Starring:
Henry as Darin the Rogue – I run away and then attack with my rapier!
Adam as Ari the Wizard – Can I see the Jester?
Jake as Kroq the Fighter – I can actually heal myself, it just didn’t occur to me.
Chris H. as Uffo the Bard – Too much talking, I charge in!
Matthew as Cru the Cleric – I don’t actually have a mace.
Sophie as Torren the Cleric – I lick it!
Special Guest Star: Simon as Helmuth the Sorcerer
Prelude
The main story so far:
– There still isn’t one; it’s still a prelude dummy.
Lance Rock Arrival
Two new arrivals, Torren and Helmuth, joined up with the group in town and all seven of them headed for Lance Rock to investigate the reported plague there. An investigation of the area showed a trail heading through the brush into a cave. Signs were posted warning of a plague and were signed by ‘The Lord of Lance Rock’
The party entered the cave and the DM enquired about light sources. There are 5 spell-casters in the party. It became apparent that the only one of them that couldn’t see in the dark was the only one who didn’t take the Light spell <sigh>
A body was spotted on the floor just inside the cave. Helmuth immediately ran up to ransack its pockets. It turned out to be a zombie. Momentary panic set in but the unusually robust zombie was quickly dispatched and did not rise up again.
The party carried on down a short tunnel and a bigger room opened in front of them. They started sneaking into the room but Kroq was spotted by two zombies standing on a ledge above the door. They dropped a large box of rocks on him. It really hurt.
The zombies then jumped down to start combat… well… not exactly; as zombies they just kind of shuffled off the edge and face-planted on the ground next to Kroq. They were quickly dispatched by the party and Kroq asked for some healing. One of the clerics obliged at which point Kroq said “I can actually heal myself, it just didn’t occur to me” <sigh>
There was a rock in the middle of the room covered with a dark substance. The party investigated and Torren adopted the unusual technique of licking the rock to find out what it was; dried blood.
Dwarves eh?
Close Quarters
As the party approached a small side cave Ari asked for a cleric to come and protect the squishy mages at the rear, as opposed to being in the middle where they can protect everyone <sigh>
There were a bunch of bodies in the cave so everyone piled in and Darin touched one up. Five unhappy skeletons stood up! It was looking grim for the sneaky rogue and he was badly hurt during the first round. He used his disengage action to get out of the rather deep hole he was in but then attempted to make a ranged attack with a rapier <sigh>
Kroq rolled an 18 but said it was an 8 because maths is hard.
Because Kroq has horns, the DM had previously agreed to let him use them as an improvised weapon with proficiency. This was supposed to be the kind of thing that adds flavour to a bar fight. However, skeletons take double damage from blunt weapons so, eh, it works I guess.
Everyone looked on with amazement as the hulking Dragonborn fighter charged a menacing skeletal warrior and launched a fierce head-butt at it with a pair of wicked looking horns.
He missed.
Jake was gutted.
It turns out Cru doesn’t have a mace. It’s not optimal for his branch of cleric but he is still a cleric and he’s going to have a mace dammit!
DM> Roll a perception check
Cru:> Er… 5?
*laughter*
DM: Oh ffs, never mind
It’s ok, one was found on the ground later and fixed up by Torren. The cleric has a mace and the DM’s fantasy world is back in order.
Torren absolutely obliterated a skeleton with a warhammer. The base damage would have killed it anyway but the double damage from the blunt weapon was just silly. Kroq and the two clerics tanked the skellies while the two mages and the rogue whittled them down from the back. Torren finished the fight by double-damaging the last hapless skeleton.
And then Uffo turned up <sigh>
Room was a bit limited and Chris had to make do with the crappy end-of –table slot that is in the way of the door. As Chris momentarily left the room to cook something, the DM realised the tables could be moved down a bit to give Chris some more room. When the DM suggested this to the group there was a momentary silence followed by a unanimous “Nah, fuck him”.
Friends eh? 🙂
And that’s why everyone was laughing when you came back in the room Chris.
The Necromancer’s Crack
The only exit unexplored was a narrow corridor, barely one person wide, leading into darkness which was promptly named the Necromancer’s Crack. Cru bravely scouted down the passage with Uffo close behind. The room at the end had three zombies in it dressed as a jester, an old maid and a bear. They seemed to be acting out some weird undead comedy.
Stealth checks were rolled and the zombies, seemingly unaware of the two intrepid explorers, carried on cavorting around the cave. The two heroes didn’t notice the zombie’s antics brought them ever closer and as Cru moved through the cave the zombies attacked!
The cleric was molested by the bear and the maid, while the jester moved into the Necromancer’s Crack and assaulted the bard.
Ok, that’s a contender for weirdest thing I’ve ever typed.
As Drikk Fra-Kar, six-time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena once said “Necromancers are dicks! Sure, first it’s all ‘I just want to retire to a cave in the country and raise a family!’ but then when you get called in to sort out the smell, they don’t just kill you, they make you perform like a trained monkey!”
The rest of the party moved into the crack but were stuck with ranged attacks because the necro’s back passage was blocked by an insanely cheerful halfling.
Ari, at the back of the Necro’s Crack, wanted to launch a Flamebolt at the zombie and asked the DM if she had line of sight on it because most of the party were in the crack between her and the target. The DM said “Yes, but it’s a really narrow passageway and full of people so whatever you do, don’t roll a 1!”
Ari rolled a 1.
The DM was super impressed!
Decision time! As there were 6 party members in the crack, the DM let the fates decide it and rolled a d6 for it; a very unimpressed Darin caught the Firebolt in the back of the head for half damage.
Cru, initially somewhat worried by having two badly dressed thespian zombies trying to eat his face off, came to realise that A) zombies can’t hit the side of a barn and B) he has more AC than a barn anyway.
Uffo, on the other hand, does not. For the halfling bard, face-tanking a jester zombie was not working out too well and there was a distinct feeling of ill will towards the irritating little shit brave little troubadour.
Torren attempted to jump on the halfling’s shoulders to attack the skeleton. Ok, that’s different but.. fuck it, works for me. Torren had to roll an Athletics check, and passed it. Uffo, however, let everyone down and failed the Strength check required to support a heavily armoured Dwarf. The two vertically challenged members of the party collapsed in a heap.
Eventually the Necro’s Crack was unblocked and the adventurers slithered out of it and polished off the undead actors. They then split the party (the fools!); Cru, Uffo and Helmuth went one way and Darin, Kroq, Ari and Torren went the other way.
Darin and Kroq approached a pair of chests and were mocked by the disembodied voice of the Necromancer before he dropped a load of rocks on them. Darin was not in the best of shape following Ari’s wayward Firebolt but the save to avoid the damage was a Dex roll, it’s only a DC10 and he has +5 anyway, so anything over a 4 on a 20-sided die would do it.
Yeah, he failed.
ROGUE DOWN!
Darin was unimpressed.
Rats!
The party regrouped and headed into a large chamber. A hooded figure was nearby with its back to them. Stealth rolls were made and the party started moving into the room. Unfortunately, dwarf clerics in chainmail are not built for stealth and Torren was noticed by what turned out to be a zombie and then a fight started with 6 giant rats joining in.
Soon after the players discovered the terrible truth: these were in fact… GIANT ZOMBIE RATS!
Yeah, they couldn’t hit for shit either.
Except for Uffo, they nailed Uffo.
The zombie survived no less than 8 attacks before it finally fell. It didn’t have massive hit points, it’s just that every time they hit it, they rolled low damage.
The Necromancer was waiting at the end of the cave with four skeletons. He demanded the adventurers bow before him and surrender to the Lord of Lance Rock!
The adventurers demanded he sod off! He actually did! He ran off and the skeletons attacked the group.
Highlight of the skeleton fight was probably Kroq actually landing a head-butt and killing the skeleton with it. Jake was super impressed.
The skeletons were defeated but it took the use of some resources to do it. Spell slots were running low or gone altogether and hit die were used up. A discussion on long-resting was held, the players wisely decided not to (bad things would have happened) and they pushed on into the Necromancer’s lair.
Disco Ball
Oval room, decent size, an altar made of severed arms is in the middle of it with the top arm holding a glowing crystal. Hovering above the crystal is the sigil of a dark purple eye.
<DM Note> this is what is supposed to happen; the necromancer is hiding behind the tapestries in the room. As soon as anyone examines the crystal on the pedestal, he makes an announcement about seeing the evil eye and attacks. First rule of DMing; they never do what you want them to do.
So, instead of just walking up and eyeballing the fucking thing, they huddled in the entry arguing about it discussing strategy. Ari cast mage hand and picked the crystal up remotely.
Well fuck, that’s not in the book is it? Ok, so now we are improvising <sigh>
Ari had the mage hand move it halfway to the door. Now it is in range of everyone if it does anything nasty like, explode or stuff. Ok, full disclosure; the DM might have slightly intimated that that might happen even though it wouldn’t. I know, I’m a dick.
Ari, taking some flak from several very worried low hit-point party members concerned about getting caught in an explosion, moved it the other side of the pedestal.
Getting tired of the faffing around, Uffo announced that he was charging in to save time.
He charged in.
At the table, Chris then pulled out a drum and spent 20 minutes not being able to play it. Everyone was super unimpressed.
So Uffo runs into the room to the pedestal but doesn’t inspect the orb because Ari has moved it and Uffo can’t run that far. All you had to do was walk in and look at it but nooooo, you had to be creative didn’t you? <sigh>
Ok, so now everyone is tired of the faffing about and they all start moving into the room, so obviously Ari pulled the orb out of it. Seriously, the book says absolutely nothing about the orb going three times around the room with no one looking at it and then it exiting stage left
The DM has had quite enough of this shite; the Necromancer appears, wibbles on about THE EVIL EYE for a bit and then attacks.
Beaver appeared! Ari asked if the guys in the room minded being AoE’d because she had a really good AoE spell <Sigh>
It was then determined that Ari did not in fact know the Magic Missile spell. The defining D&D wizard spell. It’s not the greatest damage but it always hits. It’s a wizard staple. Old reliable. Your go-to, get-me-the-fuck-out-of-a-hole spell. The ‘fucking-hell-this-thing-needs-to-die-and-I-can’t-afford-to-miss’ spell.
Ari explained she had didn’t need Magic Missile because she had something much better. She cast her whizzy new Ice Knife spell at the Necromancer! The Necro made the Dex save and Ari hit for… 2 whole points of damage.
<sigh>
Ari was unimpressed.
So was everyone else.
The Necromancer, however, does have Magic Missile and he lobs a level 4 version at Ari. Two reasons; squishy, dangerous wizard and she fucked with the orb.
However, the DM ‘slightly’ underestimated the potential damage output of a level 4 Magic Missile spell and nearly accidentally killed Ari outright for the second week running <sigh>
WIZARD DOWN!
Somewhat shocked at watching Ari get wtfnuked into a crumpled heap, there was some discussion about disengaging and legging it ‘tactically retreating’, but they stuck in there. Ballsy! Stupid, but ballsy.
Cru got touched inappropriately by a cold hand. Helmuth complained they should have rested. Darin discovered he had spent the entire dungeon rolling a d6 for his rapier instead of a d8 <sigh>. Kroq laughed at the need for ‘spells’ and hit it with an axe. Uffo insulted its mother. Torren hit it with a big hammer and killed it.
Ding-dong the witch is dead.
Uffo attempted to revive Ari by force-feeding her an entire days rations. The DM dismissively pointed out she was still unconscious. Uffo smugly pointed out that at least she wasn’t hungry.
Yeah, ok, give that one to the fucking bard.
The ‘halfsies’ healing potion was very reluctantly used and Ari was back on her feet. 25g well spent or not?
Loot was looted and argued about. Then it was argued about some more. Then it was argued about even more <sigh>. A tasty Wand of Magic Missiles (WoMM) turned up but they will have to wait till next week to find out what the orb does.
Next time on Ten-foot Squares:
– Will the bard make it within 2 hours of the start time next week? (you know we hate love you though, right Chris?)
– Will either of the obviously useless the clerics finally bring something to the party?
– What will Torren choose to lick next?
– How much musical abuse can Henry take before beating Chris to death with a miniature xylophone toy drum?
– Who will the DM inadvertently nearly kill again next?
Tune in next week to find out!