortbow +10, 1d4+4 (PBS)
Net +7 vs Touch
Bola +9 vs Touch, Trip +1.

There are some others, mostly the frenzied animals, which are just base animals with rage, and some I haven't played yet, which I therefore won't post at this point. (Just in case one of my players DOES in fact read this forum.)

Matching the fighting style of my players, none of the enemies could afford (GMing-wise) to fight overly tactically. They have big HP, can hit with reasonable accuracy and can dish out moderate damage. I think hitting one or two PCs into the negatives almost every fight is a good target, provided that there aren't too many fights per day. The players have taken a less than effective approach of each attacking one enemy, which might be cinematically good, but tactically is  naturally rotten. Their BFC possibilities are (now that the killer pet has been removed by the player) pretty much zilch. I'm hoping the new character by the TOM player will up it a little - at least he's taking some tactical feats.
I think I've successfully played high HP against the higher PC ability arrays, which serve to keep them on top of the action right now (their class-features and feats don't quite, yet).

The players have also shied away from anything that could provide some diversity. No Incarnum, a little Psionics, not much magic, no Binding, no Warlock, no natural weapon users, no Initiators.

In our inititial quarrel last session one of the gripes TOM's player had was that due to partial gestalt every PC looked the same: They all have full BAB and mostly two good saves. Luckily, the other players agreed that this was not so, that in fact BAB and saves don't make up everything. But I had to really work to persuade him that in spite of the obvious, at least numeric, strength of the characters,  they had put MORE effort into the roleplaying aspects of their characters than in any previous campaigns with that group.  This is really weird, especially since this guy usually makes strong characters. He just doesn't seem to like them after he's made them.

The other weird thing was that I repeatedly offered to make up for his flavour choices, i.e. improve the elemental steward, which is piss weak in this group, but he didn't want that, either.

Well, I'm hoping he'll like his new character. It would be sad to have him leave the group. He seemed to enjoy making it, so I have some hope.

I also tried to give them my views of why their characters should be strong: In a world where all the options exist it's hardly imaginable that they could survive without being mechanically powerful. And toning down all the enemies will just ruin the believability of the game world. Why would they meet only weak enemies initially? And why would anyone send a group of weaklings (who are actually important weaklings) on a suicide quest? It just doesn't make sense.

However, on the up-side, I think using these mechanics so far I've managed to achieve several key goals:

Playability from level 1, with an (almost) plausible game world, and mostly interesting characters at level 1
Long, and for the most part interesting fights, WITH some real danger, but not too much danger of a TPK or even just one-rounding a PC
Simple encounter building, due to easy low-level mechanics
A simple yet diverse game world and simple world creation mechanics

I'm still hoping to get them move invested in their individual planes, once I start threatening them.

[Hijax]

my general experience is this: once you move to large-scale battles, players who know the rules fairly well are going to get creative, either using guerilla tactics or self-perpetuating minions(read: shadows)
So remember to pack those effing magic weapons, because otherwise a single shadow CAN destroy a whole army long before it reaches the destination.
Also, remember some medicine. diseases and cancer mages are my personal favorite in dealing with this sort of threat(since shadows are pretty cheesy).

the most effective thing here is a construct or undead, since its immune to all these things

[Brainpiercing]

my general experience is this: once you move to large-scale battles, players who know the rules fairly well are going to get creative, either using guerilla tactics or self-perpetuating minions(read: shadows)

With this group? Not a chance...

So remember to pack those effing magic weapons, because otherwise a single shadow CAN destroy a whole army long before it reaches the destination.

NPCs at the point have more magical items than the PCs. So yeah, no great danger in that regard.

Also, remember some medicine. diseases and cancer mages are my personal favorite in dealing with this sort of threat(since shadows are pretty cheesy).

the most effective thing here is a construct or undead, since its immune to all these things

Well... my most immediate concern is that players will bitch so long that they will be allowed to play Pixies with irresistable dance SLAs. THEN I'm going to need those undead. Or just MOAR bad guys.

[Hijax]

my general experience is this: once you move to large-scale battles, players who know the rules fairly well are going to get creative, either using guerilla tactics or self-perpetuating minions(read: shadows)[/spoiler]
With this group? Not a chance...

So remember to pack those effing magic weapons, because otherwise a single shadow CAN destroy a whole army long before it reaches the destination.

NPCs at the point have more magical items than the PCs. So yeah, no great danger in that regard.

