Starring:
Adam as Q’Aren the Samurai – Because now is the time for not fucking about!
Matt as Clay the Battlemaster – Yep, no, no, no, 13!
Jake as Abelas the gimpy Wizard – “I don’t need Con!”
Mike as Remulus the Artificer – I’d like to say she’d be missed, but…
Gary as The DM/Isaac the inattentive Cleric – So, you’re following Adam’s plan, yes?
Author’s note 1: This week, at the place where most of the cast work, someone took offence at a commonly used term of reference that is simply not offensive but, because of one person’s feelings, everyone else now has to change their behaviour of over ten years. One day I’ll write down exactly how stupid that is but for now at least, I need the job. If anything strange gets referenced in tonight’s session, just roll with it.
Author’s note 2: As Chris can only make every other week at the moment, the DM will be playing a very passive Isaac, the 5-Int Light Cleric, whenever there are only 4 other players.
Chapter 1 – A Great Upheaval
The party have arrived in the fortified village of Nightstone only to find its human inhabitants have fled following an aerial attack by giants in a floating castle. The village was cleared of scavenging goblins and then attempts by both the Zhentarim and a bunch of mostly-peaceful Orcs to take over the village were foiled. Our heroes rested and proceeded.
Pre-session Guff
Mike joined and the DM started explaining the woke works shenanigans. <redacted> joined and immediately dropped the word-that-shall-not-be-spoken <sigh>.
Matt had stolen Adam’s usual teal colour. Adam was unimpressed. Matt also complained that the map was just a black square. The DM pointed out that if Matt had bothered to turn up last week instead of playing tiddlywinks, he would have known that this is Tabletop Simulator’s fog-of-war.
Mike threw some abuse at Matt about it and the DM pointed out that this was actually worse than leaving early to go see a shit dinosaur film that would be around for the next six weeks. Jake, finally off the hook for ‘worst excuse for missing D&D ever!’ was impressed.
The DM’s main computer motherboard died and he is currently running the session on a much less powerful secondary machine. Absolutely nothing can go wrong with trying to run Tabletop Simulator, Discord, Fifteen separate tabs in Chrome and OBS (to record the session), on a potato.
Dripping Caves and Dodgy Knees
The adventurers approached the location of the goblin cave and found a small rocky hill covered with pine trees. The DM asked for history checks which were duly passed, and it was thus known that goblins are formed from small clans of bigger tribes. The name of the clan is typically taken from a combination of the chief’s name and the tribal name. These were the Bad Knee tribe and the chief’s name was Pho’Hark and thus these are the Pho’Knee goblins.
The DM also reminded the players that when they were looking up the list of looted goods in the Lionshield Coster back in Nightstone, one of the under-10gp items was ‘Clothes, costume’.
Yes, I’m going there.
Nature and Survival checks were made and they determined that it would take an hour or two to walk around the hill. They actually chose to do this rather than just barge in through the front entrance and discovered two alternate entrances, one on the west side with a stream flowing through it, and one on the east side.
As they get ready to enter the Dripping Caves the players discuss what new abilities/spells they have gained at level 3:
- Regulus> I have Feather Fall prepared in case we need it.
- Abelas> Nice. I can also now, thanks to Gary letting me slightly change elf…
- Q’Aren> Again?!
- DM> STFU ‘Tempest Cleric’
- Abelas> I can now Misty Step.
- DM> Isaac is now a Firbolg not a.. a… <brain fart>
- Regulus> A Tabaxi.
- Abelas> Not a fucking cat.
- DM> Yes, that.
- Regulus> Is that the character that Chris is going to keep playing?
- Q’Aren> Until next week! The number of times he has talked to me about changing character, I swear it has been a different race or class every time..
- DM> Pot calling Kettle, you are black, over.
- > laughter
- Q’Aren> Well, yeah, obviously.
The DM enquired if they were going to use one of the side entrances or barge in through the front door:
- Q’Aren> Q’Aren prefers back doors.
- Clay> I wink at Q’Aren.
<sigh>
Theatre of the Mind
The ensuing discussion mainly covered going in via the stream because nobody would be expected to. This was countered with the reverse-psychology argument that meant the stream was exactly where they would be expected, which was then countered with the reverse, reverse-psychology argument and this drivel continued until Regulus pointed out that they were talking about the tactical acumen of goblins.
“Ok… yeah, good point” was the main response and they bravely entered the cave via the stream. Clay cheesed his Earth-Genasi Pass Without a Trace ability and they group stealthed into the Dripping Caves.
Regulus took the opportunity to inform the DM of the two things he needed to make his character concept work; plate armour and a gem worth 100g. He then added “Oh, and a Chinook” which means he still hasn’t learned to be careful what you ask for, or the DM just might give it to you.
DM Note: we are using Tabletop Simulator’s fog-of-war for this session. We haven’t used it before and the DM’s test run with it ranged from ‘quite good’ to ‘a bit pants’ so it was an exciting new adventure… no, it was a shit show, obviously.
Q’Aren bravely volunteered to enter the dark back crack first. She also led the way into the cave. Isaac decided he didn’t like the dark and cast Light on his shield. Clay ended up with it cast on his sword which kind of put the dampeners on the whole ‘stealth’ thing but they tried it anyway. That’s the spirit.
- Q’Aren> I don’t know how you stealth in a dark cave with a light source!
- Regulus> Quietly.
The team carefully stealthed into the dark crack and came upon a small cave where the stream pooled. It had two entrances. The DM asked Q’Aren where she wanted to go and the answer was ‘forwards’ which somewhat confused the DM.
Just to show that not listening is a two-way street, the DM then completely missed Q’Aren saying “All I see is wood”. While the DM has a perfectly good map on his screen, it was invisible to the players because… computers.
It was a good four minutes later before the missing map issue became apparent and was fixed by everyone re-logging. “I thought we were playing theatre of the mind!” said Adam.
/facepalm
Shat On
Goblin tracks were found and the lesser travelled north passage was chosen as the way forwards:
- Q’Aren> That’s definitely where the loot room is!
- > general agreement
- DM> So you’re following Adam’s plan, yes?
- Regulus> <doubtfully> Yeah…
- Abelas> When you say it like that…
- Q’Aren> Shit stirrer!
The group continued deeper into the cave and found a large rock blocking off a side tunnel 4ft high that clearly needs to be pushed clear. Not wanting to be ambushed while looting, Q’Aren decided to just peek around the corner into the room ahead and was asked to make a stealth check by the DM. Q’Aren gains +10 from Pass Without a Trace but is in heavy armour so suffers disadvantage. Adam stuffed the roll and was spotted by a Giant Rat; roll initiative!
There is a body on the floor in the middle of the cave being fed upon by seven Giant Rats while Chief Pho’Hark and two bodyguards gleefully watch them feed from the back of the area.
Q’Aren eyes up the cluster of rats and turns to Abelas:
- Q’Aren> They look about right for a Shatter
- Abelas> They do don’t they… but, you know what a Shatter will do?
- Q’Aren> Kill all the enemies?
- Clay> And alert everything in.. how far is it?
- Q’Aren> Five hundred feet is it?
Shatter doesn’t actually have an audible range on the description but Thunderwave does and that’s 300ft so we’ll roll with that as it covers the entire cave complex.
Q’Aren, Regulus and Abelas all rolled 19 on initiative just to be awkward. Abelas was elected to go first to Shatter Chief Pho’Hark. However, the DM is a dick and, knowing how Jake hates to be put on the spot for conversations, decided to muddy the waters a little:
- DM> Abelas… would you like to begin negotiations or would you like to attack?
- > general mirth at Jake’s expense
- Abelas> Oh…. fuck you!
- > more laughter
- Abelas> I would like to attack because ‘fuck goblins’
- Regulus> <also muddying> As long as we find out where the prisoners are first…
- Abelas> <disappointed> Ahhh… shit. If you wanted someone to do the non-homicidal way, someone else should have gone first!
- <Further pressure was then applied, mainly by Regulus, leading to a mini-breakdown>
- Abelas> Oh… fuck you Gary! Now I have to think! Nah, fuck it! Shatter on the Chief!
- Regulus> <laughing> I heard “Shat on the Chief!”
<sigh>
Boom goes the spell: A sudden loud ringing noise, painfully intense, erupts from a point of your choice within range. 17 damage, halved on one bodyguard and the Chief, the Bodyguards only have 7 hit points so one got fucked and the other got properly fucked. The Chief was unimpressed.
Fuck this, next week it’s Hexes!
Q’Aren did not have enough movement to go and have a word with the boss and was trying to decide what to do but the DM was having a minor crisis over the size of the Giant Rats having first said they were small, then said they were tiny, read they were small, scaled them as tiny, re-scaled them as small, finally started to get it right and the Regulus asked “Are these ten-foot or five-foot squares?”
And then Tabletop Simulator crashed
<sigh>
Ok, I’m going to cut Regulus a tiny bit lot of slack because the DM was fucking about with resizing supposedly ‘Giant’ rats and putting four of them in one square BUT the player models are ALWAYS scaled to the map so just for future reference:
As Drikk Fra-Kar, six-time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena once said: “A dear friend of mine has noticed that both new and experienced adventurers are having problems with basic size perceptions and he has asked me to explain, without swearing, how to tell the difference between 5ft and 10ft squares. I owe him a favour so let’s give it a whirl:
If four of you <expletive deleteds> can fit in one <expletive deleted> square, then it is a <expletive deleted> TEN-FOOT <expletive deleted> square!
If only one of you <expletive deleteds> can fit in the <expletive deleted> square, then it is a <expletive deleted> FIVE-FOOT <expletive deleted> square!
I know this is a difficult concept for you to grasp because thinking is hard for you, maths is hard for all of us, and geometry is like my second ex-wife; you can feel the life draining out of you while you try to get your <expletive deleted> head around just what the <expletive deleted> is going on. HOWEVER! This is pretty <expletive deleted> simple stuff you <expletive deleted> mother<expletive deleted>ing <expletive deleteds>!!”
So there you have it, thanks Drikk! Where the <expletive deleted> were we? Oh right; Regulus crashed it.
I love you auto-save!
Steam cloud updates were cloud-updated, DM reloadings were reloaded, player relogging-ins were re-logged in and Giant Rats were rescaled to whatever the <expletive deleted> size squares we were supposed to be using.
The DM tried to sneakily replace the dead bodyguards but Jake noticed. Booo! Finally we were back to before Regulus broke everything so, over to Q’Aren:
- Q’Aren> I’m going to try and negotiate with the rats…
- Abelas> What?!
- Q’Aren> I’m going to drop my shield and pull out my greatsword…
- Regulus> Oh for fuck… why do you even carry the shield?
- Q’Aren> Just in case!
Q’Aren charges into the middle of the room and attacked a Giant Rat. She missed by an impressive amount.
Mike then got AC and to-hit the wrong way around (again) and the DM stuffed up the initiative order (again).
With some nifty manoov… maneoeov.. maneuovr… ‘moving things about tactically‘ the DM managed to completely surround Q’Aren and then announced the rats get Pack Tactics which allow them to attack at advantage if another rat is nearby.
Q’Aren was unimpressed.
Four hits for a total of 16 damage landed and Q’Aren was looking rather ropey. She was also low on hit points.
Isaac, realising that (even with 5 Int) Q’Aren was probably unhealable (made up word!) at this point, dropped Flaming Sphere at the back of the rat pack, used a bonus action to ram it into a rat and killed it outright.
Adam announced he had to leave for a few minutes. The DM attempted to troll Jake by swapping Matt to orange, this not only failed dismally, it actually re-hid the entire map from Matt <sigh> Leroy was employed to uncover the important bits for him.
Pho’Shame!
Clay massacred a rat and Abelas lobbed a Magic Missile at the Chief, rolled high for 14 damage and killed him. Abelas was super-impressed and fist-pumped. Isaac, not understanding, smiled and made the wanker sign back at him. Good times. Still, the gimpy wizard did indeed kill a boss.
PHO’HARK DOWN!
Speaking of the wanker sign, Adam announced he was back.
Q’Aren uses Second Wind and Jake made a fart joke about it that was so bad I’m not going to repeat it. Adam said “Well I’m back on 13 so I’m pretty much back up and fighting now”. We’ll see how long that lasts.
Regulus fries a rat with lightning (once we corrected AC to to-hit again) and sadly declined to say it was with a crotch-cannon.
It was the rats turn and they piled in on Q’Aren who went down faster than Goodyear’s share price but used her half-orc cheese ability to pop back up on one point. Isaac’s Flaming Sphere killed two rats at the back and the enemy numbers were by now severely diminished.
Clay decides to kick the rat with only one hit point left that he failed to kill last time. The kick lands, kills the rat and sends it flying straight at Q’Aren and the DM declared Q’Aren was now wearing the dead rat like a face mask. A young woman prisoner ran out of an alcove at the back of the cave, took one look at Q’Aren, screamed and ran back in there.
Gimpy the Wizard charged the last rat and attacked with his quarterstaff! He missed. By quite a lot. Q’Aren object interacts with the rat mask and throws it at the wizard. Abelas was asked to make a Dex check and, gimpy or not, he managed to dodge the rat carcass and it flew over his head and hit Clay in the face. I think Karma was paying attention even at this point.
The DM then realised he had been repeatedly moving Isaac out of the line of fire through a solid 4ft boulder <sigh> DM cheese is the best cheese.
Adam then decided to change team to the ‘joker’ team, reset his fog of war and fucked everything up <sigh> The DM was castigating Adam when the rest of the party came to his defence stating he was away when we learned about the whole changing colour/team buggering the entire world. The DM was about to apologise when Adam blatantly grabbed Leroy and started clearing the map and was promptly kicked from the session by the DM for this heinous act.
Once Adam had rejoined we actually got back on with the game!
Lighting it up, again?
The young woman was called Daphne and she was Lady Nandar’s lady-in-waiting. The poor unfortunate that the rats had been feeding on was called Darthag Ulgar and he had been the proprietor of the Lionshield Coster. This will be important later but the DM will remind you about it when it becomes pertinent.
Daphne explained that she thought the rest of the villagers were being held somewhere in the north-east corner of the caves and that something nasty was guarding them. She couldn’t be sure because the caves are dark and she is only human.
- Abelas> So can Daphne… she can’t see much in this cave?
- DM> Well she can see fine in this cave because it’s pretty well lit by both Isaac and Clay.
- Abelas> Just to be friendly I suppose, I pick up a rock and cast Light on it so she has a light source.
- DM> Can you roll a D100 for me please?
- Abelas> What?! No… NO!! There’s no wild magic here!
In a previous campaign Jake had cast light on a stone in an area of magical fog called Faerzress and rolled a 7 on the wild magic table casting Fireball on his location. Good times.
Clay moved the boulder, which made quite a lot of noise but nothing compared to the Shatter. There was 13gp, a small number of valuable knick-knacks, a set of Thieves Tools and a magic item decided by rolling on Magic Table A. Mike then managed to massively complicate rolling a d100 for reasons I’m not even going to go into. They found a spell scroll of Comprehend Languages.
The Shaft of Fire!
Leaving the Chief’s cave and heading for the main area they came across a small alcove with a natural chimney leading upwards. Interestingly, the book doesn’t actually say where this chimney leads <sigh>
If they had come here from the other direction a subversive goblin would have done a deal with them to overthrow Pho’Hark and get the prisoners released but since they did it ass-backwards, she legged it. The shaft led outside after some quick DM improv work and they had a merry time lighting a bonfire under it to make sure no reinforcements were coming down it.
What’s that ogre there? (sorry)
Q’Aren stealthed forwards into the main cave, somewhat nervous and expecting flaming or pointy death to come raining down on her at any moment:
- DM> Where do you want to stealth to?
- Q’Aren> Just about here… looking left and right… defensively… expecting attacks… expecting a Fireball out of nowhere… shield raised…
- Abelas> I get the feeling Q’Aren is nervous…
- Q’Aren> Well I’ve probably got less hit points than you.
- Regulus> Do you want another healing before we start?
- Q’Aren> Nah, I’ll be alright. I’ve got spears now!
I don’t remember spears having a particularly high armour class but I’m sure she’ll be fine as long as she rolls a decent stealth check.
Q’Aren rolls a really low stealth check.
Oh dear.
It’s Time for a Shrekoning! (not sorry)
- DM > <rolls dice> Ok… dear oh dear..
- Q’Aren> Q’Aren dies?
- Regulus> I’d like to say she’d be missed, but…
- DM> A goblins archer, hiding on that shelf, sees you come in and the ogre that was…
- Q’Aren> AN OGRE?!
- DM> ..enjoying a nice mud bath until he was disturbed by the Shatter which rang through the cave, and his wife that was asleep in the middle of the cave are all aware of your attempt to sneak into the cave. Could you all roll initiative please?
Q’Aren planned on climbing up the cliff and twatting the goblin but the archer gets a surprise round against the half-orc, attacks with advantage, hits for 5 damage and runs out of range of Q’Aren. Adam was unimpressed; “Little bitch!”.
The male ogre, Nob, twats Q’Aren with a tree for a lot of damage.
FIGHTER DOWN!
The rest of the party were still in the narrow passageway and hadn’t actually entered the main cave yet.
- Regulus> If we keep very quiet…
- > worried laughter
- Abelas> I’m going to use Melf’s Acid Arrow..
- Regulus> Ooh nice!
- DM> It’s crap but it’s a classic!
- Regulus> At Q’Aren because we won’t let them have her body!
- Abelas> I’m going for Nob!
- DM> Oh, I forgot to say, the Pho’Knee goblin archer there is dressed in a snowflake costume.
Abelas missed but the arrow still splashes Nob with a small amount of damage. Clay ran in and missed an ogre roughly the size of an elephant and refrained from using his Action Surge despite the ‘gentle encouragement’ of the party.
Isaac got Q’Aren back up with a Healing Word as a bonus action and then the DM tried to cast Bless with Isaac’s action:
- Regulus> Can you cast two first level spells…?
- DM> That was a bonus.. ah… bollocks
- Q’Aren> You can’t… Goddammit!
- DM> Look, it’s in the UA, right?!
- Regulus> Yeah, yeah, I remember it now, I was just reading it last night!
- Q’Aren> It’s homebrew!
- DM> <sigh> Toll the Dead then.
DM cheese is the best cheese!
Maximum Ogre-drive! (still not sorry)
- DM> Q’Aren..
- Q’Aren> Q’Aren is back up and ready to rumble! Right, ok, here we go! Q’Aren is going to throw her shield on the floor…
- Regulus> Of course she is..
