Last Friday, we gathered with myself as DM for the second time - ready to tackle the last encounter of my "Kobold Keep" remix.

As it is customary, we start off by the DM asking the players to do a quick retell of what went on last session.

The players seemed to quickly agree that they managed to get through four encounters in a row... most of which I messed up at one point or another - as I was quick to point back then.

Through twitter, @ChattyDM mentioned : "@themaze75 You have to learn to shut up about your perceived DM inadequacy man! It's becoming embarrassing! :)"

True. I had already figured that out and I vowed not to do it again.

We we last left off, our players were considering camping right in the keep - right next to a secret door they were aware of, that potentially led to a kobold-infested resurrection-like ritual where they were trying to bring back a beast called "Drak" - potentially a dragon, for all they knew.

I had already decided I would allow them to get an extended rest undisturbed, provided they made sure they were somewhat safe. I fully expected them to go see behind secret door #1 and keep an eye on the ritual while they rested.

Well, turns out, they just decided to camp, right there, in the middle of the corpses of the kobolds they had just slaughtered.

I mentioned to the ranger that she could act as a scout, should she so desire and could... I don't know... try to listen at the secret door.

Turns out I had *way* more influence that I ever thought... she listened at the door and heard some distant chanting.

Our resided fearless Shadar-Kai decided to open the door and just go see for himself without being stealthy or anything.

No body stopped him - in fact, the cleric just poked his head in the door and asked (loudly) "where are you going?".

Now... I wasn't planning on them going into my next planned encounter just yet - its supposed to be a hard one and I wanted to avoid a total party wipe.

Turns out, they had a bit of tunnel to go through before getting to the ritual room, which was behind a wooden door with a peeping hole - allowing safe, distant viewing.

What they saw was a ground of roughly 10 kobolds, busy on a complex ritual that seemed to want to revive the (smelly) corpse of a frankenstein-like amalgam of dragon parts.

Arkanys the Shadar-Kai (and not Arkanus, as I mistakenly called him) decided they sould not allow for such an aberration to be brought to life.

They formulated a quick plan, burst open the door.

"They're all going to die", thought the DM...

(to be continued)...

Basically, this is the first 9 monsters that I remembered fond memories of - either as DM or as player. I wanted 10, but I had nothing much to say after the top three, so...

#9 Rat

Its a classic. Its in any introduction game. And I need to mention that the computer game "Oblivion" has this wonderful quest where you need to take care of a rat problem in the basement... turns out you have to *protect* the rats from some odd predator. Love it? Yes I do.

#8 Kobold

A cornerstone of 1st level adventuring. Nuff said.

#7 Drow

No one does evil + cool like the Drow. And they come with spiders. I hate spiders.

#6 Skeletons

The first monster where we realized that bludgeoning weapons might be more effective than slashing weapons. My memories are vague, but I think it was in the ADnD rules. I don't remember any of that in 4th edition. Gelatinous Cubes should also be more susceptible to the damage done with weapons from the spoon class.

#5 Zombies

Well, zombies are a classic. They're slow, disgusting and give you a reason for your healing-pack player to use "turn undead".

#4 Dragon

There's a reason their race is in the name of the game. We never got to see one in my oldest game, but our DM is quite fond of them and... well.. so am I now.

#3 Orcs

Using illusion spells to dress as orcs, we had to role play our orcs to get passed an orcish barricade. When questioned about where we were going with our prisoners (we didn't have enough disguises), the PC leader went very angry - stipulating "the shaman told me to bring the prisonner there, it is not my place to question the shaman and if you are stupid enough to question the shaman, you go and question him your self. I do what the shaman tells me. And you better not dare question the shaman again."

