SKT Episode 6: Standing on the Boulders of Giants, Literally!

Starring:

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Author’s Note 1: There is a disagreement or two in here. Here’s how this works; generally the abuse being thrown is of a good natured taking-the-piss variety and it sounds a lot worse than it is. On very rare occasions someone gets actually properly annoyed in real life. These incidents are marked by the DM with the arrival of Major Butthurt (we have a mini and everything). Even though it may sound like it at times, Major Butthurt was not present tonight… mostly. He definitely shows up at one point in the write-up though!

Author’s Note 2: In order to try and reach Adam’s cognitive functions the DM has resorted to desperate measures that hopefully will find root in Adam’s cortex: cat memes. Just bear with me. If it doesn’t work this week, I’ll try something else, like giving up.

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That Which Must Be Repeated:

Because sometimes people just don’t get it, I’m going to park this here at the top of every write-up going forwards:

This campaign contains hard encounters. It is often not required for all of you to kill all of them in order to succeed!

However, killing all of them might yield more loot.

Season Recap: Chapter 1 – A Great Upheaval

– The party have save the fortified village of Nightstone from goblins following an attack by Cloud Giants from a floating castle (that went east).

– The characters travelled to Triboar and on the way met a cloud giant called Zephyros who travels in a floating tower. He explained that the ‘ordning’ (which regulates giant society) is broken and the players are destined to fix it.

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Pre-session Guff

Adam broke one his monitors and is stuck with just one for tonight. He joined the chat and sounded like he had his head in a bucket.

<sigh> And so it begins and so it continued. Adam did not have a good session, which was hugely entertaining for the rest of us of course.

Chris didn’t bother turning up because ‘being on holiday’ is now, apparently, a good enough excuse for missing D&D. I don’t think I need to say any more about that.

Christina couldn’t make it because she had to get up early to harass a paedophile, or something.

A pokemon discussion started, mainly about winding Chris up now they know he hates it. The DM is with Chris on this one but happily he gets to engage smurf mode again on vlc when listening back to it.

It’s not that the DM hates pokemon as such, it’s just he had become bored with it by the time silver came out 20 years ago and even for a table full of nerds this is… well, just listen to this shite:

“Who loves Bulbasaur?! It’s a lettuce with legs!”

“Yah, I know right? Charizard is soooo overrated!”

“Dude! Charmander is totes where it’s at!”

And so on. And on. And on. And on <sigh>

The DM warns the party that tonight may be quite combat heavy and a bit ‘sloggy’ but should be worth it.

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Healing Potions are so Boulder-Rated

We re-join the party in Triboar just after the gargoyle fight and the DM asks Joffrey and Clay if they wish to regroup with the others at the Triboar Arms. They do but sadly Joffrey drops his wild shape form and chooses not to travel through town as a dire wolf and thus the DM couldn’t have the locals shoot arrows at him. Sad times.

No shopping was needed even though the DM specifically mentioned an Alchemist. Clearly they don’t think they need healing potions. Or they need the money more.

Clay failed to buy a longbow.

Regulus was approached in the bar by a messenger from the Lord Protector who was having to deal with another orc raid on a second outlying ranch. She had arranged free lodgings for the party at Northshield House, a reputable inn on the east side of town run by an ex-adventurer Urgala Meltimer.

Resting was undertaken and Regulus managed not to mess up an Animal Handling check and thus did not get savaged by Urgala’s three mastiffs.

As they approached the marketplace an alarm bell starts ringing and someone runs past shouting “ORCS! RUUUUN!”

The Lord Protector emerges from her tower, spots the party and offers to double their reward if they help defend the town. The party agree enthusiastically. As they head east the Lord Protector shouts for any members of the militia to muster on her.

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New Kids on the Rock

As they left the centre of town and emerged into more open lands to the east, they spotted a burning farmhouse over 300ft away. Orc raiders mounted on war goats were moving swiftly around the fields while magmins, tiny fire elementals, were gleefully incinerating the building.