- Q’Aren> ..because now is the time for not fucking about! She pulls out her greatsword… I’m going to use Fighting Spirit to give myself five temporary hit points and to give myself advantage on attack rolls until the end of my turn AND I’m going to use Action Surge to give myself two actions…
- DM> Could you make a perception check on the tree that the ogre is holding please?
- Q’Aren> <confused> <rolls> Nineteen!
- Regulus> Wow!
- DM> You perceive that the tree is unimpressed by your five extra hit points.
However, both of Q’Aren’s attacks hit for quite a large amount of damage and Nob is looking decidedly worse for wear.
Three more Pho’Knee goblins appear from the darkness of the cave, one is dressed as a special princess, one as a fairy and one as a sparkly unicorn.
Nearly-dead-Nob swings his tree at Q’Aren, it hits!
FIGHTER DOWN!
A plaintive sigh is heard from the depths of the passageway where Isaac is hiding.
Thog, wife of Nob, swings at Clay but misses. Clay ripostes for a decent hit.
Abelas Magic Missiles nearly-dead-Nob and wisely plays it safe by using all of them on the ogre, dropping him alongside Q’Aren.
NOB DOWN!
Clay hits Thog for 13 damage. There is then a long confusing discussion between Matt, Jake and Mike on superiority die and what they can be used for. The DM points out that Thog is a ‘large’ creature and says “Actually, I’ll rescale her” and makes Thog occupy four squares. Three seconds later; “Shouldn’t ogres occupy four squares?” asks Adam. <sigh>
Maths is Ogre-rated (I’m on a roll!)
Clay makes a trip attack and claims 16 damage and asks Thog to make a Strength save against being tripped and prone.
With all the intervening chat the DM has lost track of things and is now very confused about what the fuck just happened. He isn’t the only one:
- DM> Was that 16 damage for the entire attack, from your turn?
- Matt> Yes..
- DM> Because you had 13…
- Mat> Yep, no, no, no, 13 was to…
- DM> Right, was it 13 plus 16, or was it just 16?
- Matt> 16
- DM> Cool <rolls for the Str save> Come on Thoggy! Ah.. crap
Alas poor Thoggy, laid low by a dirty trip attack 🙁
Isaac runs in and casts Cure Wounds on Q’Aren for the maximum 11 hit points getting her back up again. Regulus wastes the precious princess Pho’Knee with a Magic Missile.
Q’Aren, back on her feet from being off her feet from being back on her feet from being off her feet, lands a crit on Thog for an impressive 22 damage!
The Pho’Knee Fairy hits Q’Aren with a shortbow shot and takes care of those temporary hit points. But now it was Thog’s turn again!
The DM is trying to figure out which of the two fighters hit for the most as they would get twatted by Thog:
- DM> Right.. er.. Clay hit for 16..
- Regulus> And tripped her over!
- Clay> I did 13 with my first attack, 16 with my Action Surge attack…
- Regulus> Hang on! So you did a total of 29 damage that round then?
- Matt> Yeah, 13 from the first one and 16 from the..
- DM> AAAARGH!
- > laughter and mockery piles on poor Matt
DM note: Even knowing what happened, I still got confused just listening back to it, so don’t sweat it Matt, it all turned out right in the end 🙂
Her time here is Ogre (is there no end to this madness?!)
Sadly, Thog misses, Clay ripostes and, much to everyone’s amusement (except Matt), was given helpful advice from Regulus on how to add up his damage and tell the DM. Clay gets the last laugh by landing 15 damage on Thog who only had 12 hit points left.
THOG DOWN!
Abelas wanted to make a ranged spell attack against Snowflake who was up on the ledge. The DM used some advanced trigonometry and the in-built precise, geometric tools of TTS to exactly measure just how far the gimpy wizard needed to be from the ledge to see the butt-hurt Pho’Knee Snowflake:
After all that Abelas used Chromatic Orb instead of Magic Missile, much to the disgust of Regulus who pointed out that with only 7 hit points a goblin is pretty likely to be one-shotted by Magic Missile, which is a guaranteed hit, that does a minimum of 6 damage, and that’s really unlikely as you’d need to roll three ones on three d4s.
Obviously, Abelas missed with Chromatic Orb because Karma is watching and she finds this kind of stuff funny. Actually, that may have gotten Karma’s attention because a lot of dice rolls after that were decidedly wonky.
Adam gave a wonderful description of when you should use Chromatic Orb; “It’s great for when you are up against things that have resistance to things!” Which is both vague and accurate at the same time.
Clay attacked Sparkles the unicorn goblin but missed. The DM reminded Clay he was blessed and could roll an additional d4. He did so and still missed.
Isaac casts Faerie Fire on the goblins hiding in the rocks in the middle of the cave, two failed the save and will now be much easier for the players to hit (goblins have an AC of 15 because they are nippy little fuckers).
