Imbalance
2020-03-14, 07:11 AM
And what would that time frame be like?
The short version is that the party murdered their way through a certain goblin castle, yet barely glimpsed and subsequently fled from the grick holed up in the chapel. They saved the captive, grabbed some loot, and split.
It's my fault, really. Things started out simply enough. But I guess I'm the one that allowed this careening nightmare of a campaign to get so far out of hand for a newb DM such as myself. It's cool, I can roll with it. We learn better by making mistakes, right?
So, when it was just the four players, I had to scramble to get the ball rolling, but Goblin Arrows ran about as by-the-book as it possibly could have. Klarg escaped, but they otherwise managed to nail the optimum outcome of every scene. I went out on a limb with one little tidbit, and it seemed to flow well.
Player five joined up in Phandalin, and it was a challenge keeping things organized. I had a hard time bouncing NPC's around and trying to bait hooks didn't work as well as I'd like, and when they went to investigate the manor I might as well have thrown the book away. That was fine, but my attempts at improvisation seemed to only dig me deeper. What may have saved me was the second encounter with good ol' Klarg. My expectation was that they would do a side quest or two, but no - they decided to chase down the recurring bugbear.
Of course, his trail ran straight to goblin HQ like a locomotive. They almost talked their way in, but the two characters that split off and found the side door left me little choice but to let the dominoes start falling. Or so I keep telling myself. Really, it was player five's Thunderwave that turned what still might have been an infiltration into an utter massacre. I threw everything at them in waves, and it certainly looked bad a few times especially with no rests, but even a buffed Klarg and the boss of the place fell before their onslaught. Cue the stage finale and a reunited party took down the doppleganger together with only single digit HP's to spare. They managed to free the owlbear and mercifully permitted the only surrendering gobbo to flee into the woods, but that was it. The only adjustment I made was having Klarg replace two hobgoblins - they killed every Cragmaw in the joint. And left the worm alone. With all that meat.
And now player six has joined. This is the guy that got me started, though, and these experiences have given me greater insight on how to keep going and not rip my whiskers out. With the ideas he and I are bouncing around and the sessions under my belt, I think i can handle the rest of this module...
So, an idea I had was for them to have to revisit the crumbling fortress at some point, weeks or more from now in-game, and find a much bigger, much hungrier threat lurking there. I can do that regardless of what the lore may say about these critters, but some outside opinions will be helpful. Let's say the grick eats a dead bugbear first while it's fresh, which is arguably the same mass, give or take, and lives off of that for a few days to a week. If at least a dozen goblins, half as many hobgoblins, another bugbear, and a doppleganger remain as carrion (assuming the grick will eat rotting corpses) would an estimate of about a month be fair before it needs to go looking for food again? And is that enough time and nourishment to grow a size factor and increase CR from 2 to 7?
Because, I kinda want it to be.
I'm also short on details of this monstrosity's life cycle and traits. There is some lore about grick nests in the Underdark, and apparently they were aberrations in prior editions. But I wonder do they lay eggs, shed skin, cocoon themselves and later emerge as bipedal heat seekers that fly by means of methane-fueled propulsion? Bummer that it has no burrow speed.
These are the thoughts that keep me up at night. Thanks in advance.
The short version is that the party murdered their way through a certain goblin castle, yet barely glimpsed and subsequently fled from the grick holed up in the chapel. They saved the captive, grabbed some loot, and split.
It's my fault, really. Things started out simply enough. But I guess I'm the one that allowed this careening nightmare of a campaign to get so far out of hand for a newb DM such as myself. It's cool, I can roll with it. We learn better by making mistakes, right?
So, when it was just the four players, I had to scramble to get the ball rolling, but Goblin Arrows ran about as by-the-book as it possibly could have. Klarg escaped, but they otherwise managed to nail the optimum outcome of every scene. I went out on a limb with one little tidbit, and it seemed to flow well.
Player five joined up in Phandalin, and it was a challenge keeping things organized. I had a hard time bouncing NPC's around and trying to bait hooks didn't work as well as I'd like, and when they went to investigate the manor I might as well have thrown the book away. That was fine, but my attempts at improvisation seemed to only dig me deeper. What may have saved me was the second encounter with good ol' Klarg. My expectation was that they would do a side quest or two, but no - they decided to chase down the recurring bugbear.
Of course, his trail ran straight to goblin HQ like a locomotive. They almost talked their way in, but the two characters that split off and found the side door left me little choice but to let the dominoes start falling. Or so I keep telling myself. Really, it was player five's Thunderwave that turned what still might have been an infiltration into an utter massacre. I threw everything at them in waves, and it certainly looked bad a few times especially with no rests, but even a buffed Klarg and the boss of the place fell before their onslaught. Cue the stage finale and a reunited party took down the doppleganger together with only single digit HP's to spare. They managed to free the owlbear and mercifully permitted the only surrendering gobbo to flee into the woods, but that was it. The only adjustment I made was having Klarg replace two hobgoblins - they killed every Cragmaw in the joint. And left the worm alone. With all that meat.
And now player six has joined. This is the guy that got me started, though, and these experiences have given me greater insight on how to keep going and not rip my whiskers out. With the ideas he and I are bouncing around and the sessions under my belt, I think i can handle the rest of this module...
So, an idea I had was for them to have to revisit the crumbling fortress at some point, weeks or more from now in-game, and find a much bigger, much hungrier threat lurking there. I can do that regardless of what the lore may say about these critters, but some outside opinions will be helpful. Let's say the grick eats a dead bugbear first while it's fresh, which is arguably the same mass, give or take, and lives off of that for a few days to a week. If at least a dozen goblins, half as many hobgoblins, another bugbear, and a doppleganger remain as carrion (assuming the grick will eat rotting corpses) would an estimate of about a month be fair before it needs to go looking for food again? And is that enough time and nourishment to grow a size factor and increase CR from 2 to 7?
Because, I kinda want it to be.
I'm also short on details of this monstrosity's life cycle and traits. There is some lore about grick nests in the Underdark, and apparently they were aberrations in prior editions. But I wonder do they lay eggs, shed skin, cocoon themselves and later emerge as bipedal heat seekers that fly by means of methane-fueled propulsion? Bummer that it has no burrow speed.
These are the thoughts that keep me up at night. Thanks in advance.