There are two six-packs of orc raiders and another two six-packs of magmins. Only one group of raiders is currently visible.

While the DM was setting up, Jake and Mike started dropping spoilers about Wasteland 3 and the DM politely and respectfully asked them to stop, probably only dropping a C-bomb three or four times. They actually did stop but this was probably due to the amount of enemies the DM was piling onto the table.

<sigh>

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Fuck me, D&D is complicated – Episode 4: Mounted Combat

In short, you use half your movement to get on/in or off/out of a mount/vehicle.

Independent mounts – If you are on an intelligent mount (like a dragon) or even a semi-intelligent mount (like a wild shaped druid) the mount gets its own initiative and acts as it wants on its turn.

Controlled mounts – If the mount is not intelligent, like a horse or a flying Delorean, then it acts on your turn. It moves as you direct it and it can only take three actions: Dash, Disengage & Dodge.

This will become important later.

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Somewhere Boulder the Rainbow

Initiative was rolled and the DM remembered Isaac this week so that’s already an improvement.

Regulus realises he should have used his pokemon bag before now but will do it on his first turn.

<sigh>

Adam has an idea now though and he’s not giving it up easily. Fireball has a range of 150ft and the orcs are about 300ft away:

There was now an extended intermission with Adam mentioning Trump getting nominated for the Nobel peace prize, the DM pointing out he had done more to earn it that Obama ever did, Mike disagreeing, the DM consequently going on an extended rant about Benghazi, Fast & Furious, the ‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot’ lie, race riots and using the FBI to conduct illegal investigations on your political rival while the press thinks the sun shines out of your backside. WHOOOOOsaaaaaaaaaah!

Once that all settled down, Adam got it going again by mentioning a film Official Secrets and this caused the general slagging off of Tony Blair, Dubya and Bill Clinton but prompted the question of “If you can’t get a blow job from your secretary as President, when can you?!”

Once all that settled down the DM asked everyone not to do it again as he was still trying to set up a battlemap!

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Stone Bonkers

Jake was probably hoping Adam had forgotten all about his amazing idea to charge the oncoming enemy hordes. He hadn’t:

<sigh>

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Choose Your Stone Adventure

And so Joffrey cast Barkskin on himself, used one of his two wild shapes per short rest (this will be important!) and turned into a dire wolf. Operation Gimp-Elf-Wolf was a go!

The Lord Protector has five members of the militia with her and they act as a single unit controlled by the DM. They will primarily volley-fire shortbows. At the start of their turn the Lord Protector shouts out to them “This may be another feint! We’ve had two already, don’t anyone get carried away!”

This was supposed to serve as a warning to the party not to blow all their resources on this fight. It didn’t quite work out that way.

The militia form a firing line on the left side of the map. About 50ft in front of them is a farmhouse with a field behind it. A path heads straight up the centre of the map and an orchard is on the right side.

The militia are instructed not to fire at anything until it comes within range (they have limited arrows) and the DM draws a grey line on the map 100ft away. This was supposed to just be indicator to the DM where attacks would happen but it became a ‘line in the sand’ for the players. This was unexpected but it did render some structure onto what could have been a messy, spread-out fight.

Well that wasn’t the plan at all was it?

Joffrey points out that he can’t actually make it past the line in one turn anyway. Abelas was talking about the battle line (of fighters) Joffrey was talking about the DM’s archery line on the map. This simple confusion was probably mostly responsible for what follows.

Clay advances to one square in front of the militia and holds his attack to 100ft. The DM sighs heavily and draws a second line just for Clay (briefly called the ‘cunt line’) before it was erased as Regulus persuades Clay to move back a square so everyone is firing at the same point.

Regulus fondles his furry ball sack and then he opens the Bag of Tricks, produces a Tribble and throws it: “I choose YOU… NoShiro!” A disappointing 3 rolled by the Artificer produces a standard Badger. It could have been worse. Not by much though.