Also, remember some medicine. diseases and cancer mages are my personal favorite in dealing with this sort of threat(since shadows are pretty cheesy).

the most effective thing here is a construct or undead, since its immune to all these things

Well... my most immediate concern is that players will bitch so long that they will be allowed to play Pixies with irresistable dance SLAs. THEN I'm going to need those undead. Or just MOAR bad guys.

seriously. what went wrong with those tags?

[Brainpiercing]

Fixed.

[Brainpiercing]

Session 5

Dale’s player was absent this session. Roscoe’s player had lost his sheet and had to rebuild the character. I took care to make him just mildly more effective at that point (as far as he would listen, AND I’m not very good at building rogues). TOM’s player decided to retire TOM and introduced his new character, using a Grig racial progression/Sneak-attack fighter gestalt.

After taking stock of the loot the party split up, with the absent PC and TOM keeping watch over the horses, and the others proceeding on foot along the path towards the pyramid. Roscoe scouted ahead this time, within the forest about 10 feet from the path. Unfortunately his sneaking skills are quite good, but his spotting skills rather lackluster (he took an ability grouping with a 9 in Wis, duh…), so he snuck up on the two spotters who were sitting on a tree platform watching the path, without ever  noticing they were there. He noticed the platform before everything else, and decided to climb the tree it was on.
Meanwhile, the Grig, whose name I forgot, was introduced as a native to that jungle plane. He had evade the mysterious cloud of white dust that seemingly had caused the berserker transformation by hiding underground. By chance (yeah, right) he approached the same guard platform. His listen check was great, but his hiding was not, so at some point he heard some whispering from the platform, when the Goblin captain and the Poison Dusk captain who were on the platform had already spotted him. They shot him with a net, entangling him, and a javelin, which missed. At that point Roscoe was about half-way up the tree.
Initiative was rolled after the surprise round, the Grig went first, then the bad guys, then Roscoe, then Takuya, and finally, with a natural 1, our dear NPC Psywarrior, Ugluk the Reborn.
Smartly, the Grig immediately shoots his entangle SLA at the platform, which, despite a piddly DC due to poor Cha, manages to entangle the Lizardfolk, while the Goblin saved. The goblin threw another javelin at the grig, and hit that time, IIRC for 8 damage. The Lizardfolk tried to break free of the entanglement and failed. Roscoe, undecided about how to proceed, climbed back down the tree, while the other two, Takuya and Ugluk, rushed towards the scene of the impending fight.
The goblin, who was not entangled, now climbed/jumped down from the platform, while the Lizardfolk tried to shoot people with his shortbow, usually missing due to the penalties from being entangled.  The goblin was attacked effectively for one round by Roscoe (who still counted as hidden, hence could sneak-attack once), and the Grig, who revealed that NO, he could NOT do any sort of adequate damage. (Well, without Sneak-attack he does 1 point ). The goblin then tried to run away to alert allies nearby, and was pursued by Takuya and Ugluk, while the Grig and Roscoe stayed and took pot shots at the Lizardfolk above. Luckily for our protagonists, Takuya and Ugluk brought down the goblin after a short pursuit. Even though, as a last ditch effort, he ferociously tried to attack Takuya with his twin shortswords he could not hit at all.
Meanwhile the Lizardfolk had broken free of the entanglement and jumped down from the platform, quick-drew a Longspear and began poking Roscoe, who retaliated as best as he could. We decided that when the Grig entered an enemies square he could automatically flank him, so he even did some sneak-attack, now.  Unfortunately the enemy went in between the two, took a five foot step to get back into 10feet distance with Roscoe and poked him once more.  The Grig did not want to reduce his initiative count to below the bad guy’s, so the Grig could sneak, but Roscoe couldn’t, because the Grig never threatened another square. So roscoe kept doing his normal damage from his small Elven Thinblade, while the Grig did a monstrous 1D6+1!! Er… 1+1D6. This went on for a bit. I think the Grig ate an AoO with a claw that did about 8 damage or so, once.
Roscoe was down to about 11 or 12 HP, when Ugluk and Takuya returned from beating down the goblin. Ugluk charged the Lizardfolk captain and did a nice chunk of damage. The Lizardfolk, at that moment, was flanked between two enemies with another sitting in his square, so his situation was pretty dire. I had decided, however, to play him as smartly (but still suicidally smartly) as possible, so he did not switch targets.  And, as often happens in such situations, he completely turned the fight around, at least for a while: A diagonal five-foot step took him back into 10ft distance with Roscoe, and then he skewered our poor  Rogue with a crit for around 50 damage.
There was some disappointment, but it was unanimously decided that these things happen, it was a natural 20 crit with good confirmation roll, what can you do? Roscoe got a dramatic death scene, collapsing with a football sized hole in his chest. And then bad luck continued: Ugluk missed. The Lizard hit him for 15 damage or so. Takuya may have put an arrow in him for a few points, and the Grig did a bit more damage.  The Lizard was now at 6 HP, of the 68 he started with. Ugluk missed again, Takuya missed, and the Grig did around 3 damage, I think, and Ugluk got hit again, for another 14 damage or so. He was now at 3 HP. And he missed AGAIN. And next round the Lizardfolk Captain cut him right down to -11 HP. Finally Takuya charged the guy, if only to give the Grig another flanking buddy, and finally brought him down.
That concluded the fight with one PC dead, one stabilized (via Autohypnosis) at -11, and one lightly wounded.

