Of course, as you can tell from the photo, things didn't go so well for the wizard that I was playing. He was one-shot in the very last encounter, and actually is the first character I've had that's died in a campaign.
And frankly, I thought that was perfectly fitting.
This Just In: Dark Sun is Still Deadly. And Hot.
I had never played Dark Sun before, but I had been regaled with stories of the setting's alien landscape and deadly hazards from people that had been playing AD&D. When I found out it was being revived for 4E, I knew this was my chance to see what all my friends had been talking about.
The module provided, "Bloodsand Arena", was very slick for a one-shot folio. The pre-made character cards were so awesome I plan on swiping them to use for any one-shot event I write and run in Dark Sun. We played the first adventure provided, "Betrayal at Altaruk", which started off slowly but built to a satisfying conclusion. It began with the characters agreeing to work as guards for an elven caravan leaving Tyr; multi-stage skills challenge ensued, with a little combat woven in.
Before our first combat against an ambush of slaves and their raider masters, we were told that since metal was so rare our weapons were made of inferior material, so there was a chance they could break if we pushed them too far. But what really shocked us was just how painful the minions were to deal with in large numbers. The slaves got a +1 damage bonus for each ally adjacent to the target, so by the time they surrounded the fighter they were dealing 12 damage with each hit. The first round took him to single-digit hit points, and we all did a double-take.
Being a controller, my wizard took almost all of them out with an encounter power, and the DM took them off the board. But checking the stat blocks later, those minions had an additional ability that he had either missed or ignored because of the situation; when reduced to 0 hp, they don't die until the end of their next turn. Which would have meant another round of 12 damage from up to 7 sources.
Very frightening indeed.
The Arena
Once we took them out, the caravan moved on to Altaruk and the elven peddler rejoined his clan at their holdings. But instead of paying us, he signaled to his relatives to attack us; apparently, we were part of the cargo as well, and were going to be sold off as slaves. It was a pretty dastardly thing to do, but par for the course in Dark Sun. Before we could really finish the combat though, city guards moved in and stopped the fight, ordering us all to the Bloodsand Arena where we would compete for a just verdict.
But instead of a fight to the death, we wound up competing in an American Gladiators-style contest to grab large ceramic disks from a central pile and put them inside a coffer that belonged to our team on the other end of the arena. Stealing disks from our opponents was encouraged, and the totals would be tallied at the end of five rounds.
Things were going well until after the first round, when more doors opened on the arena and a trio of lizards that looked like a mix between a bulldog and an alligator rushed out at us. My wizard, who was hanging all by himself around the edges of the arena and slowing or immobilizing our opponents, got pounced on by one of them and took a critical hit to the midsection as its jaws snapped shut with a natural 20.
"That's 13 points of damage," said the DM.
Alright, I'm at 8 hit points, I can take a second wind and an action point...
"And they get a secondary attack as their over-developed jaw crushes down on you." He rolled 3d4, and everyone went 'Ooooooh...' when they came up a 3, 4 and 4.
"That's 18 more damage," he said.
And with that, Suldin the wizard, who had dreams of joining the Veiled Alliance in their fight to preserve what was left of this dying world, became lizard food.
The good news was, it attracted the other lizard over and they spent two rounds munching on my body while ignoring the other characters, enabling to shut out the treacherous elves 3-0.
Go team.
Survival of the Fittest
What's notable is that I didn't feel bad about Suldin dying. It was a one-shot, and I thought it helped make the event more memorable. Plus, Suldin was a soft-bellied noble's son whose idealistic dreams of studying magic in a peaceful monastery were going to get him killed; it was just a matter of time.
I plan on running the other adventure, "Veiled Threat", for my own players who had just finished our heroic-tier Eberron game, and could use a little taste of something different. That's one reason why I think Dark Sun is coming out at just the right point in 4E's cycle: Eberron is a world of intrigue, where magic makes comforts both big and small possible, and Dark Sun is the exact opposite of that. Survival is always the first concern, and if your characters happen to stumble onto a great mystery you'll probably treat it very differently that you would in any other setting. It'll be interesting to see just how many more Suldin's wind up in the belly of a Dark Sun beast once the real campaign begins.
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