The first magmin pack dashes towards the party. They are still miles away. The second pack moves forwards but they stop to start burning a cart. The orc raiders, seeing an enemy, charge downfield.

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Operation Gimp-Elf-Wolf is LITERALLY a go!

What she actually said (because I know scrolling up is hard) was “This may be another feint! We’ve had two already, don’t anyone get carried away!” and Abelas literally did get carried away! Baddum-tish!

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Operation Gimp-Elf-Wolf is LITERALLY a NO-GO! ABORT, ABORT, LITERALLY ABORT!

Clay declined. Literally.

*During the shouting, Matt said something like “That’s the first three paragraphs!” Oh mate, that’s 8 pages and two and half thousand words so far and it LITERALLY aint done yet!

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Chip on his Boulder

Six war goats bore six orc raiders to within disadvantaged javelin range of the abandoned dire wolf. Two of the six attacks hit for a total of 12 damage.

The second wave of raiders came into view and started charging downfield after the first pack.

Learning from the orcs, the players than start engaging the raiders at long range with disadvantage. The militia have 20 arrows and think this might be a feint which means another fight to come so they want to see the whites of their eyes. The players do not have this ammunition constraint and the orcs are stupid. Player spell slots are a different matter though.

Joffrey had way too many options available to him and dithered for a while and also produced a frustrated cry of “I JUST WANT TO SPUNK EVERYTHING!”

Hopefully not literally.

Or on a cat.

There was a fair bit of laughter going on through all of this.

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He should have stone better!

Clay opens up on the raiders with a light crossbow attack, hits despite the disadvantage, and when asked by the DM if he targets the war goat or the orc, he targets the goat.

He inflicted nine damage and killed the goat. This of course left the orc (the dangerous one with the ranged javelin attack) untouched.

Clay then takes his second attack with the crossbow and also aims at a mount and also kills it and also leaves a dangerous orc undamaged while having killed a non-dangerous goat.

Clay> I’ve peaked! I’m going to bed now.

So, did anyone spot the staggering amount of CHEESE that Matt just slipped past the DM?

Crossbow, light – 1d8 peircing – Ammunition, (range 80/320), loading, two-handed.

Loading -Because of the time required to load this weapon, you can fire only one piece of ammunition from it when you use an action, bonus action, or reaction to fire it, regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make.

Cheese of the week trophy awarded and the DM will LITERALLY remember this.

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His stone worst enemy

The raiders enter non-disadvantage range and cut loose with javelins hitting both Clay and Regulus. Then we discovered the DM had a maths-is-hard moment and Regulus did not get hit after all.

Isaac cast Scorching Ray at an orc, hit with two of the three rays and melted its face right off! At least that’s what would have happened if the DM hadn’t rolled 4d6 damage and come up with 6 <sigh>

Joffrey, still chuntering at an Abelas who didn’t care, dropped wild shape form (he only has one left) dropped Bark Skin, once again declined to cast Call Lightning and cast Moonbeam instead on the second raider pack.

The raiders don’t take damage from the Moonbeam until the start of their next turn and the DM had to strongly resist attacking them with the NPC archers. He figured Joffrey was having a bad enough time of it as it was without deliberately trolling him (for a change).

Abelas had no such compunction however and Fireballed the shit out of everything anywhere remotely close to the druid’s Moonbeam <sigh>.

There was a momentary interruption as a steam train went past the DM’s window. Which was nice.

Back at the table, the DM drew the Fireball’s 20ft radius which encompassed the Moonbeam’s 5ft radius and commented that it looked like a Death Star and that should be the party’s insignia should they ever come up with a name.

Abelas rolled a distinctly average 32 but since the orcs have 15 hit points even if they made the Dex save they would still have been taken out. Everything in the circle got WTFBBQd.

Joffrey was decidedly unimpressed.

Clay LITERALLY cheesed another two attacks with a crossbow. That’s two he needs to pay for!