Regulus killed one (the special little princess Pho’Knee I think) but only after Jake gleefully corrected him on the AC-to-hit issue.
Q’Aren climbs up onto the ledge and hits Snowflake for exactly double his hit points and responded to an enquiry by Regulus with “I’m OK, I have 16 hit points now!”
On her next turn Q’Aren was given the choice of climbing slowly down from the ledge or jumping off of it but having to make an Athletics check to avoid damage.
Obviously, because it is Adam after all, Q’Aren chose jumping and equally obviously, then rolled spectacularly low and took falling damage. Remember this moment, gentle reader, it will have consequences later.
The last of the costumed goblins employed hit-and-disen-fucking-gage tactics to attack and hid behind the rocks, greatly amusing the DM and irritating the crap out of the players.
- Abelas> Right, I’m done with this fight! Magic Missile!
- Regulus> If you roll three ones I will piss myself laughing!
- Abelas> Me too!
- DM> This is the one with the sparkly unicorn costume on.
- Abelas> <starts die roll> Yes, I want to killOHMYFUCKINGGOD!
Yes, gentle reader, he rolled three ones. This leaves Sparkles on one hit point and most of the table in hysterics.
The DM had planned on Sparkles running off but Clay had other ideas and ran in and massacred the poor Pho’Knee.
They think it’s all ogre… It is now! (that’s it, I think we’ve finally hit pun ogre-load!)
Combat ends and the players are disappointed by the lack of loot.
An extended argument discussion then took place on where to go next. Q’Aren wanted to explore the south-west section of the caves to ‘avoid being ambushed’ but the other three players all wanted to explore the north-east side where the prisoners were being kept.
This was very much a disagreement between players and not characters and it went on for a while culminating in:
- Matt> We ALL disagree with you Adam.
- Adam> Yes, exactly! Let’s go and look in here <points at the south-west>
- Jake> You do whatever the fuck you want…
- Adam> Right! Q’Aren is going to look over here!
- Jake> Right, and we’re going over here?
- Matt> Yep, we’re all going the other way.
- > general laughter
So they split the party and Q’Aren went wandering off alone in a dark cave. When we play on an actual table, the DM keeps a Grick mini in the box especially for these kinds of occasions but sadly did not have one prepared for TTS and because his main machine with all the art software on it is broken he couldn’t make one on the fly either <sigh>
We dealt with Q’Aren first: the south-west caves are where the goblin non-combatants live, the old and the very young. They cowered away from the hulking half-orc and Q’Aren decided to attempt to convince them that she had single-handedly slain both ogres and that the goblins should now follow and serve her <sigh>.
The DM, in a moment of unthinking stupidity (natural 20 anyone?), allowed an Intimidation roll. Thankfully, Q’Aren rolled spectacularly low yet again and got laughed at by a goblin granny. Q’Aren gives up and moves further into the complex in search of loot.
Batter Up
Back with the moderately sane group, a sunken cavern was found with a large hole in floor from which was heard the sound of flapping wings.
Daphne warned them to be stealthy and while Abelas volunteered to sneak in, Clay just went ahead and entered the cave. Unfortunately, Clay is still affected by the Light spell so stealthy it was not.
Thousands of bats erupted from the floor. Just before they filled the centre of the cave, Clay saw the villagers huddled on elevated ledges to the sides of the area. The bats damage anything in the centre squares of the cave.
Daphne facepalmed. Matt explained he forgot he was lit up. Jake pointed out that Clay’s mini literally has a light source attached to it to show it was lit. Good times.
The only realistic way to get the villagers out would be to wait for the bats to settle back down. The DM did not write this scenario and asked the players not to question the dodgy logic of this ‘prison’ too closely.
Back over with Q’Aren, she finishes exploring the south-west and encounters… THE CAVE OF BONES!!! Disappointingly, this is just a refuse room and not the loot room that Q’Aren was hoping for so she reluctantly rejoined the group at the bat cave.
It looked like the bats would take a few minutes to settle and the players started discussing what to do when they did settle.
- Abelas> Could we…
- Q’Aren> <eyeing up the unexplored south-east corner> Should we see what’s going on next door first?
- Abelas> No!
- Clay> You guys that aren’t casting light should just be able to stealth in there.
- DM> While you are waiting for the bats to settle, which would take 5 or 10 minutes Q’Aren, would you like to explore this south-east area?
- Q’Aren> Yes I would!
- Regulus> I’ll go with her…
- Q’Aren> Why would we not explore while we are waiting?
- Regulus> I’ll go with her!
- Q’Aren> Come my robot friend! Turn on vibrate mode!
