A Small Heist [5e] OOC

[Bobthewizard]

That sounds good, although a 3" high baseboard is about 25' off the ground to you. Climbing the interior of the wall is easy, but I'm not so sure about hanging on to it while swinging a two-handed weapon.

Of course, there could be a lip on the inside or some nails sticking through to stand on.

I may be porting too much over from "modern house" but that's all I know.

If we are that small, there are probably small gaps under the baseboard that we could crawl through.

[Pyrophilios]

Adding to the discussion: I'd say non-hardened wood is a lot less durable than stone (mice are capable to gnaw through pretty reliably), so I'd say 5 hp at most. Also, Barit can also use his pact weapon to hack at the wood, so there is alternation. Finally, we can use the help action (by using our crowbars), so you can improve the to-hit chance by about 5 points, so only 1 and 2 would miss.

Both characters have ogre strength gauntlets, so their strenght is magic enhanced and shouldn't be to exhausting (after all, their muscles aren't getting tired if the strengh comes from the magic)

[Bobthewizard]

We have +10 on our stealth checks from PWOT

[J-H]

Cupcake didn't hear you. The moving illusion isn't perfect, and she has a high enough passive Perception check to spot it.

[Bobthewizard]

You are negating PWOT and penalizing us for adding the illusion. PWOT isn't just sound. It's all stealth.

[J-H]

The illusion worked last time, but didn't help this time. Hiding visually only works if there's something to be obscured behind, and at least some of the time in the kitchen there's not.

Pyro, good point, the kitchen is dark (there could be a magical night-light, but I never specified one) so yes, Lanius gets his anti-Darkvision bonuses.

[J-H]

When moving away please post how far you're going so I don't have to look in character sheets to find your speed.

What is Barit doing? Pyro, you posted for Lanius only.

[Bobthewizard]

Have Clip and Taya move 30'

[Pyrophilios]

Barit was last in the in order, so I waited for the others to act first.

[J-H]

It will take several minutes of movement to go ahead and get to the door. I'm curious, what's the plan beyond a mix of "run away" and "beat up the cat"?

[Pyrophilios]

Get the cat to 0 hp, stabilize it and use modify memory.
Since it's actually a familiar with like 1 to 4 hp, it should wake up fully healed within an hour.

[Bobthewizard]

If it is a familiar per the find familiar spell, I think it disappears once it drops to zero HP. I'm not sure if memories carry over from one casting to the next. I'd say no as a DM but it's not clear.

[J-H]

As far as Taya can tell, the damage you've done to Cupcake so far is enough to annoy her, but not seriously impair or injure her. She is a big cat and you are very small in comparison.

[J-H]

It's the thieves' turn.

This has been the most unusual "dragon" fight I've run. She doesn't even have a breath weapon.

[J-H]

Made it by 1! The risk paid off.

[Pyrophilios]

Well, I probably should have invested in a few more charm spells from the beginning

[J-H]

Plugging the arrows meaning removing?

[Pyrophilios]

Exactly - removing evidence

[Pyrophilios]

Alright, the plan:

Once outside I can call up an owl familiär with my spell wrought tattoo.
As this magic will also be under the influence of the shrinking effect - the owl won't be of too much use.
But if we manage to cause exactly one point of damage, the owl will revert to its original size, making it able to carry us to safety.

[J-H]

I thought you were going to hide in your genie vessel for that?

[Pyrophilios]

Yes, but then I noticed that I'm only lvl 9 and can't bring my companions with me...

[J-H]

I see two problems with this:
1.
"When the familiar drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. It reappears after you cast this spell again." - Find Familiar spell

When you reduce it to 0hp, it vanishes instead of sticking around and re-sizing.

2.
You haven't cast the spell before, so you're casting it in small form. That means "any magic you cast while under the effects will be miniaturized just as you are."
So the familiar doesn't have a big size to go back to anyway.

[Pyrophilios]

Well, that leaves only one option: Me turning normal again, calling the familiar and going into my ring, so the owl can carry the rest of the team and the ring outside.