Regulus lamented having to attack an orc at disadvantage because it was just over 90ft away. When people started laughing he remembered he could move. We’ve all been there Mike but still; LOLZ.

And just to prove the old adage about when it rains:

Sometime earlier the DM had surreptitiously renamed Badgy McBadgypants to ‘Badgy McBBQ Badgypants’

This is one hour and forty two minuts into the recording of a mostly combat oriented session and the only thing Adam has done is cast a Moonbeam that never hit anything because Jake maliciously Fireballed everything near it.

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It’s a no-parking stone!

The DM marched a pack of Magmins straight past Joffrey’s Moonbeam explaining that he was constrained by the creatures he was playing, they aren’t that bright and they’ve never seen a Moonbeam spell before and they have no idea it can move.

The up side – Two hours into the fight and Joffrey/Adam might have started to do something useful for the first time this session.

The down side – All this shite kicked off again:

Go back and read the paragraph Stone Bonkers to find out what literally happened.

So now the main aim of Regulus, Abelas and I’m ashamed to say, Isaac (it is what Chris would have wanted!), was to nuke the Magmins before the Moonbeam hit. Isaac didn’t have anything non-fire related, Regulus didn’t want to get hit with an attack of opportunity and Abelas was too gimpy to get within range.

As Drikk Fra-Kar, six-time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena once said: “To be a true warrior, first you must defeat the enemy within! No, not your inner doubts or any other such namby-pamby hippy bollocks, I mean the dicks in your party!”

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A legend in one’s stone lifetime

A large amount of effort was expended on failing to get Abelas in range of the Moonbeam-Magmins to Shatter them. Regulus wanted the other group nuked instead of Adam being trolled.

Jake listened unfortunately.

And finally, after two hours and twenty six minutes, Joffrey damaged something other than his pride! His Moonbeam hits the six-pack of magmins for an entire seven points of damage. This singularly failed to kill even one magmin.

Earlier, Joffrey had mocked Abelas for his low damage on a Shatter, which was a bit rich.

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The Demilitarized Stone

The remaining Magmins were cleaned up and the various rider-less war goats ran off ending combat.

Regulus became Pedanticus and started reading waaaaay too much into a simple comment and started asking the Lord Protector if more attacks were coming. How the fuck would she know, is she suddenly psychic? <sigh>

Speaking of which, an alarm bell was heard coming from the town square! Looks like another attack is coming! What were the odds, eh?

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Entering the Hot-Stone

As they run past the Lord Protector’s tower, a large rock lands on a nearby cart smashing it to pieces. As a cloud of dust erupts from the wreckage, a second rock lands, tumbles through a fence and slams into the side of a building.

The technical Dungeon Master term for this kind of narrative is ‘A really big fucking hint’.

To the north of the town square the party can see five orogs (bigger, meaner orcs) two more packs of magmins and six more mounted orc raiders.

Oh, and two Fire Giants; twenty feet of plate armour, red hair, dark skin and bad attitude.

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Hoist With Your Stone Petard!

While the DM was setting up the map, Jake noted that Chris had posted on Facebook that he had gone to see Tenet at the cinema instead of coming to D&D. I don’t think I need to say anymore about that.

But I’m going to. Clearly Chris could have safely participated in a Covid-free wholesome D&D session of abusing Adam for being useless. Instead, he has chosen to go and see a movie that will likely be around for months, putting all the other people in the cinema at risk and putting his co-workers at risk when he catches the Covid in the cinema and passes it on to them.

This is still not as bad as going to see a shit dinosaur movie though.

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The Twilight Stone

Initiative was rolled and it was not good.

Abelas got 3 (lolz), Joffrey got 8, Regulus got 4.

Joffrey> Are we going to get a go before we get a rock thrown at us?!

The orogs moved as a screening line in front of the giants. The Giants headed left, away from the players, seemingly with a destination in mind. One of them was holding what appeared to be a large magical rod and seemed to be guided by it.

As they passed a building, one of the giants gestured and the magmins gleefully ran over to set it ablaze.

