LibraryOgre
2012-02-17, 01:16 AM
So, I ran my group tonight though the adventure "Danger in Drakesville." Short and sweet adventure, and they escaped with no PC deaths.
First of all, the party:
Ashny, CG human (Dejy) fighter, angling to be a knight of the Guardian.
Rhun, NG grel ranger.
Lafru, ? elven mage; new player, not familiar with alignments yet.
Thakyr, CG Cleric of the Guardian. NPC because the party was a bit short. He used to be a cowboy, given the skills he wound up with.
We used what has become my favorite intro to the adventure... travelling with a caravan, being paid in food in exchange for protection, a wheel breaks. The caravan master transfers some of the less important stuff to the broken wagon, asking the party to stay behind and guard it; it will only take a day or two to fix the wheel. In this case, he offers them a silver, on top of their food, to do this, because the party is flat broke. They agree, being game enough.
The grel stands near the wagon and looks grumpy, while the teamster and the fighter go to get pleasantly trashed. The cleric manages to do this mostly on everyone else's dime, given that she's got a decent diplomacy score and traded news and stories for a few drinks. The teamster (another NPC, who didn't even get a name) got dared to take a shot of Dragons Breath, so wound up plastered. Everyone gets back and they pass out.
They're awakened by the ringing of the alarm bell. Against all sense and reason, who do they send out to investigate? The grel. Worst charisma, looks, and they're in a town that's about 10% pixie-faerie, and nothing taller than a gnome. Since the grel can't speak the lingua franca, B'Gnomish (a mix of B'Paran and Gnomish that's most common in this gnomish/halflingish town), he gets a translation from... a pixie faerie. (Note: Every NPC the grel had cause to interact with, I made a pixie faerie. I described them as looking delicious). Short version is that a big thing stole Steve, and can't you please get him back. The knight agreed immediately, the rest only reluctantly, and their fee was a week's worth of food, ale, and lodging.
They tracked the bugbear through the woods, with the grel taking a log-trap to the face, and the knight taking a grel to the sternum... no trap detectors. They come to the clearing containing a shack, and nearly lose the elf in a pit trap filled with centipedes, but she hoses the area with a scorch spell... starting a fire in the rotting vegetation. This noise (roaring flames, a few curses) wakes the kobolds, who are waiting in the shack, but decide to wait for them. The knight charges ahead, willy-nilly, and specifically says she's taking out the hide door and aiming high... figures she'll stab a bugbear in the face. Turns out to completely miss all four kobolds, but knocks one to the ground on a follow-up NPD and the four of them scratch away at her armor. The cleric joins her while the mage gets a torch ready, and between the group, they disable two of the kobolds (horrible trauma saves), force the third to surrender, and the fighter obliterates the fourth... twenty-some points of damage when it was already injured. They collect the body they were sent to find and haul the kobolds back for "justice".
Interrogation proves that the kobolds were working for a bugbear, so Johann Glitterbum, de facto mayor of Drakesville, begs them to stay, offering them food and drink for the night, and 10 silver a piece if they kill the bugbear. Kind of foolishly, they agree, but suggest the townsfolk patrol during the night, so they can find the bugbear easier.
The bugbear doesn't overcome the nose of the sheepdogs, but does manage to get the drop on the adventurers, opening the fight with a surprise attack against the fighter, knocking her sprawling. The cleric steps in to protect her, and the mage dumps her last 90 SP into a Scorch. 10pt to the bugbear, who then gets a cleric engaging him. When the fighter climbs to her feet, they keep the bugbear bracketed, with the grel staying back and shooting. The knight takes a good couple of shots, dropping the bugbear into single digits, but the cleric can't hit for nothing, even drawing a couple attacks from fumbles and PD. The knight gets hit for a hard shot, and BLOWS the trauma save... down for something like 50 seconds. The cleric gets hit for 26 of his 28 points but, amazingly, manages to succeed at his trauma save... which means that the 15 point shot that he takes next attack crushes him to the ground.
At this point, the elf and the grel start to spread out even more; both have bows, so they take turns shooting... the bugbear charges the elf, so the grel does a few points of damage. He then charges the grel, so the elf does a couple points, which puts him at 1. The bugbear decides to leave, but the grel sees his 15 silver (the knight decided to bribe them into staying by splitting up her share) getting away. They play a bit of cat-and-mouse, with the grel's stealth beating the bugbear's Observation, but the grel's tracking beating the bugbear's haste. Final snapshot and the bugbear falls. The grel makes a point of peeing on the corpse before cutting its throat.
Overall, I think it went pretty well. I did have some trouble with the count-up at first, but took notes and smoothed it out by the 20s of the bugbear fight. I gave them honor tonight, but since they only got about halfway to 2nd level (including the bugbear, they got 145 XP), I only gave them half of the calculated reward. Roleplaying was pretty good, and I went over the reasons they got what they did. I've got two weeks until I run White Pallete, Ivory Horns... at least in part... as an introduction to Frandor's Keep.
First of all, the party:
Ashny, CG human (Dejy) fighter, angling to be a knight of the Guardian.
Rhun, NG grel ranger.
Lafru, ? elven mage; new player, not familiar with alignments yet.
Thakyr, CG Cleric of the Guardian. NPC because the party was a bit short. He used to be a cowboy, given the skills he wound up with.
We used what has become my favorite intro to the adventure... travelling with a caravan, being paid in food in exchange for protection, a wheel breaks. The caravan master transfers some of the less important stuff to the broken wagon, asking the party to stay behind and guard it; it will only take a day or two to fix the wheel. In this case, he offers them a silver, on top of their food, to do this, because the party is flat broke. They agree, being game enough.
The grel stands near the wagon and looks grumpy, while the teamster and the fighter go to get pleasantly trashed. The cleric manages to do this mostly on everyone else's dime, given that she's got a decent diplomacy score and traded news and stories for a few drinks. The teamster (another NPC, who didn't even get a name) got dared to take a shot of Dragons Breath, so wound up plastered. Everyone gets back and they pass out.
They're awakened by the ringing of the alarm bell. Against all sense and reason, who do they send out to investigate? The grel. Worst charisma, looks, and they're in a town that's about 10% pixie-faerie, and nothing taller than a gnome. Since the grel can't speak the lingua franca, B'Gnomish (a mix of B'Paran and Gnomish that's most common in this gnomish/halflingish town), he gets a translation from... a pixie faerie. (Note: Every NPC the grel had cause to interact with, I made a pixie faerie. I described them as looking delicious). Short version is that a big thing stole Steve, and can't you please get him back. The knight agreed immediately, the rest only reluctantly, and their fee was a week's worth of food, ale, and lodging.
They tracked the bugbear through the woods, with the grel taking a log-trap to the face, and the knight taking a grel to the sternum... no trap detectors. They come to the clearing containing a shack, and nearly lose the elf in a pit trap filled with centipedes, but she hoses the area with a scorch spell... starting a fire in the rotting vegetation. This noise (roaring flames, a few curses) wakes the kobolds, who are waiting in the shack, but decide to wait for them. The knight charges ahead, willy-nilly, and specifically says she's taking out the hide door and aiming high... figures she'll stab a bugbear in the face. Turns out to completely miss all four kobolds, but knocks one to the ground on a follow-up NPD and the four of them scratch away at her armor. The cleric joins her while the mage gets a torch ready, and between the group, they disable two of the kobolds (horrible trauma saves), force the third to surrender, and the fighter obliterates the fourth... twenty-some points of damage when it was already injured. They collect the body they were sent to find and haul the kobolds back for "justice".
Interrogation proves that the kobolds were working for a bugbear, so Johann Glitterbum, de facto mayor of Drakesville, begs them to stay, offering them food and drink for the night, and 10 silver a piece if they kill the bugbear. Kind of foolishly, they agree, but suggest the townsfolk patrol during the night, so they can find the bugbear easier.
The bugbear doesn't overcome the nose of the sheepdogs, but does manage to get the drop on the adventurers, opening the fight with a surprise attack against the fighter, knocking her sprawling. The cleric steps in to protect her, and the mage dumps her last 90 SP into a Scorch. 10pt to the bugbear, who then gets a cleric engaging him. When the fighter climbs to her feet, they keep the bugbear bracketed, with the grel staying back and shooting. The knight takes a good couple of shots, dropping the bugbear into single digits, but the cleric can't hit for nothing, even drawing a couple attacks from fumbles and PD. The knight gets hit for a hard shot, and BLOWS the trauma save... down for something like 50 seconds. The cleric gets hit for 26 of his 28 points but, amazingly, manages to succeed at his trauma save... which means that the 15 point shot that he takes next attack crushes him to the ground.
At this point, the elf and the grel start to spread out even more; both have bows, so they take turns shooting... the bugbear charges the elf, so the grel does a few points of damage. He then charges the grel, so the elf does a couple points, which puts him at 1. The bugbear decides to leave, but the grel sees his 15 silver (the knight decided to bribe them into staying by splitting up her share) getting away. They play a bit of cat-and-mouse, with the grel's stealth beating the bugbear's Observation, but the grel's tracking beating the bugbear's haste. Final snapshot and the bugbear falls. The grel makes a point of peeing on the corpse before cutting its throat.
Overall, I think it went pretty well. I did have some trouble with the count-up at first, but took notes and smoothed it out by the 20s of the bugbear fight. I gave them honor tonight, but since they only got about halfway to 2nd level (including the bugbear, they got 145 XP), I only gave them half of the calculated reward. Roleplaying was pretty good, and I went over the reasons they got what they did. I've got two weeks until I run White Pallete, Ivory Horns... at least in part... as an introduction to Frandor's Keep.