So for those of you marginally familiar with 3.5: I threw the 8th-level PCs at a CR 12 encounter last night.

For those of you not familiar with the situation: HA HA DIE PLAYERS DIE.

Actually, it wasn't as bad as it sounds on paper: the PCs in question, being mostly Birthright regents, have access to extra health and powerful cohorts (including one dwarf who is a melee machine of death, and at one point back when he was third level actually *smashed through a solid stone door* without breaking a sweat!), as well as decent armor and magic items. Nevertheless, the dread death knight that they faced was dangerous as well -- though ironically it was Stampy the elephant who did the most damage to the party. (It was a figurine of wonderous power, not just a random elephant -- and elephants have disgusting stats. Awful AC, of course, but insane to-hits and damage. It stomped two characters into the ground from full health with one full-attack each).

Hilariously, the strongest melee fighter failed his save against fear (a feeble DC 15, while standing in the *paladin's aura of courage*) and set off running for nine rounds, thus severely endangering the party. On the other hand, the greatest damage was done not by the PCs, but by the paladin's cohort/love interest who I built to be a single-target engine of destruction (loads of feats focused on her heirloom sword, plus the heirloom-item-prestige-class I don't remember the name of...). The paladin ended up otherwise occupied, since the death knight stabbed him with the Fleshgrinding Masterslaying bastard sword -- which means that the sword stayed in his body doing damage until he yanked it out, then promptly crit him in the face. (Ha!)

One of our old gaming friends came by and threw together the world's best one-shot character -- a priest of the god of nature with Vow of Poverty and sundry awesome stuff. (And a Wisdom of 22 but an Intelligence of 8...) Using a truly awesome stupid-country-hick voice, he entered by flying down the chimney into a political summit, almost singlehandedly shut down the undead assault on the city (Plant Growth + Entangle), smote skeletons brutally, nearly crippled the Death Knight ("Watch yer mouth!" he shouted, casting a silence that was mercifully resisted), *disarmed* the goddamn death knight (how?! How did those rolls produce that result! That was ludicrous!), and generally waltzed his way into a hall of fame, *despite throwing the character together in ten minutes and having never played a cleric before*.

Meanwhile, tigerphoenix's sorceror cast the hilarious spell Evard's Black Tentacles, which the DK (and Stampy) ignored, but which had the awesome consequence of surrounding the skeleton-summoning orb and bitchslapping the hell out of every skeleton it summoned for the duration of the battle. As was dramatically appropriate, she also managed to break through the DKs SR to land the killing blow with Magic Missile, despite botching every single other roll in the battle.


Games like last night's remind me why I love the game, and why I keep playing it -- and make me wonder how I managed to go years without.


For those of you who don't care about D&D, my dragons hatched, please love on them: