SKT Episode 32: Welcome to the Suck

Starring Avengers Anonymoose:

Adam as Joffrey AKA Mr Tidal Wave – Every good turn starts with “Oh fuck it!”
Mike as Regulus AKA Mr Attack of Opportunity Crit – Oh fuck it!
Kraj as Celdar AKA Mr Who? – Oh, hang on… I fucked it!
Jake as Abelas AKA Mr Suck – I don’t like that you know that!
Christina as Elvira AKA Miss Bendy – That’s not much use now is it?!
With:
Gary as the DM – Cunts.

Author’s Note: This entire session is one big fight so I’ll try and skip over the blow by blow stuff and focus on the ~~abuse~~ banter instead. This is not supposed to be a particularly testing fight, despite how it looked, so the DM went to some lengths to get Drufi, the giant leader, to stay in range of the player’s attacks.

That Which Must Be Repeated: This campaign contains hard encounters. It is often not required for all of you to kill all of them in order to succeed!

Season Recap: Chapter 1 – A Great Upheaval

– The party have saved 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.

– They helped defend the town of Triboar from a fire giant attack and travelled to Everlund to bring word of the attack to the Harpers there. They were given access to the Harper’s teleportation network.

– They arrived at Goldenfields to find it under attack by Ogres, Bugbears and Goblins. Having fought off the attack they proceeded to seek allies against the giants and ended up (eventually) in Bryn Shander.

Pre-session Guff

The DM forgot to start OBS to record the session (again) and so had to hurriedly get it up and then recap the funny (again).

DM> Well that’s just a tragedy!
Jake> No it’s good!
DM> Future Gary; Jake said “after I had my nose done” and then you said “Wait, your nose looks like that after it was done?!” and then Jake said “Fuck you!” and then we got to where I started recording.

The DM pointed out that he has not done last week’s write up because he was supposed to be in hospital and would then have a week off to do both write-ups. That did not happen and the DM is a tad grumpy about it, and about life in general to be honest.

Kraj got a tad sarky with Mike about being left to tank six mobs by himself. Mike maintained he had to do it because Elvira nearly died. Jake maintained he saved Kraj when he obviously didn’t. He then disappeared to get a pizza out of the oven.

“How did I nearly die?” Asked Christina. Incompetence by Mike was the obvious answer as he was in charge at the time.

Matt couldn’t make it because… eh, I forget. Some pathetic excuse about spending time with his wife and kids rather than spending time with us in D&D!

I don’t think I need to say any more about that.

The DM summoned his minions to the Bryn Shander battlemap. As the players loaded in someone decided to try and be clever:

Kraj> If only we had a handy write up to refresh ourselves on what happened last week!
Mike> Yes! I can’t remember, I feel somewhat confused and lost!
<laughter starts>
DM> <sigh> If only, cunts…
<more laughter>
DM> …the DM was about to do a refresher!

Refresher: they travelled a lot, arrived at Bryn Shander, went to the pub and got into a fight at the gate.

Jake came back and it transpired his pizza was a margherita, which of course is not actually pizza at all and is merely fancy cheese on toast.

Dominos was then lambasted for failing to provide dough balls and tuna due to ‘Covid’ which is of course total bollocks… er, the tuna and dough balls, Covid is obviously not bollocks, just ask the DM’s lungs.

Mike then killed the entire pizza conversation by saying he used to eat tuna and banana pizza. Okay then…

Max Buffage

The DM has rather buffed this fight. There are three possible start locations at the beginning of the campaign when they set out from Nightstone as newbie, badly equipped adventurers and they started at Triboar. Goldenfields and Bryn Shander were the other two so this fight is tuned rather below their current level 7. Not to mention they are packing some reasonably serious firepower at this stage.

The DM added two more giants and buffed Drufi’s hit points from 138 to 300. That might sound like a lot but it really wasn’t. If, for example, all five players fire mounted crossbows and hit each turn, that’s 100 damage per turn.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I’m regretting not making it 400hp but this is supposed to be a relatively easy fight. There are plenty of hard fights coming up.

We start the fight above the gatehouse after Drufi threw a boulder which took out a mounted heavy crossbow and the two redshirts manning it. Roll initiative!

Kraj rolled a 2 and was rather unhappy about it until Mike rolled a 1 and promptly declared that roll was for Joffrey. There was some debate about whether he was allowed to do that but the DM solved it by simply asking if anyone, anyone at all, objected to Joffrey going last. Quite remarkably (Adam hadn’t turned up yet), absolutely no one objected.

