Originally posted March 18, 2015:
This is basically just a side diversion for my Campaign Journal.
Tonight we had the first of two side adventure nights, as Værï’s player was gone, and will be gone again next week. With Roderick’s player being new to the edition, I wanted to use the time to have a little more instruction during the game, and to teach Roderick some of the little nuances of the system. The Sunless Citadel is a great adventure for that purpose, so I decided to level up the inhabitants of the citadel, with a mind to advancing the campaign’s story, and foreshadow what lies ahead.
With the party soon heading into Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, thus the drow increasing their surface raids, and with the Sunless Citadel connected to the underdark, I figured it would make a great base for their surface raids.
For all intents and purposes, we are treating these two sessions as back-story for the three new characters. Apparently they met up prior to the baron’s hors d'oeuvres hour just before they went up against the skullcrusher ogres.
The quick set up for tonight is that the party was sent to the small village of Oakhurst. There have been creatures raiding the area, and the mayor has sent word asking for help in determining the cause. No survivors have seen what has been causing the raiding. So far it’s mostly just been the few farms south of town. They talk to a few people in town, using Sense Motive and Detect Evil to make sure nothing hinky is going on.
It’s early in the day, so the party heads down the Old Road, while Davben and Margel regale Roderick with some stories of the last time they were here. They come to the first farm, about 2 miles outside town. They asked in town, and this one was raided about a week ago. They note the freshly dug graves, and try to search the area pretty thoroughly, Margel trying to figure out exactly where the owners died. That’s too hard to determine, given the time frame, and the fact that other villagers had trampled the area when moving and burying the deceased. The inside of the house appears ransacked, with nothing of notable value remaining.
We gloss over them similarly checking the next two farms, and then spend a touch more time joking around with the fourth farm, which was Urolph’s. Margel even pulls out the sheet upon which he scrawled the large “U” as he described doing so to the door. They continue on, and find a large ravine off to the right side of the road, and note a few pillars up ahead, where the road draws close to the ravine (cue Margel reusing his “pillars of salt” joke).
They inspect the area, Sir Roderick checking for the presence of evil. Finding only a rope tied to a pillar, Davben makes use of his fly speed to descend into the abyss, finding a ledge about 50 feet down. He looks around carefully, then sets his weight upon the ledge, finding it sturdy, and no foes present. The other party members Climb down the knotted rope, and we take the time to help Margel and Roderick figure out their actual Climb modifiers after armor check penalties. Given the penalties, Margel opts to remove his armor and place it in his Handy Haversack, which takes three or four minutes. Sir Roderick also dismisses his warhorse.
On the topic of the warhorse, I opted to give Roderick a choice. He could have the standard Poké-Mount as described in the PHB, which is somewhat silly, and needlessly limits how long the paladin can have the mount present each day, or he could have it 24/7, but still be able to dismiss it when needed, and is able to call it to him a number of times per day equal to his number of Smite Evil attempts per day, which is currently two. It’s still somewhat Poké-Mount-ish, but whatever.
At the bottom of the rope Margel dons his half-plate once again, and the party heads down the stairs, getting treated to the boxed text describing the dark citadel that is revealed below. They arrive into the courtyard (area 3). Davben is flying, and Margel hangs back… knowing there is a trap, but not wanting to metagame and step around it. Sir Roderick moves right to the door with the intention of using detect evil through it (I had just described how detect spells can sense through less than an inch of common metal, one foot of stone, etc), and triggered the trap, falling down the ten-foot pit, taking 1 point of damage, but not getting impaled by the poisoned spike at the bottom of the pit.
After Davben helps pull Sir Roderick from the pit (more learning about Climb checks), the paladin detects evil through the door, noting four auras (the fifth one is too high, and out of the cone of detection). Davben cracks a Sunrod alight before they head in. The players assume that the auras will be from undead, and we start looking up the rules for Turn Undead. They were right, as Roderick opens the doors, they note four goblin skeletons meandering inside the tower.
Davben had hovered just behind Roderick’s shoulder (hovering over the trap) and readied an action to attack with eldritch chain when the door was opened. He nailed two of the skeletons, but only rolled 6 damage, which was enough to bring the first target to exactly 0, destroying it, and knocking the second skeleton to half hit points.
