Shifting campaign gears

A little over two years ago, I restarted my World of Greyhawk campaign in the Great Kingdom - the previous group having been dominated by demons, retired to strongholds, or just otherwise unavailable to adventure any more. With two of the players from the old campaign and two new players coming into the game, we started with the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh series.

How should I put this? The beginning stages of the new campaign did not go well.

One of the PCs died as the group completely failed to save Saltmarsh. The remaining members of the group died at the hands of an ettin they completely failed to run away from. Eventually, the new members made their way down into the heart of the See of Medegia, and the campaign properly began. Intrigue, undead and Hextorian oversight!

Last night, two years on, that stage of the campaign ended.

One of the primary characters of the group has now formally become Lawful Evil, which is rather incompatable with the paladin of Heironeous in the group. The campaign had reached the stage where she could take over the rulership of a major town in the See, which suited all of us, including her player.

With the group now predominantly Good in alignment, it was obvious that the See of Medegia (devoted to Hextor) was no longer a safe place to be. They are preserved from interference from the Hextorians at the moment because of their services to the state and because they're currently hunting down a rogue wizard devoted to Chaotic Evil. (eee!)

The characters are now either 10th or 11th level. (This is after two years of playing once every two weeks). I'm guiding the characters towards the Free City of Greyhawk where I can move into the new form of the campaign - and bring back plot lines from the original 3E Greyhawk campaign I began four and a half years ago.

For some reason, I had seven players at the last session (normally it is five, but there were a couple of guests). Combat took a while, but it was a lot of fun. I was running a module from Dungeon Magazine (The Black Egg, issue #106), which uses a more dangerous level of enemy that I'm accustomed to. It all worked out fine, anyway.

One of the interesting things about this session was the party composition. It was as follows:
* Gnome Druid 10 (a new character to replace the LE Sorceress).
* Human Favoured Soul 10 (a new character for one of the guest players)
* Human Ranger 2/Wizard 5/Eldritch Knight 3/Spellsword 1 (one of the long-running characters of the group, and slowly moving from being a bowman to being a wizard).
* Human Rogue 6/Duelist 4 (an older character who I've just returned to the group after dying a couple of times...)
* Human Rogue 3/Wizard 5/Arcane Trickster 2 (another of the guest players)
* Human Paladin 11* Human Psychic Warrior 5/Pyrokineticist 5

As you can see, the party lacks any really dedicated Arcanists. This occasionally proves a problem as they don't have anyone in the group who can cast the power spells (or utility spells) they occasionally need.

The Favoured Soul was also interesting to see in action. Not as great as a dedicated cleric due to the lack of full spell access and domains, but very versatile within its parameters. (Having Revivify as one of the 5th level spells would have proven very useful, if only the Hydra had eaten someone else... Luckily the reincarnation by the Druid was back as a human...)

So too the Druid. With the Eldritch Knight casting fly on the Druid, we had a flying rhinocerous. (or, as I'd keep remarking for the Munchkin card players out there, a Hippogrif).

This was interesting. 10th level Druids are scary things. The player isn't that used to druids, and was stunned to see a lot of useful spells (like flamestrike) in his spell list. That was fun.

Things should be interesting with the next session, as they try to finish off the adventure and then make their way to Greyhawk.

The cultists of Vecna are waiting for them...