The DM points out the numerous heavy crossbows fixed around the gatehouse:

DM> For reference, these are the same as the ones in your wagon, it is a flat 20 damage and you can only shoot once per turn.
Joffrey> Is the ammo nearby?
DM> Yes, in bins adjacent to the weapon.
Regulus> Are they umm.. are they already loaded Gary, yeah?
<laughter>
Kraj> Preloaded?!
DM> <sigh> It’s still a bonus action to load Kraj and no, they are not loaded.

Abelas then politely declined Joffrey’s offer to become Abelapelas since he felt he would be better suited to cast spells.

Drufi blows her jewel-encrusted warhorn once more and all of the frost giants that have surrounded the town start throwing rocks far over the walls, crushing building and causing indiscriminate damage.

Someone, you know who you are, asked if they were racist rocks after a racist rock was removed from a US university recently.

Since we were off the rails, Mike weighed in with the PM’s fight on crime and the DM weighed in with the PM’s war on a beneficial trace gas.

Celdar> <snarkily> It is Christina’s go?
DM> <more snarkily> We haven’t actually started combat yet, Celdar!
Regulus> Yeah!
Joffrey> It’s everyone’s turn!
DM> <sanctimoniously> It is the DM’s turn and he can espouse on things he finds necessary to do so on! Like the biggest issue of out time, Celdar! Climate change! It’s going to affect ALL of us!
Celdar> After listening to you, I thought the biggest issue of my time was your operation!
DM> Well it might be because if it goes wrong… 5% chance of not waking up from a general anaesthetic, just throwing that out there…
Celdar> I’ll take those chances!
DM> So if I roll a one…
Abelas> And lets face it, you’ve rolled a lot of ones this year!
<laughter>

This actually carried on for a while but eventually we got back to the game.

OMG U Broke It!!1!

Regulus had a significant motor-skills fail in getting his mini up one step onto the battlements until the DM demonstrated Talespire’s teleport function. Having eventually made his way onto the battlements, Regulus loaded and fired a crossbow but rolled a 1 and broke it. This was the last time the +5 to hit 20 damage crossbows were used <sigh>.

Elvira debated using a magic arrow:

Regulus> You got one that causes blindness, another one makes them slow… you’ve got another now don’t you?
Joffrey> Seeking?
Elvira> That’s the one where you get to learn their location and stuff…
<The DM is eying up the five enormous frost giants stood right outside the gate>
Elvira> …that’s not much use now is it?!
<laughter>
Regulus> Yeah… I think we know where they are…

A Racist Shadow Arrow was fired. The DM read some frost giant flavour from the Monster Manual while Elvira read up on what Racist Shadow Arrow did:

DM> Have you read it yet because I’m running out of material?
Elvira> Yeah, I’ve rolled to hit.
DM> Okee dokee…
Elvira> It was 30.
<group sigh>
DM> Could you run that one by me again?
Elvira> Thirty. Three zero.
DM> Right, you are totally getting charmed the next time I need to actually hit Regulus!

Christina rolled the damage and one of the dice rolled along the ramparts, bounced off a wall and rolled back down a set of stairs. This was so awesome the DM added a bonus damage point.

All four bodyguards threw boulders at the gate causing 112 damage and rather messed it up.

Celdar> One hundred and twelve?!
Regulus> Er, we might need to give them something else to throw rocks at!

It transpires that the Giant Ape throws a more damaging rock than a frost giant. Which is nice.

Jake Clone

DM> Sir Baric walks up onto the battlements…
<The DM is forced to stop his narration as someone is fucking about with a measuring stick>
DM> Kraj, what the fuck are you doing?!
Kraj> Er… just measuring something.
DM> <invokes heathen deity> you are Jake 2.0! <deep breath> Sir Baric adopts a vacant look and a heroic pose…
<now someone else is fucking about with a measuring stick>
Adam> Fuck sake!
DM> Cunts. I will rage quit this session, if you think I won’t after the week I’ve had…
<laughter>
DM> Sir Baric shouts out “I say madam! I hereby challenge you to a duel in honourable single combat!” but Drufi just laughs at him and shouts back “Fool! We shall reduce this town to rubble!”. Sir Baric simply says “So be it!” and wanders back down off the ramparts.

Drufi chucks a rock and another section of the battlements is destroyed.

Abelas drops a Storm Sphere in the middle of the giants and it does 4 damage to two giants. I’m not counting the wolves as they are mostly just decorative for this fight… unless someone is stupid enough to leave the ramparts and go toe-to-toe with five frost giants and I don’t think even my players would do that.