Adam then invoked the name of a heathen deity as he suffered a cat + plate related incident. There were a few totally uncalled for comments about how it probably wanted its cock massaged again.

Clay attacks the orogs with his crossbow, twice, again, for yet more cheese, again, but both shots bounced off the orc’s plate armour.

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Revvin’ up your engine, listen to her howlin’ roar!

(can you see where this is going?)

Joffrey runs forward and casts Call Lightning before he actually knew where the giants were going. This was probably not the brightest move. There was also a certain amount of fuckupery with a marker <sigh>

We eventually got it sorted, Billy Five-Clicks was already on the lightning bolt part before he had gotten the cloud up.

WARNING: Incoming rhetorical DM Chris-level ranty meltdown, you may want to skip to the next section.

<sigh> I don’t get it, I really don’t. You are level five! They are fucking giants! What the actual FUCK is going on in your head?! Do you somehow think that you are fucking invincible despite ALL the fucking evidence to the contrary?! Is it because you are simply suicidal? Is it because you simply don’t understand how much of a fucking threat these things are?! Everyone else gets it WHY THE FUCK DON’T YOU?! Everyone else tells you it’s fucking stupid WHY DON’T YOU LISTEN?!

In Princes of the Apocalypse you faced a Fire Giant in THE FINAL FUCKING ENCOUNTER! That’s how fucking tough they are! One level 16 of YOU vs ONE of them is still a fucking DEADLY fight!

WHY THE ACTUAL FUCK DO YOU WANT TO FUCKING ANTAGONISE TWO OF THEM AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME AT LEVEL FUCKING FIVE WHILE NOT EVEN TAKING BASIC FUCKING PRECAUTIONS LIKE STANDING IN FUCKING COVER OR HAVING FULL FUCKING HIT POINTS?!

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WHOOOOOOsaaaaah…

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It’s ok, got that out of my system for a few sessions now. Good to go again!

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Metal under tension, beggin’ you to touch and go!

(can you see it yet? Can you?!)

Joffrey nuked the orogs instead of the giants and then he turns into a Dire Wolf and charges fifty feet towards the middle of the map. Alone. Again.

This is almost exactly how the DM felt about this weeks session:

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Regulus and Abelas also piled into the orogs with lightning and Fireballs respectively. For some reason orog number 2 earned particular ire.

Having reached a designated point in the north-west corner, just outside the area of Joffrey’s Call Lightning, the male fire giant started digging while the female giant readied an action. The DM was very clear that she readied an action.

Adam was slightly very sarcastic about this and the DM had to point out that the square they were supposed to dig up was one closer to the Call Lightning boundary but still outside of it and he had shifted it slightly to avoid any confusion issues later.

What the DM didn’t say was that it was fucking stupid to cast the Call Lightning when Adam didn’t know where the giants were going despite the DM clearly saying they seemed to be heading to a specific spot because waiting one fucking turn to place your main AoE spell that is likely to last for the entire fucking fight was clearly asking too fucking much.

WHOOOOOsaaaaaah! Sorry, channelled a bit too much Drikk Fra-Kar there! Speaking of which:

As Drikk Fra-Kar, six-time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena once said: “Patience! It’s not just a fucking virtue Buttercup, it’s actually a pretty good fucking combat tactic!”

The militia volley-fired at the orogs and did a fairly significant amount of damage.

Things we never had to worry about before eh? 🙂

The orogs skirt the Call Lightning area.

YES! He gets it! He gets it sarcastically but he gets it!

As Drikk Fra-Kar, six-time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena once said: “If you want your enemies in a particular location and they are melee oriented, then you know where the fuck you need to stand don’t you Princess?!”

The magmins, however, did not see the orog get nuked and they are idiots so they ran straight into the circle and for the second time in nearly three hours of combat, Joffrey actually damaged something.

However, he also ran further into the middle of the map.

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HIIIIIIIGHWAY TO THE…. DANGER-STONE!