At this point we roll initiatives, and Sir Roderick goes first. He turns undead, and I finish explaining how turn undead works, and how it is a clunky mechanic because you always have to look up that damn chart on page 159 of the PHB. Regardless, he blows the undead away, easily destroying all the 1-HD skeletons.
The party moves into area 4 and starts looking around. I ask for Spot checks, and no one notices the Swordsage up in the rafters 20 feet above them. Haha! Eat this poison-laced hand crossbow bolt, plus Assassin’s Stance for +2d6 sneak attack damage!…. Natural 1 :shakefist
Initiatives are rolled, and Davben goes first, hitting the Drow and overcoming his SR to deal 6 points of damage, and starting to fly up toward the as-yet-unidentified attacker. Sir Roderick moves under where the drow is balancing high above, and readies an action to attack him if he falls down into his threatened area (note that Sir Roderick doesn’t have any ranged attack; he might want to change that eventually). Margel takes a five-foot step into the room and fires his crossbow up at the drow, missing due to the cover the rafter grants the dark elf. He then uses his move action to start reloading his Heavy Crossbow. The drow takes another shot down at Davben, missing again, then moves ten feet north, placing himself right against the north wall of the tower (I have decided there is a small window there, that looks down through a hole in the roof above area 25, which would allow him to use Shadow Jaunt to teleport away as a standard action).
Davben goes again, flying up to the level of the drow, and blasting him for 17 damage. Well, at this point the drow is well below half hit points, so he’s going to be teleporting away ASAP. Sir Roderick continues to ready an attack, and Margel finished reloading, then fired his crossbow up at the drow (I’m just now realizing that splitting a full-round action doesn’t work like that, and he shouldn’t have gotten this attack. Oh well, I’ll note it in the recap e-mail, and make sure he knows for the future). He hits with his attack against the drow (who has only 7 hit points remaining). He’ll probably survive to escape… except Margel rolls 10 damage. Well, –3 means the drow falls unconscious… and falls 20 feet, dying from the falling damage.
Well damn. That swordsage sure was ineffective. As he was actually killed unjustly, and the PC’s saw nothing to identify what kind of character class he had, he might just make a reappearance next week…
The party loots his body, getting a few potions and a mithral chain shirt, as well as some masterwork weapons. The party opts to go with the northern inner door, to the hallway leading toward area 15. Sir Roderick uses Detect Evil at the door, not noting anything. They find the doors to areas 13 and 14 open, and the door to 15 closed. Roderick detects evil on the other side, so the party devises a plan. Davben makes use of his Hat of Disguise to assume the guise of the drow they killed in area 4, and he dons the drow’s own cloak to aid in the illusion. Margel and Sir Roderick take positions in the doors of rooms 13 and 14. Davben will enter area 15 in the guise of the drow, and draw the creatures in there into the hallway, where the other two will pounce upon them as they pass.
They take their positions and Davben steps through the door, closing it behind him. The four drow hanging out in area 15 note his arrival, and address him in Undercommon (which I vocalize as gibberish). Davben gets a look of “oh no” on his face, as he realizes he can’t talk to them in their own language. He motions to them that there is a problem in the hallway, then feigns collapsing in a heap, making a Bluff check. I give each of the drow a Sense Motive check, and the leader of this post, the Scout 4, notices that something isn’t right. He makes a Spot check vs Davben’s Disguise check (taking the +10 from the hat into account), and just beats the warlock, recognizing the disguise as a disguise. He barks some unintelligible orders to the other drow in the room, and moves forward, and stabs the now-prone Davben with his poisoned rapier, also adding his skirmish damage.
The barked orders are enough of a sign of trouble that I have the drow mooks as well as Margel and Roderick roll initiative, and the two PC’s go before the other drow. Margel moves forward and opens the door to area 15, while Roderick moves through the door and attacks the drow scout, inflicting 17 damage.
