[Showcase] Castle Ravenloft

[Showcase] Imperial Assault

 

[Session] Castle Ravenloft - Horror of the Howling Hag

October. It is time for some ghoulish games. Castle Ravenloft.

So we played the adventure 8 - Horror of the Howling Hag.

The party consisted of (in order of play):

Arjhan - Dragonborn Fighter

Thorgrim - Dwarf Cleric

Kat - Human Rogue

Immeril - Eladrin Wizard

In the first tile the Dragonborn found a Spider. In the second tile the Dwarf Cleric found the Wraith and a Wolf. Great start. In the third tile there was nothing and the Eladrin Wizard draw the Howling Hag token. Very great first round. We were all injured, and the main villain was already in play.

Now we tried to survive and find a way to the arcane circle, that we luckily found with both tiles left and right.

Now we didn`t explore any further and drew every turn one Encounter card. The Encounter cards were devastating. Fireball from Strahd, Overrun two times, Traps!

The first Healing Surge was used by the Wizard, the second one by the Dragonborn. Quickly all Time Tokes was spent and the ritual was successfully disrupted. But the Dart Trap activated in the Arcane Circle through an encounter card. And the Rogue was in jeopardy with only one HP left and was killed by the missing Dart (Miss: 1 Damage). We didn`t had any Healing Surge left, so we switched to "Easy Mode" and gave us an third Healing Surge. The Rogue survived.

The Howling Hag was not amused about us cheater.

Now we attacked the Howling Hag with all we got. And bring the 10 HP down to only 3. Barely there! The victory is soooo close. The Wizard died in the process. So now we had only three attack left to defeat the villian. The Dragon Born couldn`t reach the Hag to attack through the teleport curse from last round. One attack fewer. The Cleric attacked with lance of faith. The Hag had only 2 HP left. Now the Rogue has to win the game. Kat activated the Sneak Attack and attacks with a Snipe Shot. The Snipe Shot reads: "You gain a +2 Bonus to the attack roll if the Monster is 1 tile away from you" check. Attack has +7. Check. Sneak Attack reads: "You gain a +4 bonus to attack rolls and deal +1 damage until the end of your next Hero Phase." Check. Now the Rogue has +7 +2 +4 = +13

A flipping +13 to the attack roll.The Howling Hag has an AC of 15. So the player can roll everything. Except a 1.

He rolls.

Are you kidding me?! He rolled a 2. A 2. The bare minimum to get 2 damage on the Howling Hag and win the game.

The Wizard was dead, the Howling Hag was dead, the ritual was disturbed.
We won! Barely and on "Easy Mode". But we won!

Very hard adventure. The teleporting curse of the Howling Hag is a good and annoying gimmick. The Encounter cards were brutal and got us killed. To draw the Wraith and Hag at the beginning was not fun. The Wizard is lost in this adventure, too few Hitpoints to survive that.

It was fun, intimidating and thrilling. One of the best adventure in the Adventure Book.