Out of the Abyss, persuading the Quogoth.

[YCombinator]

Spoiler alert, this thread will contain details of the first chapter of Out of the Abyss.

I am running an Out of the Abyss campaign right now. The characters just broke out of their cell as a result of Jorlan's Gambit. They are now about to face the guards of Velkenvele. Their plan is to rush to the Quaggoth's chambers and attempt to persuade them to fight with the prisoners against the Drow. My PC's see the Quaggoth as slaves and figure they would be totally in for an escape as well. We ended last session just as they were entering the opening to the Quaggoth cambers.

The book says that the Quaggoth just attack anyone who enters their chamber. I'm not sure what I should do here. How hard is this persuasion role to get them to join?

I don't know much about the Quaggoth's historic relationship with the Drow. Cannon is not super important but I'm interested what cannon would say the Quaggoth's dedication to the Drow is.

But more importantly, what would work out best for the situation that they're in? I can see a lot a ways this can go obviously. With the Quaggoth, the other prisoners, and the PCs all on one team they might just steamroll the Drow. Even without the Vrok / Daemon event which I have yet to trigger.

If the Quaggoth decide they will just fight and if the prisoners run they will chase, well, my PCs are completely flanked and might stand no chance of getting anywhere.

The prisoners could take out the Quaggoth in their chambers after a failed diplomacy role and perhaps continue on. This might be the most balanced scenario.

Anyone have any input? Thanks a bunch.

[Falcon X]

I would definitely make this possible. Enabling your players is much more fun than cutting off their plans, as the book says. However, don't let it be a freebie. They have to figure out what would make the Quaggoth turn. As it stands, they probably get free food for minimum labor.
However, they might enjoy the thrill of battle even more than that.

I'll post again once I've read up more on Quaggoths.

[ad_hoc]

Well there are only 1d4 Quaggoths in the den at any given time and they know that Sarith and Derendil are prisoners.

What happens will probably depend on how many Quaggoths are there. If it is just one they may be reluctant to fight.

Still, intimidation will probably work the best followed by deception. Persuasion is likely to be a losing bet.

Just getting the Quaggoths there not to kill the PCs on sight would be the best victory they could achieve.

Planning to fight the Drow in general is beyond foolish. Let them do it of course and also allow the TPK that is surely to come. Then start over with new characters. The players will have learned that violence is not an assured way of overcoming obstacles.

[mgshamster]

Here's what I'd do:

1) Roll 1d4 to see how many are inside.

2) Have whichever character is speaking roll a persuasion check.

3) Ask them for what they're going to say. If it's good, give them advantage.

Then their persuasion roll determines how many change sides. 10+ is one quoggoth. 15+ is 2. 20+ is 3. 25+ is 4.

If they get equal to or more conversions than quoggoth present, then they convert them all. Otherwise any non-conversions immediately attack the PCs, and the conversions come to the PCs aid.

[Shining Wrath]

Quaggoths are pretty nasty creatures. Best strategy might be to open the door, hide, and let them create a distraction.

Failing that, bribe them with food.

[YCombinator]

I would definitely make this possible. Enabling your players is much more fun than cutting off their plans, as the book says. However, don't let it be a freebie. They have to figure out what would make the Quaggoth turn. As it stands, they probably get free food for minimum labor.
However, they might enjoy the thrill of battle even more than that.

I'll post again once I've read up more on Quaggoths.

Yes I totally agree. In case it wasn't clear, I'm hoping to enable all manner of escape and hoping that all possibilities can be incorporated. The PCs are about to make some manner of charisma role at the top of next session. Just wondering what other DMs would put the DC at and wondering if anyone has suggestions on how to structure the rest of combat given that they join the Quaggoth or not.


Well there are only 1d4 Quaggoths in the den at any given time and they know that Sarith and Derendil are prisoners.

What happens will probably depend on how many Quaggoths are there. If it is just one they may be reluctant to fight.

Still, intimidation will probably work the best followed by deception. Persuasion is likely to be a losing bet.

Just getting the Quaggoths there not to kill the PCs on sight would be the best victory they could achieve.

Planning to fight the Drow in general is beyond foolish. Let them do it of course and also allow the TPK that is surely to come. Then start over with new characters. The players will have learned that violence is not an assured way of overcoming obstacles.

I agree intimidation might work best but that's not for me to decide. I am fairly certain based on table talk that happened mostly in character that they intend to make a persuasion role. I disagree, however that deception will work all that well here. The Quaggoth know full well any non-Drow are prisoners here and they are also well aware of the prisoners that are Quaggoth and Drow themselves. It would be, I think, a lower DC to persuade them to join the prisoners that deceive them. Though I don't know what deception you have in mind. Regardless, what the PC's try to deceive them of, if at all, is also not up to me. I can't really begin to guess what they'd try so I'm going to have to improvise that without any forum input.

Fighting all the Drow head on is likely a death sentence but many executions of this campaign I've heard involve fighting Illvara and Shoor and perhaps some guards. I'm not comfortable saying that my PCs must either run away off the cliff into the webs or get killed. I agree a TPK is possible here, but there are a lot of options for sneaking their way into smaller battles or positioning strategically or gaining the favor of Quaggoth that could make fighting the Drow possible. Plus there's also the Vrok scenario which could kill some Drow.

