I rant the Awesome Squad through 2 trips into random dungeon land. Was surprised at a few things. First of all, I expected Waldahar to be the real star, a really butch fighter with great stats and all, but he got poisoned TWICE, and if it had not been for the Mighty Sword, probably the lamest character, having memorized Slow Poison, he would have died both times.
It also turned out that "terrain" was everything. When they encountered a group of 12 orcs and a 3rd level magic user, it should have been a slaughter. Tavish used a sleep spell and took out all the orcs, but then the enemy cast Stinking Cloud. Since the party was coming up a 5' corridor the cloud hit Waldahar, Tavish and the Mighty Sword, knocking them out for 5 TURNS (50 minutes). This also cut the party off from the enemies for 3 rounds, allowing the mage to get working on reviving the orcs. Then the 3 weakest melee characters were left to hold off the orcs. Tiberio used all his summoning spells to help, but since the corridor was only 5 feet wide, there was a lot of 1 guy vs. 1 guy fighting, and eventually the spell duration on the summonings ran out. The enemy wizard never really got to cast another spell, since he was around 2 corners from the party, and eventually the orcs morale finally broke, saving the party.
The expeditions were not as profitable as one might expect. They earned around 3000gp, but had to spend 2000 of that in saving Waldahar from poison. They got a bunch of minor magic items, but none of them terribly useful to the members in question.
The jury is still out on the bard. He had sleep spells, by random chance. But, he couldn't use them the first expedition, since he was wearing armor. The second expedition they were pretty useful, He never really got to try his charm power (the stinking cloud prevented that).
Lothar the thief did some good work doing the sword and dagger combination, but thieves still just live in the "I can almost fight" land. But there was plenty of lock and trap work for both he a Steve to do. I wasted Steve's phantasmal force in a ploy that really just tricked 2 orcs. He had a hypnotism spell (which is different from Nigel's hypnotic pattern), but it turned out to be no good when he needed it (he couldn't speak orc, and needed to do so to give them a hypnotic suggestion).
Tiberio's summonings were very useful. It's like hirelings in a jar you don't have to pay. I think it would be very useful for him to make some scrolls.
The Mighty Sword was the surprise hero. Even if your scores are crap, if you've got a sword, armor and a bunch of spells, you can save the day.
A full report can be found here:
http://www.lordsofhack.com/home/doku.php?id=the_awesome_squad
It was actually pretty close, me running a fighter or a summoner. I had looked over the spell lists, and I see there's a TON of ideas there for some custom spell research for summoners. But in the end, the I kinda thought that the spell durations were all pretty short. But definitely, my next character will be a summoner.
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