Topic: Tower of the Stargazer play report [warning: mad spoilers]
I ran Tower of the Stargazer yesterday for five players, and the outcome was unexpected, to say the least. It was awesome, and my players were smart, if foolhardy. The three highlights:
* Someone actually opened the corpse in the workshop to see what was up with it. The party was nearly destroyed by the flailing intestines, which threw them into walls and choked them. Only by pinning down both ends did they manage to slay it.
* And then, even though he was very hurt, one of our clerics decides to look in one of the obviously magic mirrors. He fails his save, his reflection grins and steps out and then slits our cleric's throat. The reflection looks at the party and says, "What?" After a tense minute, everyone shrugs and lets the reflection join the party.
* The wizard managed to fool our specialist into looking through the telescope with the Star Crystal in it by convincing the specialist that he would see the wizard's treasure that way. (I played the wizard as angry at first, but then as sly, as he split up the party and told them lies.) Pissed that the wizard killed one of their own, the party makes a plan. They bring the telescope's large main lens down the levitation shaft and shatter it in front of the wizard. Stunned for a second, they surprise him with a full-bore attack. Since you can't cast a spell if you've already been hurt in the round, they manage to kill him, which amazed me. One unlucky initiative roll, and they'd have been toast, but they went three rounds winning initiative and wrecked him. It goes to show that the most powerful wizard is vulnerable if he gets in a melee.