I should mention, two of my PCs, during hard labor, stole items from one of the Drow warrior's beside chests and placed them into another's. They rolled quite well on stealth and also had a pretty elaborate setup and explanation of the plan which I rewarded by granting disadvantage on the perception of the Drow who was present. I liked this idea a lot so I've granted that this did, in fact, cause a fight among the Drow in their chambers. This could also result in low-hp Drow or even a dead Drow before they start fighting. Not to mention lowered perception since several are drawn to the fight.

This has all happened without Joral's distraction. If he decides to fan the flames of this fight, which is in character for him, then that could make it worse. All of this I think gives the characters a fighting chance to fight their way out, if not a total dungeon clear.

[YCombinator]

Quaggoths are pretty nasty creatures. Best strategy might be to open the door, hide, and let them create a distraction.

Failing that, bribe them with food.

I don't think this can work. The Quaggoth are servants in Velkenvele. They are free to move about day to day and they are servants. They are basically bred to be obedient dogs. If they get out of their chambers with out realizing the slaves have escaped the slave pen they'll just spend their time cleaning and preparing dinner. :)

I have looked this up though and noticed that a Quaggoth is 450XP. I originally rolled a 3 for how many are in there. There's a 1350 XP total with a modified effective XP difficulty of 2700 XP (double because there are 3 of them according to DMG page 82. A Deadly encounter for 5 level 1 PCs according to the same page is 100 XP. Granted there are a total of 10 other NPCs that are somewhat if not totally on the PCs side, this is encounter has a difficulty rating of 270 times deadly. That's pretty scary.

[YCombinator]

Here's what I'd do:

1) Roll 1d4 to see how many are inside.

2) Have whichever character is speaking roll a persuasion check.

3) Ask them for what they're going to say. If it's good, give them advantage.

Then their persuasion roll determines how many change sides. 10+ is one quoggoth. 15+ is 2. 20+ is 3. 25+ is 4.

If they get equal to or more conversions than quoggoth present, then they convert them all. Otherwise any non-conversions immediately attack the PCs, and the conversions come to the PCs aid.

I do quite like this idea. My persuasive PC has a +5. She has a +3 to charisma and is trained for a +2 proficiency bonus. Assuming advantage, this puts her chances slightly below 1% to convert 4. But I *did* roll three. Converting all three on this scale is actually a 51% chance. I might do with this idea unless I hear a convincing argument that it's crazy :)

[ad_hoc]

This has all happened without Joral's distraction. If he decides to fan the flames of this fight, which is in character for him, then that could make it worse. All of this I think gives the characters a fighting chance to fight their way out, if not a total dungeon clear.

It is actually specified that Jorlan will not turn against the Drow.

The Quaggoth as described in the MM are similar also with a special hatred of surface elves.

Ilvara herself is a CR 8 npc. She just needs 1 action to cast insect plague and the party will be wiped.

If you engineer it so that the PCs win you will be setting a boring precedent for the rest of your game (not to mention ruining a lot of the tension from the drow chasing them).

You will be saying that the PCs can just fight whatever they encounter. That sounds awfully boring to me. So this is your warning.

If the players insist on fighting an overwhelming force then they should get wiped. The drow don't want to kill them if they can help it, so you could just let them get captured then trigger the demons later. If they still try to kill the drow then they should just die.

Let me put this another way. The total XP value of the Drow forces are 20,550. That would take 4 characters straight to level 4 and almost to level 5.

Or put another way, this is a deadly encounter for 4 level 13 PCs.

If you have the PCs wipe out the Drow you are setting the stage for them to just go wipe out the demon lords as they show up.

This is the equivalent of killing an adult dragon at level 1. Once you do that, what more is there to do? Level 2 is demons I guess, and level 3 go kill some gods.

[KorvinStarmast]

If you have the PCs wipe out the Drow you are setting the stage for them to just go wipe out the demon lords as they show up.

This is the equivalent of killing an adult dragon at level 1. Once you do that, what more is there to do? Level 2 is demons I guess, and level 3 go kill some gods.Level 4: Profit!!

[mgshamster]

My players took Jorlan's Gambit and escaped when he opened the doors for them. However, he opened it earlier then expected. A couple of demons showed up in full battle of of each other and also started attacking the drow. Jorlan took that opportunity to open the gates (so he could make Ilvara look bad), and left the PCs to their own devices.

The PCs took advantage of both the gambit and the distraction. They got all the NPC allies to jump off the cliff into the waters below and swim to a shoreline to escape. Meanwhile, a smaller group (the PCs) tried to get their equipment back. Since most of the drow and quoggoths were busy with the demons, they had little resistance to get their stuff and a bit extra loot. Had to fight a giant spider and a single quoggoth, and still almost died. They eventually jumped into the waters and met up with the NPCs to escape.

As they were getting out of the water to the shore, they looked up and witnessed Ilvara cast her high level spells. This gave them an idea of how dangerous she was. At that time, some drow spotted them and gave a warning call for escape. The party booked it; they had some advantages though, as they knew the drow couldn't pursue until they dealt with the demons. It gave them a bit of a head start - but not much.