Dynodungeoness Crab. Seafood from the paleolithic era.

Last night was game night. First, big up to the Monteburgher (like how I put that 'h' in there to make it more German?) and Nurse Nancy for sitting in with us, even though you weren't playing. Can't wait til we figer out how to mix ya in....and get in yer pants.

When we left our heroes, they'd just finished off a Tendriculous, partly from the inside out since Durbik was a light hors'de dwarf pickle rolled in cream cheese and ham. With very minimal debate, we decided to heal up and not camp, as it was still roughly morning. Surpisingly, four cure light wounds spells got Ollie and G-leaf back to functional, and the monk took care of himself. We forgot about Durbik.

In that time, Ollie found a butt load of copper and a nice shiny topaz for us.

Then, we were faced with a 200' climb out of the caves. Unfortunately, Durbik didn't have any magic stairs in his pocket, so we made a rope from our rope supplies and bits of the plant monster. G-leaf swagged on his levitation potion (how bout the power of flight? that good enough for ya?), grabbed Trenh and headed upstairs. After all was said and done, the poor saps in the whole had to climb about 45' before even reaching the damn rope. Ollie failed. A lot.

After many times of watching Ollie fall back into the pond, Shipteth (the monk) just headed up on his own. He made it pretty quickly. Then we had Durbik carry Ollie up to the rope. Ollie held on like a little bitch and we pulled his ass up. Durbik's a deep warden, so with the proper tools (and he's the most proper tool there is) he climbs like a mofo.

Still half beaten and slightly exhausted, we headed off for a good spot to camp, according to Durbik. In route, we saw an ogre scout party about two miles away. Then we lost em.

They came back in the middle of the night. A direct hit from G-leaf's flaming sling of doom exacerbated the combat (as an afterthought, we shoulda dropped a coupla invisible peeps behind em, but hey, Gleaf's a man of action and these ideas sometimes come too late. He'll store it for next time). I personally wasn't paying too much attention and made a few strategic mistakes. Oops.

Of course, when the ogres charged, the monk, Durbik and Ollie just waded in. Missing a prime opportunity to heal some party wounds, the monk fought along side Durbik, leaving Ollie to fight an ogre one on one. Trenh started singing and launching ineffective electrical arrows to the moon. Wendy was REALLY tired though, and I'd strong armed her to come, so she's forgiven.

Tactical error number one, Gleaf dropped his harrier on the oger facing Durbik and the monk, leaving Ollie one on one, but the other ogre suffering three on one.

Hack and slash ensued. A good color spray from Gleaf combined with Trenh's bard music to land six hits for our team and avoid four from the ogres. A critical hit from the monk brought down the swarmed ogre and the other ran away. Ollie scored a crit on the fleeing ogre's ass, but it wasn't enough. He made his escape.

Tactical mistake number two, I always forget Gleaf still has his familiar with him. He sent the leopard, dog, and monkey away (and now that I have 3.5 rules, he'll have to redo the companion thing anyway), but the raven stayed. Always forget that. Why's it important? Produce flame. Gleaf cast that after the color spray. It can be delivered as a touch spell, and the familiar can deliver touch spells for the G. When the ogre ran away, the raven could have given chase complete with flaming claws.

Tactical error number three. I believe twice Gleaf threw flaming balls at the ogres in combat. This spell makes either melee or ranged touch attacks. Touch attacks only figure in size, Dex, and deflection mods. Now, ogres have a -1 size mod to AC, and gnomes get a +4 to attack against giants (which ogres are). The raven would have had a +2 or 3 because of his size and maybe the +4 for Gleaf's giant knowledge. So, even if the ogres had high Dex's or rings of protection, we're still looking at an AC of 13-15, with a +13 to hit on ranged attacks and +10 on touch attacks. I know I'da hit once. Maybe 6-11 points of damage woulda made a difference, maybe not. Regardless, oops on my part.

At that point, we packed up camp and headed off for an 8 mile midnight hike to a safe spot, according to Durbik. Forced march kind of thing, so if we don't get rest soon, we're fucked, because as is, all of us except Durbik and Ollie will be fatigued, and that's no good.

Overall, a fun game. I hope the guests had fun imagining Ollie sliding down the water fall time and time again. I sure did. Good job to Nick, too. I just realized the only rules argument we had wasn't really a rules argument. Twas a misunderstading about how a spell worked, AND it didn't matter, cause Gleaf hadn't prepared the spell yet anyway. Propalicious Nickemon.

And I have to say, cliffhangers rock. Ending the session with our characters in such dire straits has me jonesin for next Friday all ready. If not for commitments tomorrow, I'd willingly sacrifice the big game to get another session in. Maybe I can swing something tonight if Wendy doesn't go party with a salsa club or some "huggable" lesbians.....

Tune in next time for "Hi Ho, Hi Ho, by ogres we're crushed Hi Ho" or "Monteburgher and Nurse Nancy, Beautiful Elves of Light, Open a Portal to Bliss and Save Us All."

Note: By "huggable" I do mean gordo, large, gargantuan, and to break it into D&D terms, Legendary Dire Monstrous Lesbians.