Encounters Recap: Session 12

I WAS LIED TO. Just kidding - my Encounters DM made a mistake, and told us last week that we only had one session left, instead of two. So THIS is my post about the penultimate Encounters for this season.

This session was kind of painful. First off, we were down two players - Mac was out of town and our friend Ian just moved out of the country (he claimed it wasn't just to get away from us). We got some help from the NPCs we were rescuing, and thank goodness because without her we would've been KILLED.

As it was, we got bottle-necked at the entrance due to the fact that (a) the passage was somewhat narrow and (b) there was a giant web-golem in our way. With Aura 2, "creatures entering or beginning their turn in the aura are slowed until the beginning of the golem's next turn." In other words, forever. None of us had teleport powers, and none of us had powers with the fire keyword (we found out later that he was Vulnerable 5 fire).

Fraaaaaaak.

I finally got away from the golem by readying an action to run as soon as our drow hunter used her attack to push him back. This of course sparked the usual debate about the differences between delaying a turn and readying an action. The main point is that delaying moves you in initiative order - you are holding your entire turn, and can come in (with any/all of your three turn actions) whenever you wish. Readying an action keeps you in the same initiative order, except you use just your standard action out of turn - and you must declare beforehand what exactly will trigger your action. There you go - clear as mud!

Did I mention this encounter also contained three Deathjump Spiders? They've got insane mobility and attacks that cause both immediate and ongoing damage. I remember the first time I used these against my PCs - I was not very well liked by the end of it. This time, one of our party members fell to zero HP, and another was close to the brink when we finally dispatched the last of the monsters. But hey, any encounter you can be revived from... Next week: we come face to face with the BBEG!