Flaming Skulls of Fire!

For the younger set, due to language (because these monsters are just totally METAL!) this post is PG-13. Just check with your parent or guardian, first, please. I trust you.

Our party continued on after a short rest.

They discovered that a fissure in the rock wall of the room where they had fought the berserkers led outside, then checked the closed doors leading north. There they found a charred body and three skulls wreathed in green flame: flameskulls, because sometimes game designers just rip ideas off from the cover of metal albums. The skulls were watching through nearby arrow slits over-looking the main temple room, almost has if they were going to be sniping at a party of schmoes from there or something!

Blake, forgetting that I was proud of him in the last post, decided to have Amrus sneak past the skulls and explore the other doors leading off the corridor. Little bastard didn't roll anything less than a 20 on sneaking, and the darn skulls only have passive perceptions of 12.

I learned another reason why splitting the party is deadly: when the DM is forced to focus his attention on one player, the other players start to feel left out and restless. This makes people do Dumb Things. Or do what Joseph and Will did: pretend Lop and Ap were playing Cat's Cradle.

After several minutes of Amrus sneaking along and finding a room full of dried out potions an empty corridor, and model of a castle, Alec had Cugel cast invisibility and investigated. Seeing those totally bitchin' skulls and deciding they were dangerous, he positioned himself and hit them with a surprise lightning bolt. This would have been AWESOME. Except the skulls have a feature called magic resistance and are resistant to lightning damage.

Magic resistance is the bane of spellcasters. And this edition features the least awful version of it so far. In 2nd, there was a flat percent chance that the spell just wouldn't affect the target. Period. In 3rd, magic resistance was a DC the caster had to overcome with a caster level check, and there were feats available to increase that bonus. In 5th, the creature just has advantage on saving throws against spells. Meta-note: spells with to-hit rolls or that have no save (like magic missile) are unaffected. This is why it is the least awful version of that feature. So Cugel's lightning bolt did piddling damage, but Amrus finished off the one skull that failed its saving throw with a sneak attack.

However, Amrus saw a chest in that room with the model castle, so he hid from the fight to do some more looting. Again, Blake seems to have forgotten how proud of him I was after the last session.

Since the party is caster heavy: Lop, Cugel, Ap, and Tathora, the skulls proved resilient. In addition to resisting lightning and necrotic damage, they are immune to fire, cold, and poison damage. It's almost like they're snipers built to resist being sniped back. Still, when Sarra stepped in with her radiant melee damage, she managed to finish clearing them out.

The skulls go their licks in, though. One managed to herd Cugel with a flaming sphere. Another used a fireball once the party was suitably clumped in the hallway. They also rolled quite a bit of damage. My dice with the Mickey Head pips were smokin' with all the 6s rolled. However, at 9th level, even wizards can be tough enough to survive a strong hit. Tathora got everyone back up with her channel divinity and a mass healing word.

Once the smoke cleared, it was time for what Amrus wanted: loot. The chest contained a now empty scroll case, but Amrus looked further and found a false bottom concealing a tome of understanding, one of those handy-dandy stat bumping books. In this case, for Wisdom. The consensus was to give it to Tathora.

The party also found a staff of frost in the clutches of the corpse. This ended up in the hands of Lop.

Finally, they examined the model castle more closely. They realized it was a model of Castle Ravenloft itself, probably built by the architect. Lop was already planning to reduce/enlarge himself to see if he could check around inside. Probably hoping it might prove to be a full scale miniature with secret doors and everything.

Unfortunately, it was late enough that we had to break. I won't be running this week due to work scheduling, but this will be the last week where its the case, hopefully.

However, Kyla and I have started a Delta Green campaign. While currently LFG, we did a test run prelude for her character. Lovecraftian Horror and Government Conspiracies, it turns out, are fun! Look for more information and new blog about that.