Exactly thirteen months after the the final heroic battle, we have the final paragon battle. The end of the paragon tier, some sixteen sessions in length. The paragon tier has been focused on the retrieval of five McGuffins, the 'hearts' of each of the five primordials. We started this session in possession of them all and with the goal to return to the City of Kings, the place the campaign started, enter the labyrinth of madness and stop Sopias, one of said primordials, escaping from his prison and / or cure him of a chaos infestation.

Battle in the Skies

I liked the first battle because it felt less like a 4E encounter and more like a dynamic action scene that just happened to involve a 4E encounter. It started with us giving the enemy an illusionary set of primordial hearts. It ended with us ramming the enemy battle cruiser airship and teleporting out of the descending wreckage into the City of Kings. In the middle was an encounter with the enemy to regain control of our ship before the enemy realised and the giant battle cruiser airship turned around. This meant the actual 4E tactical play seemed to be framed within a larger dramatic set-up and, as such, it felt different. The overall cinematic situation didn't get lost when the battle zoomed into the encounter experience in this instance. It didn't for me anyway.

And I got to shoot an arrow into one of the airship's power nodes to take out an enemy mage, which was great. It was cool and dramatic. It gave the character an 'awesome weight' above and beyond repeated application of the same powers. That's what allows you to 'feel the awesome' rather than relative encounter maths.

The Sinister Five

The second encounter involved the return of five previous enemies we'd killed during the heroic or paragon tier. They'd been raised to rain revenge and destruction upon us. It was an interesting fight because it seemed to be the closest we've come to fighting a party like ourselves. They'd been built using the monster construction rules, but they fell into various 'class-like' slots. Rather scarily they included an Invoker and a Barbarian which have ridiculous damage potential. It also meant that was one enemy for each one of us. A few things came into focus in this encounter. As a strike (Ranger), I can take things down quickly, but go down easily myself when the enemy really insists on focusing on me. The fighter has seriously harsh abilities to keep things focused on him, and in the case of our fighter, causes a significant amount of steady damage to those so locked around him while being ridiculously hard to take down (and even more so with the Demigod Epic Destiny).

It was a swingy fight, it looked doomed at one point but we pulled it around but there was key points were it could have swung either way. It was very interesting fighting a group of enemies with a healer in the mix, as we did focus on taking him down due to his power magnification. The use of status effects was also interesting on both sides (they kept their healer alive a few rounds longer through judicious use of them).

I'm not sure this encounter had as much emotional investment as it did for some of the other players. Enemies returned for revenge! Yeah, but to me it was like a load of henchmen returning for revenge rather than someone important! I could think of a few others that would have really got the adrenaline flowing. I mean, Paldamar the Ganked?

Sopias Kill Steal

What's not to like about this battle? A massive, I mean obscenely massive, Sopias raging against his chains slowly being corrupted by chaos looking out across the field of battle as the chaos demon and his forces, consuming his very soul, is confronted by a group of heroic mortals. Frickin' excellent. This is a perfect example of how the 'encounter zoom in' erodes the dramatic weight. I completely lost track of this imagery in the scene as you concentrate on the tactics. It's not part of each round, more opening and closing colour. It's only after you consider it again.

It was another good encounter. The number of minions on the field was legion, and that really showed off the awesome of the mage. Despite their numbers they had very little influence on the battle due to continually being killed by AOE awesome. Cloud Kill may not be great empirically (though I have no idea), but it was certainly awesome on that field on that day. It was the first encounter in a long time to see us relying on our at-will powers, not for a boring 1001 rounds, but in the last handful of rounds it was certainly the case. The main boss also had a fiendish ability, a throw the dice at the GM in frustrating ability. It had an AOE attack that gave the GM a dice roll for each enemy in the area of effect and the result of those dice rolls could replace any GM or player roll until they ran out. Annoying, but cool.

The best bit at the end? I got to stand over Sopias and make a fateful decision to send an arrow from his fellow primordial's weapon, The Solar Bow of Ashura, into his chest. Did I choose to fire the arrow? Of course, I did. Artemis, Slayer of Gods, shall be whispered across the fabric of reality!

Fateful choices. Freckin' excellent.

The Paragon Tier In Conclusion

The paragon tier felt very long. It swapped the five month, eleven session heroic tier for a paragon experience of sixteen sessions and thirteen months. If we imagine each tier as a season then both are quite long by the gaming groups standards and the paragon tier is probably longer than the two seasons of the Buffy campaign added together. I suspect each tier isn't that much shorter (if not longer) than whole of the Crescent Sea campaign? We played the paragon tier for a whole year? Shheeet!

It may have been a marathon, but it was a fun marathon. The picture the DM paints is fantastic, if sometimes so deep it becomes superfluous as no one keeps on top of it as it seems too distant from the protagonists themselves (though it gets closer as the game goes on). The encounters have been great. It's a great, round the table experience. It's just a sort of fun that seems less immediate, visceral, intense, chaotic and emotional. It tends to be more controlled, delivered and mediated and a story held by the GM certainly exists to a greater extent than in other games independent of player issues, premise and desires for their characters. It's no secret my favourite bits are were a bit of chaos and unpredictability sneaked in.

All the immediate, visceral, intense, chaotic and emotional stuff is there but it tends to be lost in either the encounter rush (and the time they take) or obfuscated behind power-based, transactional politics and 'ultimate pragmatist' characters rather than being based on emotional needs and wants due to loves, hates, the weight of history and other dramatic constructs. In short, the why of the power dynamics. I suspect the larger 'story fabric' also has an influence.

I also find the actual plays interesting. They have an Alastair Campbell sort of 'sexed up' feel about them in that they reflect generally what happened at the table but in a much better fictionalised form. It's a dramatic reconstruction of events that isn't exactly a piece of fiction inspired by the game. Idealised I guess. The DVD extras that are often added onto the end are great, despite the fact it relegates them as 'off table'.

The game is a great achievement though, and the final session was awesome.

The epic tier looms. Hopefully, a shorter and more intense experience full of fateful protagonist decisions born from emotions and relationships and wants and desires that effect all of reality itself! A bit of chaos, for good or bad? Bring it on.

GM Blog Links:

• Flight of the Navigator
• Into The May of Madness