Sean's Campaign - Session #2

(The podcasts are now on the right. And you'll clearly hear the crickets in the background. Too bad it wasn't perpetually night during the game.)

Okay, this session went extremely well.

The mistakes from the previous session that I wanted to fix were fixed.

Mistake number one – This time I was not trying to do too much. I even had Brian run Aarasilia after giving him some basic guidelines on what she would do.

Mistake number two – There was no encounter where the PCs were not the stars. But then again, they were mostly on outdoor travel for this session.

Mistake number three – I was prepped and ready for every encounter, combat or otherwise, that the group had. The note cards paid off big time. It took a lot of time to write them down, but they saved a lot of time during the game itself. Given the number of encounters we had, I would have to say at least an hour of time was saved.

The combats went quick and relatively smooth (for us).
This I credit to the note cards, the players getting to know their own and other PCs better, the formation of teamwork in the group, and not much in the way of classes that require a lot of looking up information.

The only bad thing about the party is that there are 7 PCs (yes, I am counting Aarasilia as a DMPC). That means that getting XP is going to be severely slowed down.

The quick and obvious solution is more monsters and higher CR monsters. I will be doing that, but I can’t do that full bore just yet. Give the group a few more weeks, and access to more powerful abilities spells, and I’ll be able to “take off the kid gloves” again.

The other option is to take away Aarasilia. But that can’t happen. Six PCs and the closest thing the group has to a healer is a level 4 ranger. In other words, the group can dish it but can’t take it so well. So I’ve done two things to help the party.

First is that I’ve added “healing unguents” to the game. They basically can’t be used during combat, aren’t magical, and he 2d4 points of physical damage. Many can be bought in town. It basically gives the party access to healing while I’ve restricted them from buying magic.

And second is the addition of Aarasilia to the group as a full-fledged PC. She is a favored soul that only does healing and buffing, but will never aid in combat. The cost is that she started at level 1 and takes a full share of XP, and at some point I might even have her take a full share of treasure.

Here’s a quick synopsis of the game (for those of you who can’t listen to the podcast):

First we fast-forwarded Mike’s PC into the group. I gave him the option to role-play him joining up with the group or just having me tell them what happened. He chose the latter.

We last stopped with the group getting ready to leave town to find Bull’s daughter and ex-wife.

Thanks to the efforts of many, the nearby areas were encounter free, but rain heavy. But the forest was not encounter-free.

A group of kobolds, led by a caster caught the party by surprise with a spiked pit trap, poison darts, a web spell, and a couple of krenshars. After a few rounds the party was able to regroup and forced the remaining kobolds to flee.

Next was a hungry green dragon. He thanked the party for the kobold meal they left for him, and the party offered him the chance to follow them around and eat their scraps. He thought about it, but really would rather have had one the party’s horses. They couldn’t come to an agreement, so the party killed the dragon.

Next they found a tree swarming with a bunch of bat-winged tarantulas. The “tarantubats” were dead before they even did anything.

Once the party cleared the forest they were greeted into the domain of Karak, leader of the hobgoblin armies. In order to pass through, the party had to hand over an item of magic to the hobgoblin they met. So the party handed over a wand of magic missiles that they had retrieved from the green dragon (it wasn’t worth much anyway, 10 charges, caster level 1).

In return they were given a token that allowed them to travel safely through Karak’s territories.

But shortly after they made it out of there, a griffon attacked the rear of the party. It was looking for a meal, and horses are the preferred food of griffons. So now Ari no longer has a horse. So out there somewhere is a well fed griffon, with a lot of arrows sticking out of it.

I had originally planned on the party searching through the swamp, hex by hex, until they found the ruined tower. But they managed to make a straight trek right to the spot they needed to go.

First thing they found that wasn’t marsh lands was a recently ruined tower. All that was left of it was a about 75% of its outer wall and no ceiling.

They did manage to find a cupboard that had been jammed shut. And when Ian opened it up, he was greeted by a couple of red, feathery antennae that brushed across his chain shirt. A second later and his shirt had fallen off of him in a pile of rust.

A couple of seconds later and the thing lay dead with several arrows sticking out of it.

Ian searched through the rest of the oversized cupboard, and found a couple of nice gems that would more than replace the loss of the armor. He also found a trap door nearby that led down into a dark area.

Ian apparently had not learned to avoid searching through things.

He led the group while searching the various passages. Then he was paralyzed by a carrion crawler. The party took it down with out much effort.

Next they found a rapidly abandoned study. Inside was not much more than a table, an abandoned diary, a picture showing a young Bull McAllister, a woman, and a young girl, and some other minor things. The diary had been written in a simple code that Ian was able to decipher. And it basically told about life from the woman’s point of view. The more recent entries of the diary were about her and her daughter getting ready to leave because the swamp had gone crazy.

Next the party found another occupied room. And once again, Ian was paralyzed the slimy tentacles (his favorite kind of tentacle) of a grell. With minor difficulty, the party took them out. Once again, Caspar’s high AC played a big part in the combat.

While they were healing up, a voice coming from a corridor they had not been too talked to them. It told them that woman had and he didn’t know where she went. But this place was his now and he wanted them to leave. And unlike the grells they had just fought, he had backup.

When Artemis shined his bullseye lantern down the corridor, combat began.

They were fighting a small black dragon. And they drove the thing off pretty easily; even without Ian’s help (he was still paralyzed from the grell attack).

Realizing that the small black dragon might be getting some help, the party evacuated back up to the surface.

Eventually two dragons found them; the first one they had hurt and a new larger one (though still only medium size – because black dragons are little).

The larger dragon taunted them and found the party’s horses. The party offered to let them have the horses in exchange for their freedom. The dragon responded that he’d let the party go if they dropped all of their gear and left the area in the buff.

The party laughed at them. But Ian, now free of the paralysis, had snuck to get a view of the smaller dragon. He grabbed a 5d6 globe from his Necklace of Fireballs, dropped the necklace to the floor (for someone else to pick up), and tossed the globe at the smaller of the dragons.

Then initiative began.

The party started off strong. Either Ian or Caspar critted on the little dragon with a bowshot, sending it from 3 to -15.

But after the first round the party lost their momentum, having several of their group not being able to roll double digits in their attack rolls.

When it ended, nearly everyone was in the negatives or in single digit hit points.

It took the party nearly ten rounds to drop the dragon.

Next week, back down to loot the hoard.