End of the line: Summer D&D session 4, part I

Took a Level in Badass (Or At Least Not Dying)

The players returned the next session facing that the bad news that their characters would not be getting an extended rest, meaning the rogue remained at 1 HP with all healing surges used, and the good news that they reached Level 2. Leveling takes a while, but luckily many of the players, despite their relative newness to the game, had by now gotten enough of a handle on the Character Builder to do most of the leveling up on their own (an action I was initially quite wary of), with only a bit of overview on my part to ensure everything went well. Unfortunately the time won by this was offset by the extra time taken to set up a new player--time well spent, of course, but it nonetheless meant the session started much later than normal.

Leveling also reduced the rogue's problems, as to combat his constant shortage of surges he took the Durable feat (the bonus surges which I immediately granted him) and the cleric took Cure Light Wounds as his utility power, which he promptly cast on the rogue as well.

You Can't Go Over Water . . .

The players began actual play fitfully. They remained worried about a boss encounter ahead they felt ill-equipped to fight, and so it took some encouragement from me as DM to get them to venture forward to the next open room, which contained one of the most important parts of the Keep, a complex device that players figured out after some time (with the help of outbursts from the angry voice) was some sort of power generator and containment system for the planar rift that the deva's flashback had established the Keep was built to defend against.

The description of the centerpiece of the room--a group of metallic circles spinning in a spherical formation, with three large, finely carved gems set at the intersections of the circles--attracted the players, so much so that they were afraid of doing anything with it (correctly assuming that messing with whatever was containing the rift would have serious consequences). In the end I had to keep prodding the players, who eventually came up with a plan to instead cut the power lines connecting the generator to the rest of the facility (and specifically the magically locked door to the final room). But since in this case the generator's collapse was the inciting incident for the next act of the campaign, cutting the lines simply led to a feedback loop within the generator that brought the containment down just as well (and opened the door).

Something of an Anticlimax

The players entered the final room prepared for a boss battle and possibly the rescue of a prisoner (the fifth player waiting to be introduced this session). They found instead only a small but well-furnished room (everything was gnome sized, as they realized) and a ranting robot, now too confused and upset by the containment failure (I threw in a "resonance cascade" reference that no one got, unfortunately). The room also quickly began falling apart, along with the rest of the facility (the implication being that some sort of magical field or other device had been keeping the ancient ruins stabilized), but an escape quickly presented itself: one last false wall, revealed by its not shaking along with the rest of the room, behind which was hidden a teleportation circle.

Originally I imagined the finale of the Keep as a complex skill challenge involving an Indiana Jones-style escape as the ruins collapsed around the characters; I'm honestly not sure why I went with the hidden teleportation circle instead, aside from the ease of getting the players back to town. It certainly would have been a bit more exciting, though for once the skill challenge to activate the circle got everyone involved with useful skills, as the cleric and wizard used Arcana to decipher the circle itself, the ranger used Perception to search the room for useful information, and the rogue made one last attempt to get information out of the robot with Bluff--not to much use, but he did end up dragging the robot along as a man-sized trophy.