Granted, it was an EL 6 fight, but I had misjudged the effect that the missing Dale would have, and also thought that the Grig would bring a LITTLE more to the party. I practically begged him to at least take some ranks in Iaijutsu focus, but… to no avail.

Well, the party introduced themselves to the Grid, and vice versa, dished out some healing, at least getting Ugluk back on his feet, gathered up the rather extensive loot (the goblin captain even had magical gloves), when out of the jungle stepped two individuals: Both female Poison Dusk Lizardfolk, with claws on both arms and legs and surrounded by bluish flames. They greeted the party as fellow fighters against the “frothers”, as they called the infected people, and offered help, even possibly with reviving their dead comrade. (I did, initially believe that the PCs would mostly be able to return to their home planes to be revived. However, that would take several days of travel, now, and then they would have to return to this sphere again to examine the pyramid. And who would know what the enemies would do during that time?)
The introduced themselves as Sklklklk and her sister Sklklklklkl, and said they were the students of the Mysterious Master (who DID later get a proper name ), who was the inofficial guardian of the pyramid. They also revealed the story about the infectious cloud that had caused the transformations in everyone and everything, and that there was some artifact within the pyramid, but that it was now infested with undead.
 

(The Lizardfolk Sisters are PC-grade Totemists, ECL3, and would probably eat the entire party for breakfast. Well, they have one level on them…)

The party does not quite trust them, but they take them back to the horses, where they now leave TOM for good to take the horses back to Dorian at the guard tower. They also leave the non-magical loot, but take all the magic items they got, hopefully for later identification. They then leave with the Lizardfolk, who offered to guide them to their master.

After several days of uneventful travel through the jungle they arrive at a cave near the pyramid, where they meet the Mysterious Master, who introduces himself as Ashvyridon.

(He is a Half-Satyr Azurin Crusader1/Totemist2//RHD1/Warrior1/Expert1, utilizing the Therapeutic mantle and the Landshark boots for mad per turn healing (at such low level). Unfortunately he does not auto-succeed on the DC20 jump check, well…he’s still got some maneuvers. He's going to challenge the party to a duel if they want to enter the pyramid.)

He tells them (very roughly) about how he more or less by chance became the guardian of the pyramid. A powerful organization, as of yet unknown, placed an artifact inside called The Oracle, and placed undead guardians within the crypt to make sure no one took it away. He told them that Oracle could give wondrous amounts of information, and even predict the future, but that it also possessed a possibly deadly risk, and that he saw it as his duty to warn people about this (AND about the undead.)
He also told them that the Lizardfolk sisters were outcasts from their people, and that the three of them lived and moved near the pyramid secretly.
There remained the problem of the dead Roscoe. The party inquired about possibilities of reviving him, and Ashvyridon told them about a circle of Druids who lived in the jungle a few days march away, who might be able to help – BUT who were not exactly famous for their sociability.
He also hinted at another possibility – that he could in some way contact the organization who had placed the Oracle within the pyramid. 
The session concluded at this point, it was late enough, and Roscoe’s player had already left after his character died.

This is, of course, to keep my options open. I am basically going to ask the player what he prefers: New Character, reincarnation, or… becoming undead, at least for a while. I am contemplating either the simple Necropolitan template, because it neither needs a high-level spell to put into place, nor does it require any kind of level adjustment, OR the bone creature template, which would require a complicated ritual to even cast the spell to create one. The latter will put the guy at a serious social disadvantage, but is mechanically of course very strong.  If the Corpse Creature didn’t carry a Dex penalty… unfortunately it’s not a good option. But maybe there are also other options, I’ll dig around a bit.

[Brainpiercing]

Session 6:

Roscoe’s player was absent this session. Hence, reviving him was conveniently delayed until next session. He’s also decided that he wants to become undead, so he’ll get a Necropolitan template.

The PCs rest in the cave with Ashvyridon. When they awake next morning, Roscoe’s body is gone. The half-satyr tells them that he did contact the Necromancers responsible for putting the Oracle in the pyramid, and that they took Roscoe’s body with them. If he were willing to become an Undead, for them, the True Life, then they would return him within 24 hours.  They were also nice enough to identify the loot (which was a cop out to save time, obviously), but the party ended up not using any of it, because it was either the wrong size, or had the wrong ability boosts.
Ashvyridon then tells them some more about the Oracle, and that he will want to test them if they wish to enter the pyramid. They have to defeat him in “single”, i.e. four vs. one, combat. They decide against it for now, and rather wish to visit the druid circle, after all, who might also know more about the cloud that spread the infestation.
They are guided through the jungle by Sklklkl, one of the Lizardfolk sisters. When the approach one of the main paths through the hollow spherical plane they sneak up on a frother patrol. One goblin captain, two normal goblin spearmen, one unarmored goblin, and a lizardfolk are walking down the path. This turned out to be a really easy fight:
The sister and Dale, who had been scouting ahead, turn back to alert the others, while the Grig prepares to lure the frothers into the forest to ambush them.  Ugluk manifests Force Screen and Skate, and runs up into a tree. Takuya casts bless on most of the good guys.
The PCs get a surprise round, and start chewing up the lone Lizardfolk. Next there are numerous maneuverings to flank and counter-flank, which ends up with Dale, the Grig and Takuya ganging up on the Lizardfolk, while being flanked in turn by the unarmored Goblin, the goblin captain and one of the spearmen. The other spearman is attacked by the Sister, and chewed up badly with three claw hits. Ugluk Battle-jumps on top of him to finish the job.
The others have problems again getting the Grig to use his sneak-attack, because they don’t align initiatives so that he can consistently flank. The enemies keep five-foot stepping away from him. Well, the kill the Lizardfolk, while the captain is made useless be being within Dale’s dog’s threat range, and his Ironguard’s glare. The Sister raped another goblin spearman to death in a single round, and Ugluk kills the unarmored goblin. Finally the captain is also brought down.
The PCs collect the loot (another standard goblin captain outfit, AND a spellbook, a magical monocle, and some scrolls from the useless raging goblin wizard ).
The party continues, and after another day of travel they are greeted in the usual druid way: They are surrounded by three druids, two of them in wildshape, and their animal companions, none of them frothers, and told to get the hell out. Of course, they DO agree to talk for a bit, first. The druids tell them that the cloud also affected a few of their circle, but they know nothing about the origins.  They also tell them about some troubles they used to have with the Federation, which just had to meddle in their affairs long enough to make them leave.
Finally, after some internal debate, the druids decide to ask the PCs to take care of their infected circle members, since the circle oath precludes ever harming another member. So now I have to build some druids to kill my PCs, muahahaha.
We started awfully late, and it was late, so the session concluded at that point. Next session,  the other sister will have to escort the now undead Roscoe to the rest of the party, and then both of them will leave. (This just as a reminder to myself )

Now after last session’s fight, I was anxious to not make this fight too hard, but as it turned out, it was FAR too easy. The only PC to be hurt was Dale’s dog for about 6 points of damage. Also the NPCs around were much too strong, I’m going to get rid of them before the next fight, at least the sister.

[Ikeren]

because it was either the wrong size,

Magic items are generally of the right size.

This campaign sounds really awesome and cool; of the exact sort I wish I was playing. Oh well. Good work, I'll keep reading it, highly enjoyable.

[Brainpiercing]

because it was either the wrong size,

Magic items are generally of the right size.

This campaign sounds really awesome and cool; of the exact sort I wish I was playing. Oh well. Good work, I'll keep reading it, highly enjoyable.

Thanks .
As to the magic items: Anything except Weapons and Armour adapts in size. Unfortunately they've mostly found just that, so far.