[J-H]

Based on what you know of the wards, the owl would be able to pass through it, as long as it sufficiently meets the definition of owl by the wards' standards, and the ring and the rest of the party would be small enough to pass through as well.

My only question around that would be if the wards can tell the difference between an owl familiar (fey) or a regular owl, or an imp's alternate form being an owl (typically raven, yeah, yeah).

I'm inclined to say that's an edge case that's not likely to be programmed in. Even if it was and the owl hit the wards and disintegrated, the party would travel past the wards, hit the ground for 20d6 falling damage, and either still be alive, or be knocked to 0 and return to normal form, either of which would be acceptable for your purposes.

[Bobthewizard]

Using HD to get to full HP

Clip (9d8)[7][3][4][6][1][8][2][4][1](36)

Taya (9d8)[6][6][8][2][6][3][4][2][6](43)

[J-H]

It's pick two, so you'll have to decide :)

The Staff of Swarming Insects should have a bit more of a place in optimization discussions. It makes the entire area heavily obscured for everyone except the wielder, so everyone within 30' is blinded in a way that Darkvision and Truesight don't fix. The only bad thing is that it limits itself to non-martial classes, rather than "attunement by a spellcaster," which leaves out arcanist fighters and rogues. It still might be worth a dip to get it in a one-shot or arena type game.

[Bobthewizard]

We'll take the staff then as long as an artificer can use it. No batman outfit for Taya

Yes, that "everyone is blind except you for one charge" is pretty awesome.

[Pyrophilios]

I assume this is the end of the module, or are we facing retaliation by a mage?

[J-H]

Yes, this is it!

What worked?

What did not work?

What was awkward or could have been better?

How were the fights? I felt a bit limited as basically everything you fought was Beast type except for Cupcake, who was a Monstrosity, but in terms of power and size, was more of a dragon minus breath weapon.

Did it feel like your characters were shrunken and moving through a really big house?

[Pyrophilios]

There were many interesting elements, but also some that didn't quite work:

The good:

+ The premise is cool and certainly unexpected
+ The mundane garden felt really dangerous and jungle like
+ The time limit was very effective

The bad:

- The limited opponent selection
- The instant fail state if you are discovered (returning wizard)
- The inside of the house became grindy and a bit boring
- The basically impossible fight against the familiar

The weird:
o Certain builds will excell in this module (Rogue, Ranger, Monk), while others will be an absolute liability (all heavy armor wearers with little stealth capabilities)
o The inside of the building felt pretty static
o Animal Friendship from a druid or ranger could have solved 80% of all fights

Suggestions:

- Add elemental spirits to the setting that deal with cleaning and maintaining the building. The tiny spirits would allow you to add variety to the opponents and potentially also add a bit of social problem solving
- Make it rewarding to brave environmental dangers - like moving across a hot stove to reach a shortcut to the next room.
- A more linear setting might work better - if you are small you'll only look into rooms but not interact, since there is no reward to explore a room that doesn't actually bring you closer to your goal (especially with the strict time limit in the background).
- Besides animals and vermin and the previously mentioned elemental spirits, there could be also clockwork toys around - toys in general would add a lot of fun (as seen in Antman). Taking a toytrain to cross a room quickly would make a memoral situation (especially if you add a trolley problem situation into it as well )
- The boss fight should contain the option to knock the familiar out to apply a guaranteed mindwipe. Add more environmental effect that can be used to defeat it. (Knocking a book from the topshelf onto the cat, luring it into a narrow gap where it gets stuck, switching on a bright light to blind it, etc.)
- Having a quick option for evacuation feels good - no-one wants to retread old ground, unless there are new challenges (and after the boss fight, few people look for new challenges)
- Consider changing fall damage and strength checks according to the square-cube law: The smaller and lighter you are, the less a fall can actually hurt you and the stronger you become in relation to your environment (ant strength). Making awesome acrobatic feats possible, like bouncing off walls and giant leaps adds new options to movement, instead of being forced to cross giant empty spaces.