SKT Episode 42: The Blunt End

Vaguely Important Stuff –

The deputies (and Mike) entered a ship-in-a-bottle pocket dimension and faced off against the evil Captain Squint! He offered them a job! They refused! They thought about it for a bit first though! A fight started!

Squint turns out to be seven souls in one body and they have to fight through the ship’s officers in turn while the Captain gets to use legendary and lair actions. Four forms are killed by the end of the session.

Really Important Stuff –

The DM has realised that he mis-numbered the write-ups and there is no episode 39. As he can’t be arsed to go back and redo the numbers he’ll have to make up an episode in the future. Maybe one where Kraj doesn’t miss, Adam isn’t intellectually challenged, Matt rolls well, Mike doesn’t over think things, Christina remembers she has two attacks, Jake (the bladsinger) uses a blade and the DM doesn’t balls up the initiative and remembers to start OBS… nah, no one would believe it.

Amazingly the DM forgot to start OBS. This is of course all Kraj’s fault as he did not remind the DM.

Mike was hoping this fight was underwater as he doesn’t have to breathe. It wasn’t but the DM did remind them that he did a deal with Joffrey at the start of the campaign that he would get them to visit the Maelstrom at some point and that place is indeed underwater.

Squint’s ship, the Shady Grey, is trapped in a pocket dimension in a bottle on the mayor’s desk. To enter it, the adventurers (and Jake) had to chant “Dead men tell no tales” three times. Normally I would snip the audio of the attempt to chant that out loud but, much like granny porn, some things simply have no place on the Internet.

We return to the gunnery test area from last week where the fight will take place on the Shady Grey, anchored just off the island. Mike was surprised to find out that the warship had indeed been there all along on the map we spent three hours on last week.

The ‘true pirates’ had to ask Yarla where the quarterdeck was [sigh]. “The blunt end” was the eventual response.

– Soul 1: Big Billy Fish is the first form they face and he gets hammered by Plank and his one remaining hit point disappears. His form wavers and becomes that of Wavey Davey, a Goblin Boss.

– Soul 2: Wavey Davey employs a proven defence technique:

Le Fleche ignores this completely and sinks two arrows into his chest and kills him. His body wavers and become the wraithlike figure of the Sailing Master.

– Soul 3: The Sailing Master makes a life-drain attack against Plank and crits. Plank tries to cheese it with absorb elements but Jake wants him to die and points out to the DM the small-print in the spell description that doesn’t mention necrotic.

Remember, snitches get stitches.

As an added insult Plank fails the Con save and those hit points are unrecoverable until his next rest. The Sailing Master apologises profusely to the party while attacking them and Old Iron Leg apologises right back whilst reluctantly punching his drinking buddy to death with fists of holy radiance. The Sailing Master passes Regulus a silver hip flask as he falls.

– Soul 4: The Quartermaster appears and is a Revenant. Due to last week’s issues between Plank and the QM, the DM thought it would be funny to put a Revenant in there with Plank as his chosen target of vengeance. It wasn’t so funny after the unrecoverable Life Drain crit the Sailing Master landed on Plank earlier. Oh well, he’ll be fine though right? Right.

Plank attempted to charge the Quartermaster but missed the entire ship with his mini and ended up in the ocean [sigh]. Mind you, the DM had spent quite some time earlier in the session trying to get minis through a door into the church so there was a lot of it going around.

Kraj forgot he had sneak attack which is kind of the whole point of rogue combat [sigh]. Plank’s epic session continued when he rolled 1 for the save against the Revenant’s Vengeful Glare and was now paralysed.

Captain Squint used the lair action of “Parlay!” and Yarla, Squinty and the Quartermaster have to spend their next turn attempting to negotiate instead of attacking. That went about as well as you would expect.

The party wear down the Revenant’s impressive pool of hit points fairly quickly and he is eventually killed by an Abelarrse Magic Missile.

Important Verbalisations –

  • Kraj> I fucking did remind you but you weren’t recording so you can’t prove it!
  • DM> Riiiight!
  • Mike> Nice move!
  • Jake> Ballsy but…
  • Mike> At least we know who is getting it first tonight!
  • DM> If you want to actually say it out loud be my guest but you lot being coordinated enough to say it together would be… interesting.
  • Party> [uncoordinated barely intelligible chanting]
  • [a moment of profound silence]
  • DM> Ooookay then, that actually went worse than I thought it would. Moving on…

Aggression Diminisher Yarla> True pirates my arse.

  • Captain Squint> So, are ye with me?!!
  • Abelarrse> I must say, that’s tempting!
  • Old Iron Leg> Er… can we just have a quick discussion about it?
  • DM> Le Fleche? That be French that be!
  • Le Fleche> Er.. fourteen.
  • Old Iron leg> Blimey, did you roll a two?
  • [Yes, Elvira rolled a 2 and still got 14 to-hit]
  • Mike> As we haven’t had a rest, Billy Big Fish should only be on one hit point!
  • [30 seconds later]
  • DM> Does anyone remember how many hit points Big Billy Fish has?
  • [group sigh]

Matt> Apologies, I’ve forgotten how to hit things!

  • Old Iron Leg> The next one could be… the Quartermaster?
  • [The DM puts the Sailing Master mini down]
  • Old Iron Leg> No! No! The ship… no!
  • DM> Yes!
  • Old Iron Leg> No!
  • DM> Yes!
  • Old Iron Leg> Nooo!
  • DM> Yes!
  • Old Iron Leg> Not the Sailing Master!
  • DM> Yes, it’s the Sailing Master!
  • Old Iron Leg> This is no longer fun, I’m going!
  • DM> The Sailing Master uses his Life Drain attack against Plank.
  • [The DM rolls a natural 20]
  • Everyone> Ooooh!
  • DM> Okay…uh… oh, that is 42 damage.
  • Everyone> Ooooh!
  • DM> Er… can you make a DC14 Con save for me please?
  • [Matt rolls a 3]
  • Everyone> Ooooh!
  • DM> Er… shit, your maximum hit points are reduced by an amount equal to the damage taken…
  • Everyone> Ooooh!
  • DM> Hang on, hang on, the wraith has ‘sunlight sensitivity’ and disadvantage on attack rolls in sunlight, which he is in, so it’s not a crit… [laughing] unless I roll another one…
  • [The DM rolls another crit]
  • Everyone> OOOOOH!!!
  • [The session derails for a minute or two for laughter and sympathy]
  • Matt> No, you can’t have an ice lolly!
  • DM> Er… I didn’t want an ice lolly!
  • Matt> Back in a sec!
  • DM> Now I do though!