#2 Trolls

Wolverine's "healing factor" is a sissiful thing compare to what our version of a troll could do... We were higher-level players back then and were going through a list of ingredients to gather. I think it was to try and cure the lycanthropic kid of a valorous and embarrassed paladin. Somewhere along the list, we needed to provide the blessed nose of a troll. The targeted troll was one among many trolls which had infested a region of the world and took over an abandoned castle carved out of mysterious black rocks. We enrolled hundreds of NPCs and ran them as military-like as we could. Some groups were equipped with torches and other fire-related elements. Over the course of a few days, we managed to clear the forest and the castle - which we took as our own. We kept the remaining soldiers as part of our staff. We eventually needed to adventure to gather money to pay for our staff! I remember when we were holding the castle and defending against trolls - trolls we lopping off the heads of other trolls and catapulting them inside the castle, in hope to regenerate a new body and attack us. As for the troll we were looking for, we located him and managed to... uhm... harvest its nose and place it in a bag of holding - to try and prevent the rest of the troll to grow on the nose (our trolls were *that* regenerative). Good times.

#1 Bulettes

The nefarious "land shark". I used them as a DM - because I liked to use the creatures my players didn't know about. Good luck doing that now that I DM for a DM that has way more experience than me! One of my fondest combat memory involved a pair of bulettes. The players were going towards a mysterious tower that appeared in a forest near a small town. As they came closer, the ground started shaking. A little rumble at first, but it soon came to Richter-like proportions. A thick slab of rock-like matter was aiming for the party. The adventurers braced, ready to dodge the... whatever that was. But the ground suddenly opened before them and this humongous creature took to the air and dove towards them from above, mouth agape and well populated with murderous teeth. Kindly roll initiative.

The last session's Q&A:

-1 Do daily spells from the spell book need to be readied before they are used like in the previous editions?

Yes. After an extended rest, you can prepare a number of daily and utility spells according to what you can cast per day for your level. You can't prepare the same spell twice. (PHB, p158)

-2 There are spells and powers that have area effects that cause half damage on a miss. Can these kill minions?

No. If a minion is missed by an attack that normally deals damage on a miss, it takes no damage. (DMG, p55)

-3 Does a readied action interrupt its trigger when it happens?

No. A readied action is an immediate reaction. It takes place after your enemy completes the action that triggered it. (PHB, p291).

However, if you prepare an attack in reaction to a creature's movement, you will stop its movement. But it will still be able to attack - provided it is still alive.

-4 Can an awesome rogue really hide in the middle of nowhere just because his bonus are so high it'll beat any reasonable DC you set?

No. It is worth revising the whole Stealth Skill section from PHB (p188)

Martin was nice enough to provide the errata for the skill - which replaces the whole description and helps makes sense of the whole thing.

Stealth (Revision) Player’s Handbook, page 188

Stealth: At the end of a move action.

• Opposed Check: Stealth vs. passive Perception. If multiple enemies are present, your Stealth check is opposed by each enemy’s passive Perception check. If you move more than 2 squares during the move action, you take a –5 penalty to the Stealth check. If you run, the penalty is –10.
• Becoming Hidden: You can make a Stealth check against an enemy only if you have superior cover or total concealment against the enemy or if you’re outside the enemy’s line of sight. Outside combat, the DM can allow you to make a Stealth check against a distracted enemy, even if you don’t have superior cover or total concealment and aren’t outside the enemy’s line of sight. The distracted enemy might be focused on something in a different direction, allowing you to sneak up.
• Success: You are hidden, which means you are silent and invisible to the enemy (see “Concealment” and “Targeting What You Can’t See,” page 281).
• Failure: You can try again at the end of another move action.
• Remaining Hidden: You remain hidden as long as you meet these requirements.
• Keep Out of Sight: If you no longer have any cover or concealment against an enemy, you don’t remain hidden from that enemy. You don’t need superior cover, total concealment, or to stay outside line of sight, but you do need some degree of cover or concealment to remain hidden. You can’t use another creature as cover to remain hidden.
• Keep Quiet: If you speak louder than a whisper or otherwise draw attention to yourself, you don’t remain hidden from any enemy that can hear you.
• Keep Still: If you move more than 2 squares during an action, you must make a new Stealth check with a –5 penalty. If you run, the penalty is –10. If any enemy’s passive Perception check beats your check result, you don’t remain hidden from that enemy.
• Don’t Attack: If you attack, you don’t remain hidden.
• Not Remaining Hidden: If you take an action that causes you not to remain hidden, you retain the benefits of being hidden until you resolve the action. You can’t become hidden again as part of that same action.
• Enemy Activity: An enemy can try to find you on its turn. If an enemy makes an active Perception check and beats your Stealth check result (don’t make a new check), you don’t remain hidden from that enemy. Also, if an enemy tries to enter your space, you don’t remain hidden from that enemy.

