While out there he came across a mutilated cow corpse. Making a couple of successful skill rolls he determines it was torn apart by lions. Recalling that there is a beastmaster (A jeridu Beastmaster to be exact) he returns to town to get him to help out with the situation. The Beastmaster agrees and they head out on foot.
They get a few miles from town and pick up the trail where Rob found the kill. They track it for a few miles and come to a large field of tall grass. They enter, and continue to try to follow the trail. After a bit they hear noises (The cats giving warning..) They stop.. Realizing they are in tall grass and have no chance of spotting these cats until they leap and are literally right on top of them they start matting down the grass. (In the process making quite a bit of noise doing so.)
I let them clear out a near 10 ft circle. They opt to stand back to back so as to not be taken from behind. They each hear noises coming from in front of them. The lion facing the Druid steps into the area first. (It's a male) The Druid tells the beast master who moves and looks right at it and tries his animal telepathy. (He fails his roll horridly) He tried to convey "Calm down we're not here to hurt you." in a commanding tone. I mention that they hear a noise from behind them. (It's the female entering the clearing.) I then call for initiative. They win. The beast master turns and faces the female who looks ready to pounce. Again in a commanding tone using animal telepathy he orders the female to calm down and states he's not going to hurt her. In response the female changes her stance and is no longer ready to leap and attack. The Druid does nothing as he thinks the Beastmaster has the situation under control.
The male lion however feeling that the Beastmaster is challenging his authority attacks the Beastmaster who's back is to him. He hits and knocks the Beastmaster to the ground sinking his claws into the exposed back of the Jeridu. (He wasn't wearing any armor.) Realizing this isn't working the Druid begins casting repel animals. The Beastmaster fails again to use telepathy on the male. The male misses his bite at the Beastmasters neck. Finally the Druid's repel animals spell goes off. Both lions flee the area.
Deciding the problem isn't resolved the druid begins tracking the lions.. He fails to pick up the trail. The Jeridu meanwhile was thinking about enlarging the size of the matted down grassy area they hastily made. I inform him that he's still bleeding and he takes a point of damage due to blood loss. The Beastmaster has first aid and said he will stop the bleeding.. I then remind him that the damage was done to his back and regardless of the six arms he's gonna need help with that..
Fortunately the Druid returns and patches him up. He didn't have anything to sew him up but he did have bandages and I allowed him to stop the bleeding. Enough so that they will be able to return to the town and get him to a healer.
Instead of returning to the town they opt to try following the tracks of the animals. They try to pick up the path of the female from where she entered the area. They manage to do so and follow it back to the den. There they discover two cubs. They realize that they were protecting the young.
I describe the den as being at the base of a 70 ft tall tree.
They realize that the lions will return to the cubs and they opt to wait for them. Yep they literally waited for them to return which they eventually did. As they approached I noted that they seemed to be moving quickly/noisily through the tall grass. (running)
The two of them decide that waiting on the ground is a bad idea and they both climb up the tree. The Jeridu climbs up 20 ft and the Druid 30 ft. The two lions arrive and are angry that the den has been disturbed. The female goes by the young protectively. The male begins moving about at the bottom of the tree. Again the Beastmaster tried animal telepathy. He succeeds but the male is enraged that his young have been endangered. The only message coming back to the Beastmaster is "Kill invaders" "Protect the young ones" "I'll tear them apart"
The Beastmaster decides 20 ft isn't enough and starts climbing, as does the druid when he sees the jeridu moving higher. Yep they somehow thought climbing a tree would help against a LION.
The male leaps up 20ft into the tree. The two players climb up higher. They are at about 40 and 50 ft respectively. I ask for the weights. Each is about 200 lbs. The Lion also leaped up closer as well. Risking going higher the druid fails a climb skill. He rolls again and fails again.. Thus falling 50 ft to the ground. (5d6 but halved as he was able to roll with impact.)
The Beastmaster climbs up another 10 ft. This puts him 20 ft above the male lion.
The Lions turn. The male leaps 20 ft and grabs hold of the Jeridu with his claws. This puts them up 50 ft. And weighing roughly 500 lbs. I inform the Beastmaster that the limbs he is standing on are starting to crack under the pressure. But before he can react the female lion decides to attack the druid who fell from the tree.. As he hit the ground he's not on his feet so I made a called shot for the jugular. Natural 19 and it wasn't dodged. She gets the druid by the neck.
The Druid takes his thumb and jabs it in the lionesses eye. She fails a save vs pain and lets go of his neck. But he's still profusely bleeding from the neck. The Beastmaster then tells me that he is going to push away from the tree so that his body is parallel with the earth. Then when the lion lets go of him he will grab a branch using gymnastics.
I made him clarify this three times before I moved on with the game..
ME: So you want to push off with your legs and then your hands? Are you falling backwards?
Player running the Beastmaster: No I'm pushing off with my feet first and pushing out with my hands. The idea is that I'll be able to grab a branch on the way down and use gymnastics to prevent falling.
ME: So your gonna be facing the ground with the lion on your back? Is that right?
Player: Exactly, the lion will jump off and I'll grab back on to the tree.
So he does this. The lion simply leapt to the tree and caught hold of it again. I ruled that the force of the lion pushing off put the Beastmaster off balance so he had to make a sense of balance roll prior to attempting to catch a branch.
He failed and fell to the ground.
At this point the Druid using the new quick cast rules cast repel animals again. (I was nice and said his vocal cords were still intact even though they most likely would have been torn out.)
The lioness fails and flees, one of the cubs flees. The other cub and the male who is climbing down from the tree make the saves.
The session ended with them both fleeing on foot.. But piror to leaving the beastmaster again tried to use animal telepathy to tell the male "We're not a threat to you." To which the Druid said "No duh! They just kicked our asses.. He knows we're not a threat to him.