Although Adam has turned up now…

Celdar the so called ‘adventurer’ declined to be adventurous and follow the DM’s suggestion that he Dimension Door right behind Drufi for a backstab and instead stealthed onto the battlements and sneak attacked Drufi with a longbow:

Celdar> So.. longbow shot at Drufi and… thirteen?
DM> Thirteen does not hit.
Celdar> Well fuck that then!
DM> <unable to help himself> You are attacking from stealth so you get advantage.
Celdar> Oh yeeeeeah!
DM> <sigh>
Celdar> Oh, hang on… I fucked it!
DM> I knew I should have made him an Arcane Archer but I don’t think I could handle two of them.

Area of Not Much Effect

Joffrey wants to put an Erupting Earth spell down to hinder the giant’s movement and is discussing this with Abelas:

Joffrey> Shall I put it there? So the others have to go around it?
Abelas> I want them to actively think its too much of a faff to move away from this giant swirling storm of death!

Remember “swirling storm of death”, dear reader. Remember it well.

Erupting Earth does a bit of blunt damage, more than Storm Sphere anyway, and that spot becomes difficult terrain. It took a while to get this done because the DM trolled Adam by measuring the distance from about 50ft behind the gatehouse, which Adam didn’t spot but everyone else did.

So we have now spent a level 4 and a level 3 spell to do minor damage to three giants and to slow them down for about half a move. Worth it? You decide.

As Drikk Fra-Kar, six-time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena once said: “Crowd control can be exceptionally useful on the battlefield. Slowing down something that wasn’t going to move, to do significantly less damage to it than a simple Fireball, is not exceptionally useful however, Buttercup.”

Regulus, who had earlier been lamenting the fact that he doesn’t get level 3 spells until level 9, is torn between using a mounted crossbow or just casting Magic Missile:

Regulus> Oh fuck it! I’m going to…
Joffrey> Every good turn starts with “Oh fuck it!”
Abelas> You could do really well with a level 3 Magic Missile though.
Regulus> <fake sarcastic laugh> You could do really well with an armour class of 22, bitch!
Abelas> <casually> I can get that with Shield.
Regulus> <fake sarcastic laugh> Right, I’m going to cast a level 2 Magic Missile.
Abelas> Only level 2?

After all that Regulus did not in fact cast a level 2 Magic Missile but a Shatter spell. The range was a bit dubious but the Warforged ‘adventurer’ decline to follow the DM’s suggestion that he hang off the ramparts by one hand to make sure because, in his own words “I’m not Jake”.

The half-caster did more damage than both the full casters combined. I know the full casters will argue that their spells were designed to do damage over time so lets see how well that works out shall we?

DM> Okay, it is Christina’s turn. So , what does everyone think about the Premiership doubling down on the keeling?
Mike> I tell you, I read this report the other day…
<laughter>
DM> Sorry! Carry on Christina.
Christina> <laughing> Are you sure you don’t want to continue?

Se we then got a bit bogged down with bendy Arcane Archer shots and what constitutes a ‘magic’ arrow because Fuck Me D&D is Complicated. Elvira does in fact, get bendy arrows that can be retargeted if she misses, which isn’t going to be often if we are realistic, and given this ability pretty much never from now on.

Elvira missed Drufi and, sadly, Joffrey was just out of range for the curving arrow and so another giant was picked to be the pin cushion instead.

Oh noes! A slightly inconvenient AoE has appeared!

The four frost giant bodyguards use a fraction of their 40ft of movement to get out of the Storm Sphere and the Erupting Earth, which will just be referred to as the electric mud from now on, and throw their boulders not at the gate but at the battlements the payers are taking cover behind. Four sections of the battlements are destroyed.

Thanks to the way Talespire works, the DM was able to remove the battlements then and there, which was marginally awesome:

Joffrey> Joffrey clenches!
Celdar> Fuuuuck!
Abelas> Hey-Zeus fucking Aitch Kerist!

He called me a whatnow?!

Si Baric climbs back up on to the wall, once again adopts the blank-faced look of a half-wit, strikes a majestic pose, and he does look majestic in his shiny full plate with sword and shield, and he points straight at Drufi shouting out in a posh accent “It seems to me you are a dishonourable dewbeater, a bespawler and a fustylugs! Furthermore, it would not surprise me in the least if your mother and father were in fact, brother and sister!” and then he jumps back off the wall and takes cover, looking over at the party and winking at them, not looking at all like a half wit.

