Thaeryn the cleric, played by Aldarian
[257 points]
Brock the fighter, played by Siobhan
[256 points]
Tobias the swashbuckler, played by
Jeremiah [255 points]
Jefe "The Honest," the
wizard, played by Ian [259 points]
Wan the monk, played by Scott [255]
Henchmen:
Crog, loadbearer/mapmaker
Kevyn, locksmith.
The party dithered about in town for a
while1, wasting a bunch of time shopping. Wan got a nice
DR enchant on his clothing, as well as buying a cestus for his fists.
Thaeryn got more armor (and enchanted it) and a bigger shield (and
enchanted it) for a total DB of +4. Brock enchanted all her armor
with 1 DR, and stacked more plate over chain2. Even Jefe
got some DR enchants.
Wan and Brock also got the services of the town locksmith to come into the dungeon with them, to open doors and disable traps. Jefe brought Crog in again to carry their things and draw their map.
Wan and Brock also got the services of the town locksmith to come into the dungeon with them, to open doors and disable traps. Jefe brought Crog in again to carry their things and draw their map.
Now absurdly armored, the party
ventured forth into the dungeon.
After passing through the Goblin town
without incident, the party started exploring the eastern part of the
first floor. The layout of that area is mostly identical 10 foot
rooms, laid out in a space-efficient pattern in sets of four rooms.
The party dubbed these "dworms" (Dwarven Dorms) and went
about clearing them.
The first dworm set was packed to the
brim with zombies. The party quickly put people in each door, and
managed to divide and conquer. Without the ability to swarm, the
zombies weren't really a threat. However, the zombies dodged
frakking everything3. There were a few scares, where Wan
or Brock got multiple zombies grabbing them, but the fight ended with
no casualties and only minor injuries. They searched the rooms, and
Kevyn found a hidden bag of coins, with some gold and platinum
coins4.
Exploring onwards, the party found some
empty Dworms, finding some minor loot. During their search, they
heard the sounds of many footsteps. Deciding on caution, they hid in
the Dworms, cracking the doors so they could see what passed. A
horde of 30-40 dinomen ran past, and the party decided not to ambush.
Realizing an opportunity for easy loot, the party followed the
dinomen. They sent the stealthy Wan and Tobias, along with Kevyn, to
scout ahead while the rest of the group followed behind. The scouts
and a group of orcs, also hiding from the dinomen, ambushed each
other.
The orcs were unable to hit Wan or
Tobias. The shaman in the back almost hit Tobias with a big
fireball, but missed. The party looted the orcs, finding a magic
ring on the shaman.
The party continued scouting, finding a
group of the second floor orcs fighting the dinomen in a shield wall,
and winning. The party predicted the dinomen would retreat, so they
set up an ambush, and had Wan (their fastest runner) keep an eye on
the fight.
Sure enough, the dinomen fled right
into the party's ambush. Jefe tossed a pair of Concussion blasts
into the horde, killing most of them, and stunning the two heroes.
Tobias and Brock finished the heroes, and then they moved in on the
chief. Tobias killed the chief from behind, and the party mopped up
the remaining dinomen. They looted corpses, grabbing the chief's
magic helmet.
Moving on to another dworm, they found
a not somehow affixed to a wall, written in Orcish. Jefe
investigated. It read, "I really wish there were a door here."
At this, a slorn and its handler knocked down the wall and jumped the
party.
Tobias' combat reflexes sprang into
action, causing him to get the first strike. Now outnumbered, the
slorn simply used its breath attack on them. Much to the party's
surprise, this was not a regular slorn, but a frost slorn, and the
breath weapon was cold damage with a stun effect. Everyone dodged
the attack, and the fight was joined. Over the course of the fight,
Tobias got caught out, and was unable to dodge the breath attack, stunning him for the rest of the fight. Brock murdered the orc and
beat down the slorn. Thaeryn finished the fight with a powerful
sunbolt to the vitals5. They looted the orc, finding two
magic wands, and then looted the room.
In the dworm across the hall, Wan found
a box, and immediately opened it. It prompty exploded in his face,
as someone had rigged a frost slorn breath gland to it, hitting Wan
with a frost blast. In the box was a Fine Dwarven axe. While
searching, a goblin scouting group came up to the party and talked a
bit, and were sufficiently impressed with the party's capacity for
violence. They went back to the goblin town.
The party heard goblin screams, and
went to investigate. An acid spider had ambushed the goblins. The
party rushed in to help, and the spider fled into unexplored dungeon.
The party did not follow.
The went to leave the dungeon, but the goblin leaders insisted that the party pay taxes this time. They
added up all the coins, and gave the goblins 10% of their coins...
entirely in copper pieces. The party had a mix of about 140 copper,
silver, gold, and platinum, so 14 copper satisfied the exact terms of
the contract. The goblins didn't seem to mind, and let the party go
on their way.
They got back to town, and identified
the magic gear. The ring granted DR 3 against cold attacks. The
helmet had a Resist Pain enchant on it, but since nobody in the party
had a small enough head for it, they just sold it. One wand was a
prod with an exclusive powerstone that dealt 3 electrical damage.
The other wand was a Wand of Passive-Aggressive Door Creation6,
an in-joke from a previous campaign.
All in all, this was a profitable venture, with everyone getting about 500sp and 5xp each.
All in all, this was a profitable venture, with everyone getting about 500sp and 5xp each.
Footnotes:
1: The party spent an hour and a half
of IRL time in town.
2: Brock has 12 DR on her torso, and
7-10 everywhere else.
3: They have a dodge of 8, but kept
rolling 6's and 7's. The fight lasted twice as long as it should
have because of that.
4: Kevyn critted his search, and then
critted his loyalty roll, so he gave the party everything.
5: Sunbolt is tight-beam burning,
meaning a vitals hit is x2 wounding. Aldarian rolled stupid high
damage, hitting for a total of nearly 50 damage.
6: The WoPADC works by magically
attaching a note to a surface with a passive-aggressive message
asking for a door. And some point in the future, fate will conspire
to make an opening in that surface, if one is possible. This
operates entirely by GM fiat, making it very hard for the party to
abuse.
Lessons learned:
Pre-crawl logistics need to be
streamlined. We can't have 90-minute delays anymore.
Orcs are just not a threat to the
party. Monsters are not only more interesting, but provide a better
challenge.