I hadn't butchered the next map yet - I only had my set of dungeon tiles to build it... which also allowed my to hide unseen details from the players. They were quite happy with this hiding - as they were no longer tempted to plan using what they should not have seen...

This is another one that went very well. Except that we really were too tired to play through it properly. Players had a hard time concentrating and multiple discussions were forming... making it hard for me to concentrate as well.

I learned that saying "zombie breasts" grasps the attention of my whole group.

We managed to play through this pretty sweet room.

Two mistakes I made in this room:

• The spiretop drake is not the same drake as before and can actually fly. Which I noticed after. (And told my players)
• The drake does not actually fly, it hovers. (And I told my players)
• The platform in the middle doesn't shouldn't have had a ceiling - now I have to figure out why there's a room here. (And I've told my players).

Now the ceiling thing, I think I like better than the original scenario. It helped me hide the kobolds on the ceiling and make them pop up and glue people to the floor before the stone rolls on them.

Nevertheless, the group went through this fourth encounter. Much more challenging. A few players got bloodied. Dailies got used. Action points. Second winds. Standard actions were turned into move actions to run away from the rock. Marisol Rockhugger managed to jump over the boulder.

Now the players and the PCs are exhausted. We're all pretty much satisfied with this long gaming session.

I ask for feedback and the main feedback is: stop apologizing. We don't care about your mistakes - we don't want to know about it. Keep it up, you're doing great.

Ok. I think I 'll do that.

Oh, by the way, I said, the "bring back from the dead" ritual takes 8 hours to complete and you've been in the dungeon for roughly 1 hour. Do you guys think you have time for an extended rest?

"Oh", I though, "I wanted to give you guys a special potion at the end that restores as an extended rest!"

And I told my players.

By this room, I was starting to get the hang of the kobolds. I was familiar enough with their particularities and the traps in the room. I felt I could give the players a proper challenge here.

This room is the skull-skull room. And I had something extra planned here.

A fiery rogue genasi the players met at an inn back at Albercott was in the goo pit, freeing a tied-up a watersoul genasi (his sister). The kobold were unaware of his presence and were occupied arguing the validity of the game's score.

The rogue spotted the adventurers and motioned them to be quiet... which is exactly when the kobold took notice of them.

This time, all the kobold were on a 10 foot high platform and were equipped to take pot shots at the players below until they figured something out.

As soon as his initiative was up, the genasi rogue and his quarry fled the scene - the players made no attempt to stop them.

The combat went fairly well - the kobolds on the platform took turns swinging the skull-skull stone at the players. Arkanis plucked one down with his annoying jedi powers. Rolen had some awful bad luck with his bow and wasted his daily power, an action point and a few arrows in one single turn.

Dali also flash-froze a few kobolds. It wasn't too long before the kobolds were handled. One of them was left alive and hiding behind the doors where the drakes were waiting.

The doors swung open and the drakes bull-rushed the closes players right in the pool of goo!

Glee! I always wanted to do this!

Of course, I waited too long before releasing the drakes (and told my players (!)) so they were chopped meat in no time. Arkanis used one of his wonderful jedi tricks (Dimensional thunder, dragon magazine 367) to basically teleport himself from the goo, right in the middle of the fray, blazing with electricity.

Room 3 was cleared. Some treasure found. I was ready to call it quits - we had already been playing for roughly 5 hours.

But a few players insisted that we moved onwards... and everyone agreed.

Tomorrow: Area 4