Drufi looks confused and glances over her shoulder at the closest bodyguard. The bodyguard whispers something to her, clearly an explanation, and Drufi turn bright red, rages out of the Erupting Earth and throws a boulder at the ramparts where Baric is hiding.

Abelas decides to ~~man~~ elf the fuck up and stop faffing about and Fireballs Drufi right in the face for a Dex save of only 14 (which she failed) and she took 30 damage.

Much to the amusement of the rest of the table, Jake’s attempt to use the left-hand gatehouse tower as a dice tower failed rather spectacularly as most of his dice ended up closer to the right-hand tower over 100ft away,

Jake kind of redeemed himself by actually reading the Storm Sphere description and belatedly realising he gets to make a bonus action spell attack but it missed. It missed by 1. Shame really.

The spectators on the gatehouse battlements were chiming in as Jake’s moment of realisation hit:

The DM couldn’t find any sad music but there’s some church music that the DM chose. The players couldn’t hear it and the DM promptly accused them of breaking his Talespire*.

Having reviewed the OBS footage it is apparent that the DM didn’t press the ‘Apply to Board’ button. Oops.

Celdar rolled a stealth check so high Abelas forgot who he was. The master of stealth then decided to attack from exactly the same place he attacked from last time. The DM was not very scathing about this at all.

Joffrey turned Regulus into Regulapelas. Regulapelas throws a chunk of battlement at Drufi. He rolls a 1. Regulapelas’ disappointment is only matched by that of Joffrey who can’t do a lot while he is concentrating on the Giant Ape form.

Huzzah! Regulus remembers he has an inspiration!

He uses it!

He rolls another 1!

His fellow players were extremely sympathetic.

Since there’s no real place for something the size of the ape to take cover behind, he drops over the rear wall and hangs off the battlements, declining the DM’s suggestion to climb to the top of one of the towers, grabbing Joffrey in one hand, and going ‘full Kong’ at the top.

Unicorn balls briefly became a thing. That’s all I have to say on the matter.

The giant’s boulder attacks removed another significant chunk of the battlements and a section of the gate support structure collapses.

Rubbing it in

Sir Baric saunters up onto the battlements, adopts a vacant expression and a heroic pose, points at Drufi and yells out, again in a very posh accent “Oh, did I say your parents were brother and sister? Well that clearly cannot be true because your father was obviously a troll you mulch-spouting loiter-sack!” and then he runs back down the stairs again.

Drufi screams in rage and rushed forward striking the masonry above Baric with a pair of furious greataxe strikes. Sir Baric is crouched down with his shield held over his head as chunks of wall bounce of it. He is laughing quietly.

Abelas attempts to bonus action lightning bolt Drufi:

DM> <pointing to a mini on the lower wall> Is that you there?
Abelas> <hesitantly> Yes…
DM> Excellent.
Abelas> <worriedly> I don’t like that you know that!
DM> No, I don’t expect you do.
<The DM starts measuring the distance from Drufi to Abelas. It is only about 30ft.>
<Abelas misses with the ~~Suck Sphere~~ Storm Sphere attack once again>
Abelas> AAAAH! Fuck sake! Okay, I Fireball Drufi!

Drufi rolls a magnificent 2 for the Dex save against a save of, apparently, only fourteen. Jake manages to drop all the dice down the tower stairs and does 31 damage to the frost giant leader.

Abelas takes the DM’s hint and legs it inside the tower to ~~cower~~ take cover next to Joffrey.

The DM, after he checked it wasn’t Christina’s turn, pointed out that he had completely forgotten Augrek up on the right hand tower manning the heavy crossbow so he added another 20 damage to Drufi from that source.

Celdar rolled another natural twenty on his stealth check.

DM> <sigh> Right, you can’t kill Drufi until the fourth round when Baric has gotten his last insult in.
Celdar> Is a sneak attack likely to kill her or can you fudge it?
DM> Don’t worry, narrative will take over. I don’t need to fudge dice rolls because no one knows what I wrote down for hit points for Drufi!
<laughter>

After all that sneaky fucking about, Celdar missed.

Narrative Cheese is the Smelliest Cheese!

Joffrey Tidal Waves two of the bodyguards for a mediocre amount of damage. It was still miles better than ~~Suck Sphere~~ Storm Sphere, obviously.

A local cleric called Sirac appears on the battlements and immediately raises his hoy symbol and a 30ft radius sphere of twilight springs forth. Anyone in that sphere gains 1d6+7 temporary hit points. He then starts tending to the two broken redshirts.