<sigh>
Hello darkness my old friend
So, having split the party again, Regulus and Q’Aren explored down the south-east passageway and found a small cave with a large stalagmite in the centre of it. The stalagmite appears to be hollow with numerous fist-sized holes in it. Lying near the base of the stalagmite are the remains of two badly corroded goblin scimitars. A small tunnel leads off from the far side of the stalagmite from which issues the sound of running water.
Regulus immediately makes the comparison to the scene with the stump in Flash Gordon.
- Adam> Q’Aren trusts the robot!
- Mike> Have you seen Flash Gordon?
- Adam> No
- <the DM sighs and feels really, REALLY fucking old>
- Mike> In that case its fine, nothing can go wrong!
Queue a bunch of GORDON’S ALIIIIVE! impressions.
Regulus tinkers light onto a stone and drops it into one of the holes to see if they are interconnected. As he drops it, a pseudopod streaks out of the hole and makes a free attack against the Warforged. It missed. Whatever is in the stalagmite has complete cover from the two players. Roll initiative!
Q’aren rolls an eight, Abelas rolls a two. Awesome dicemanship. Q’Aren was still third so that shows how badly everyone else rolled.
Abelas, Clay and Isaac are back in the main cave and are oblivious to what is happening in the south-east area.
- Q’Aren> It’s me? Can I actually see the pod?
- DM> Nope, it is in total cover.
- Q’Aren> I’m going to try and put a spear in the hole, just try and poke it in..
- DM> Unfortunately, the holes are not straight, they twist around so you can’t get it very far in.
- Q’Aren> Can I take a five-foot step back?
- DM> Yes
- Q’Aren> And shout at it in every language I know, which is a few of them, that I think it is a pussy for hiding in the hole.
- DM> I can’t believe I’m looking up up what languages a Black Pudding understands… languages; none
- <The DM has a quick think, figures that if oozes can be affected by Vicious Mockery and similar spells then they can be taunted but it’ll take something special to get the Pudding out of that hole, and comes up with an Intimidation check of DC20>
- DM> Make an Intimidation check…
- Q’Aren> Because that’s gone well before…
- DM> It’s more like a provocation…
- Q’Aren> <rolls><delighted> Whoa! Natural twenty!
- DM> <sigh> You have definitely got its attention!
- Q’Aren> I’m going to just bash my shield with my fail!
- <The DM places a very large Black Pudding in the cave>
- Q’Aren> <nervously laughing> Oh.. I’m sad it worked… oh shit!
- DM> It makes a melee attack against you at plus five…
- <The DM rolls high>
- DM> That’s six bludgeoning damage.. and eighteen acid damage…
- <intakes of breath and shocked sounds>
- Q’Aren> Ummm…
- Abelas> Wot?! Is that just death? Is that just perma-death?!
- <silence>
- Q’Aren> That’s… actually just killed me… like outright killed me…
- <shocked silence>
- <everyone starts laughing>
- Q’Aren> Yeah, no I’ve just done the maths, that just killed me…
- DM> Your non-magical armour takes a permanent -1 to AC.
- Q’Aren> <laughing> yeah, because Q’Aren really cares about that right now.
- Abelas> “I don’t need Con!”
- <everyone starts laughing again>
I’ve come to talk to you again
Q’AREN DECEASED!
Players start discussing their hit point maximums. The Pudding cannot one-shot anyone from full health but it can certainly KO everyone but Clay from full. However, it has an AC of 7 so it’ll get hit by pretty much every attack and it has 85 hit points so it will last 2-3 rounds of combat at most against a full party. It is dangerous, but it shouldn’t be deadly, unless…
- DM> How many hit points did you have when you walked in there Adam?
- Adam> Five…
- <silence>
- <more silence>
- <hysterical laughter>
- DM> <struggling to get his shit together> You.. went wandering alone… in a cave.. with five hit points?
- Regulus> I can fix your armour!
- <more laughter>
- Q’Aren> Can you fix a dead fighter? At least I got to use all my shit before I died <mournfully> I really liked Q’Aren…
- <more laughter>
- Abelas> I hated her!
- Q’Aren> That’s why I loved her!
As Drikk Fra-Kar, six-time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena once said: “Let us raise a toast brothers and sisters, to a true FIGHTER that has fallen in battle today! Mourn them not, but revel in their glory as they died the way every true fighter wants to; doing something incredibly ballsy.. but really fucking stupid. TO THE FALLEN!”
Having seen Q’Aren killed in one hit, Regulus takes an extremely pragmatic approach to the situation, ignores Dead-Q’Aren’s suggestion to explore the hidden water cave (“All the loot is there!”), disen-fucking-gages and runs the fuck away. The pudding has a movement speed of 20ft and it it just found lunch so it fails to pursue the Warforged and settles in to feast on Q’Aren’s corpse.