(not sorry!)

Not for the first time this campaign, Adam woefully underestimated the movement speed of the enemy. I would remind you, dear reader, that he just had a fight with two packs of orcs mounted on war goats and they repeatedly dashed 100ft <sigh>

Six orcs used their goat mounts to dash and surrounded the Dire Wolf that had run off, alone, into the middle of the battlefield.

“It’s like déjà vu all over again.” – Yogi Berra

Joffrey got hit with three or four attacks (I lost count) but still had a few of his dire wolf hit points left.

The male giant digs some more, the female giant holds her action. Once again, the DM is really clear that she is holding an action.

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Rock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

The giant’s support troops were getting thinned out but the female giant sounded a warhorn and at the end of the round four more orogs and another six raiders appeared.

The ‘Joffrey-is-about-to-get-gangbanged-without-lube’ problem was solved by a Call Lightning which Adam rolled so low it didn’t even half-damage the goats, and then a Shatter from Regulus:

Regulus drops the Shatter right on Joffrey. Joffrey fails the save with style because nobody saw that coming, right? Eight points of damage were dealt to the druid and everything around him. This killed a couple of orcs and a few goats.

Abelas then stepped up and gleefully also Shattered Joffrey and the remaining orcs. Joffrey fails the save with aplomb because nobody saw that coming, right?

Abelas rolled fifteen points of damage and that was enough to knock Joffrey out of dire wolf form and knocked another thirteen points off his druid hit points. It also killed all but one of the orcs. That orc subsequently twatted Joffrey for another nine hit points.

The male giant digs again, the female giant holds her action again. Once again the DM was really clear that she was holding an action.

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Gonna Take You Right Into The Danger-Stone!

The DM now has to gently explain to Regulus (who’s main attack takes an action to do 2d6 damage to a single target) that a spell that for ten minutes allows you to repeatedly use your action to do 3d8 damage in an AoE, is not actually, in any definition of the word, ‘shit’ <sigh>.

The DM didn’t even bother to explain to Adam that druids are not shit it’s just that he’s playing his like a wizard (he didn’t even take Spike Growth as a spell ffs!) as druids are about control not nuking everything. I’m not going to explain how to druid here as the fight is still going. I’ll cover all the effective things Joffrey could have done next week.

Riiiiiide Into the Danger-Stone !

And so, we have arrived. Events were put in motion three hours, twenty nine minutes and thirty one seconds previously that all led up to this exact moment of staggering stupidity. A below max hit-point druid, not in any sort of cover, casts a weedy 4d8 water spell (average damage 18) at a pair of giants with hit points around ten times higher than that (and that’s only if they are normal fire giants), who have ranged attacks that can crush carts and one of whom has been holding an action just waiting for someone to feel lucky (punk).

You literally could not make this shit up.

It took some more explaining. He still didn’t get it, or chose not to. The fire giant spent her entire action getting ready for a trigger that may or may not happen, which is the risk you take by holding. It actually didn’t happen twice so that’s two wasted actions. Once the trigger happens, her action immediately takes place.

Most spells, including Tidal Wave have a verbal and somatic component:

Verbal – Most spells require the chanting of mystic words. The words themselves aren’t the source of the spell’s power; rather, the particular combination of sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, sets the threads of magic in motion.

Somatic – Spellcasting gestures might include a forceful gesticulation or an intricate set of gestures.

Think of this like a prep phase and then a delivery phase. You have to stand there chanting and waving before you can deliver the spell while she has already done her preparation phase for throwing the rock and only has the delivery phase of it to do. Therefore, she gets to make the delivery while you are still in the prep phase.

INCOMING!

Rock. Ranged Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, range 60/240 ft., one target. Hit: 29 (4d10 + 7) bludgeoning damage.

DRUID DOWN!

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End of Session.

Next time on Ten-foot Squares:

Tune in next week to find out!

Post Session Guff

See that wall? Waist high cover. Wouldn’t even have had to move away from the orc.