Regulapelas lunches himself over the battlements and swipes twice at Drufi as he drops down in front of the ruined gate. This results in a crit for a total of 63 cheese damage to Drufi knocking her horn, her belt pouch and couple of bits of armour to the ground.

Two bodyguards rush forward and grab Drufi and start dragging her off. Mike, as usual, completely missed the point (plot armour is real!) and made an attack of opportunity against Drufi instead of something that would count <sigh>. He hit for another 42 damage and quite remarkably she went from being on the brink of death to still being on the brink of death as the DM gifted Drufi another 50HP due to only the purest of narrative motivations, obviously.

Sir Baric saunters up onto the battlements, adopts a vacant expression and a heroic pose, points at Drufi and yells out, again in a very posh accent “Yes, begone! And next time would you mind awfully attacking one of the other gates? The wind is from behind you, you see? And we have recently eaten, you stamp-crabbing dung-fungus!” and then he saunters back off the wall chuckling as Drufi struggles unsuccessfully against her bodyguards.

Abelas, also just like Mike and simply not getting it, tried to attack Drufi with the Suck Sphere lightning bolt. He misses again. Shame. So he Fireballed again, wasting a perfectly good level 3 spell on a female frost giant wearing a magic beard that twice-per-day* totally negates damage and actually adds the damage back as hit points.

*Variable due to narrative ~~cheese~~ reasons.

DM> You get all four of them.
Abelas> Nice!
DM> Not really because you can’t kill any of the bodyguards and you’ve got to go some to kill her. Actually, not even then because thanks to Mr Attack of Opportunity Crit over there I had to give her more hit points so Sir Baric could throw a half-arsed insult at her!
Regulus> <laughing> So you’ve stopped cheesing rolls now, it’s cheesing hit points?
DM> <with fake exasperation> I had a simple target, you couldn’t just let it go could you? You decided to be a dick about it so I decided to be a dick back! That’s fair, right?!

There was some debate on whether that was fair or not but it was all done with everyone laughing so who cares?

Bodyguard 4 sent Joffrey a parting gift of a rock to the face worth 29 damage.

Abelas, also just like Mike and Jake and simply not getting it (at this point it is probably the DM’s fault, not the players), tried to attacked Drufi with a longbow.

By now the DM was realising that he’d handled this a bit wrong but as Drikk Fra-Kar once said “When you’re in hole, chain-cast Move Earth and go for the Underdark!” and so the DM just ruled she was knocked out.

Drikk Fra-Kar> That is NOT what I said.. okay I might have said it but I was either drunk or trying to impress a lady… probably both! Stop fucking digging, idiot!

Anyway, the DM had to convince the players that the fight was actually over. See post session guff for more.

One of the bodyguards starts blowing a repeating staccato note on his war horn and the remaining 14 giants regroup and head away into Icewind Dale following the river.

DM> Well done everybody, that is the last of the major towns. You are now level 8!
<cheers ring out>

Abelas’ spell save is now 15! Hey-Zeus fucking Aitch Kerist!

End of Session.

Next time on Ten-foot Squares:

– Will Mike enjoy his third cousin’s niece’s wedding?
– Will Abelas make the most of his new-found FIFTEEN spell save DC?
– Will Kraj’s brain explode trying to figure out what spells to take on Celdar?

Tune in next week to find out!

Post Session Guff

The ending of the fight was not the best… Hang on, let me adopt the Biden Manoeuvre; we all knew it was going to be a mess and nobody could have done better!

Having been through it twice, and the second time was far more painful than the first, I think this happened mainly to do with bad communication from a tired DM. There was no point in killing Drufi as they had the loot and if they were to pursue her, or even kill her, there were twelve other giants left who might want revenge.

A simple “Given that there are still a dozen frost giants around the town, do you think killing her is wise?” would probably have sorted the whole thing out.

Sir Baric Nyleaf’s Guide to Ye Olde English Insults:

DEW-BEATER (no Jake, not a Nazi)
An 18th century word for an especially large shoe, and consequently a clumsy or awkward person.

BESPAWLER
To bespawl means to spit or dribble. A bespawler is a slobbering person, who spits when he talks.

FUSTYLUGS
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this term for “a woman of gross or corpulent habit” is derived from fusty, in the sense of something that’s gone off or gone stale.

LOITER-SACK
This is a 17th century term for a slacker. An idling, lazy good-for-nothing. Literally, someone who seems to spend all day in bed.

STAMPCRAB
A heavy-footed, clumsy person.