Jake, probably feeling he needed to step in for Christina, blatantly mis-gendered Q’Aren’s rapidly dissolving body. Shame on you sir!
Regulus calmly approaches the others and announces “Q’Aren is dead”. Abelas struggles not to smile. Dead-Q’Aren points out to Clay that the body is still warm and Jake laughs so hard he starts choking <sigh>
- DM> Um… shall we park it there?
- Jake> Ok, but I say Adam rolls his new stats now!
- <shocked laughter>
Too soon Jake, but funny!
DM> Drikk Fra-Kar is going to have some words to say about this…
Matt had to depart to go to the loo and Adam wished him a good shit <sigh>.
The somewhat shocked players discussed Q’Aren’s demise and the DM shared the custom weapon he had designed for her:
Shriek – Q’Aren
This three-headed flail has hollow heads that emit a loud and irritating screech when they are swung at speed.
The construction of this weapon is thought to have been commissioned by Drikk Fra-Kar, six time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena, in order to drown out the voice of his fourth ex-wife (who he claimed to be a shape-shifted harpy).
Dormant: War-Flail +1
1d8 bludgeoning. Versatile (1d10)
While attuned to Shriek, your self-belief is bolstered even further giving you advantage on saves against Fear and Charm.
If you roll a 1 for damage, Shriek channels your outrage and adds an additional 1d6 psychic damage. This damage is added even if another effect causes the 1 to be re-rolled.
Just because the error was corrected, does not mean it was not an error and someone needs to answer for it!
Awakened: War-Flail +2
A true consumer rights champion must learn many different approaches to gaining satisfaction:
Each head adds a different elemental damage type; on a successful hit with Shriek you may now add a single elemental effect; 1d6 of Acid, Frost or Fire damage.
Exalted: War-Flail +3
You have learned to channel your outrage through the flail. As an action you can rapidly whirl Shriek and focus the resulting screech on a single target within 60ft, counting as a thrown weapon attack.
Any creature struck by the focussed sound blast takes 2d8+6 psychic damage. If your attack roll was a 20, and if the creature has an Intelligence of at least 8, it is Stunned until the end of its next turn while it attempts to make sense of what just happened to it.
If your attack roll is a 1, you briefly begin to believe you may not actually be on the correct side of the argument and you are stunned until the end of your next turn while you have a word with your internal manager and mentally re-assert your gods-given consumer rights.
Finishing Up
- DM> Adam, Q’Aren may only have lasted for three session but it was a hell of a three sessions!
- Adam> I had so many feats planned for her!
The DM explains what could have happened with the Chief; if they had come in from the side tunnel they would have met a dissident goblin called Snigbat in the chimney cave and could have overthrown the Chief, and then Snigbat, as the new Chief, would have freed the prisoners.
Alternatively, negotiations with the Chief were possible. The villagers could have been ransomed (expensive), they could have found him a new lock for his treasure chest, or he would have tasked them with killing the Black Pudding which was stopping them getting to clean water. He was in the process of feeding a villager to his pet rats though, so negotiations were probably not going to happen.
Adam decided to roll his stats and we will find out next session what he came up with.
The players then went to great lengths to discuss how they would get the villagers out of the bat cave:
- DM> While you’ve been discussing that, Isaac has spent the last ten minutes quietly sitting there casting Silence as a ritual spell.
- Regulus> I didn’t know he could do that!
- DM> Neither did I until about five seconds ago…
End of Session
Next time on Ten-foot Squares:
– What new character will Adam bring to the table?
– Will Abelas and Regulus want this one dead as well?
– Will Christina blatantly misgender them?
– Will the new one last longer than the old one?
Tune in next week to find out!
Post-Session Guff – Anatomy of a Character Death
When most robust systems fail there is typically a string of unlikely incidents leading up to it and this was no different. There were numerous points where this could have been averted:
– If they had chosen the other side of the cave to enter from, they would have run into the Pudding right at the start with a full group and full hit points.
– Negotiations with the Chief could have informed them about the presence of the Pudding.
– Q’Aren not jumping off the ledge would have saved just enough hit points to make it a KO instead of a death.
– Both Isaac and Regulus had spell slots available that could have been used to heal Q’Aren if they had known how badly she was hurt.
– Previous disagreements aside, there was no practical reason not to have the whole party explore the south-east area while the bats settled down.
Ultimately though, splitting the party and going exploring in a dark cave with only 5 hit points is… well, let’s just say it is not the ‘optimal’ survival strategy.
Kobold Fight Club (Yip yip!) which is an encounter-building tool used to measure how dangerous D&D fights are, shows that for five level 3 adventurers vs one Black Pudding the fight difficulty is Medium. For two level 3 characters it is Lethal. Now put one of those two on only 5 hit points.
Frewell Q’Aren you were fun.
Really, really fucking stupid… but fun.