Editing User:Bill/Thunderspire Mountain Enhanced (section)

===Session 8 - July 27, 2011===
This week was a smaller group than usual. In attendance were Bruce, Dylan, Jason, Rachel and one new player who's name presently escapes me. I will fill it in on the participant list as soon as I find my note. The new player has only just started playing D&D and his sole previous experience was attempting to work out the rules with a family member. The new player took on Volistis and everyone else continued with their characters from the previous sessions. 

I began the session by asking what, if there was anything else that the players wanted to accomplish while in town. This led to a brief shopping expedition where Helfyn attempted, unsuccessfully at first, filch a healing potion from the drow proprietor of an antique store that also traffics in minor magical items. This is a stock location from the Seven Pillared Hall and the NPC in question is the point of contact for at least one side quest. Even though our time on this game is short, my last scheduled session is next week, I had the character offer to trade the healing potions for completion of his errand. Fortunately the players didn't take the bait, I would probably have had to substitute one of my random encounters for whatever is in the published material. I didn't prepare the side quests for actual use.

After gathering themselves, the party advanced on the Horned Hold via the marked route on the map. This led them into an area with a substantial cliff on one side and a portcullised entrance in front of them. Utilizing Helfyn's teleportation power Dylan had his character enter the room, concealing himself under the table. This gave him a fair view of the two ogres and three orcs guarding the place. Using his ability to teleport enemy targets that he hits, Helfyn managed to teleport two of the orcs onto the other side of the portcullis; where the rest of the group was waiting for them. These were not basic orc warriors though. I rewrote the encounter to be 2000 experience points, and these were orc bloodragers. The players got a little nervous when the first one had taken 50 points of damage without becoming bloodied. The ogres, which I put in there as something of a decoy, were actually standard ogre savages and much weaker than the orcs. 

The encounter as a whole was very challenging for the players. As it should have been. I wrote it expecting two to three more people to be there. They managed to come through it pretty well though. None of them were killed, though I think three of the five characters were bloodied by the end of it. In the interest of full disclosure I will admit that I fudged things in their favor a couple of times. All of the die rolls were legitimate, but I kept the ogres out of the fight for a couple turns by playing them more stupid than their stats would indicate and having them break down the portcullis rather than operate the lock. I also didn't allow the monsters to climb back up when Dylan teleported them off the edge of the cliff. The adventure permits characters to do so, taking damage for sliding down the rock face.

Wednesday, the third of August, will be our final session of this season of Encounters. I have enjoyed the project immensely and I look forward to reusing the material in the future.