Davben used his fly speed to fly 5-feet south and stand up (technically standing up should still take a move action, but I let it go tonight), then he used Eldritch Glaive, attacking the drow scout and one of the mooks, knocking both into the negatives. Roderick or Margel knocked another drow to –9, while the other missed, and then the final remaining drow yelled a warning in Undercommon (a warning meant for the drow in area 19), and used his Darkness SLA then moved toward the gap in the wall that led toward the west. An attack by Roderick overcame the miss chance, and killed the final drow.
The party waited a bit to see if the darkness would subside (it will take 10 minutes), then decided to explore the part of the room that wasn’t in darkness (the north end). The door to 16 revealed an empty room, while the door to the east revealed a hallway that turned south, and eventually led to area 25. After checking for evil auras and magic auras (the warlock can do that as will, too), they proceed into area 25, finding nothing of note. Then they head into area 26, finding the magical fountain there (the same one they tried and tried and tried to figure out, and never did.) None of them speak Draconic, but Davben does have a scroll of Comprehend Languages. He casts it, and I give him the translation of the word engraved on the fountain (“Let there be fire”). They repeat many of the attempts previous tried. Roderick lights a torch and holds it before the fountain. He places the torch in the fountain’s dry basin. Nothing ever happens, and they soon give up (and relate how they never could figure it out before).
The door to area 27 is open, and they peek inside, noting an old altar, bare of anything valuable, and several sarcophagi standing open, as well as the broken remnants of many bones lying about. They leave and continue north, diverting west into room 25 (just south of 31). The door to room 31 is closed, and the party almost turns back to investigate down hallway 28, but then Davben opens the door to area 31. This triggers the two flasks of alchemist’s fire that had been rigged to drop when the door was opened. They both missed the warlock, but he still took 2 points of splash damage, and it alerted the goblins north of the crenelated wall on the north end of the hallway. And the hall is filled with caltrops again.
Davben still looks like a drow (he changed it to the scout from area 15 after they killed those drow), and he motions for the two goblins to come with him. The goblins give each other a quizzical look, and a Sense Motive check tells Davben that they thinks he’s either crazy or stupid. He hears a rattle of metal, and the clinking of glass. After a few tense moments of the goblins not following him, he finally decides to just snipe at them with eldritch blast. The two goblins had readied to throw flasks of alchemist’s fire if the delusional “drow” did anything untoward (ie - attacked them), and though the first attack missed, the second was a direct hit, burning Davben, and splashing both the other PC’s, who are standing adjacent to the warlock, but out of the line of sight. Davben’s attack then concludes, and his eldritch chain knocks the first goblin unconscious, but leaves the second one with a single hit point.
Initiatives are rolled, and the goblin goes first. Davben then takes the second instance of fire damage, as he didn’t have time to put out the flames as a full-round action (sometimes initiative can screw you that way). The goblin then throws another flask, and gets another hit, plus splash damage to Roderick and Margel; the small humanoid then ducks down behind the wall that provides him with cover. Davben drops to the floor and tries to put out the fire… stop, drop, and roll did him no good, as a 14 misses the DC by 1 point (even with the +2…)
Roderick starts to slowly make his way forward, getting a bit more than half-way into the room with a double move, thanks to the caltrops. Margel debates healing Davben, and ends up casting some kind of spell (I forget what), and moving into the hallway just a bit.
Completely surprised that he is still alive, the goblin raises his head and flings another flask of alchemist’s fire, nailing Sir Roderick while Davben burns for his final round; finally the flames go out. Davben flies into the hall, but misses with his eldritch blast, striking the wall instead. Margel moves forward a bit, actually standing directly below Davben, and also misses with his heavy crossbow. Sir Roderick tries to put out the flames, but fails. Sir Roderick burns for another 5 fire damage, and the goblin flings a flask of acid, missing and splashing a bit on Davben (off the wall). Then Davben kills the creature with an easy eldritch blast.
Believe it or not, this silly encounter, which two of the players had basically been through before (only difference was the touch-attack flasks), was the hardest of the night. Davben suffered 20 points of fire damage in those few rounds. Two CR 1/3 creatures ended up being the toughest thing they faced the whole night.
They check out the goblins’ bodies, and see why the goblins looked confused and refused to follow Davben’s pantomimed command to come to area 25… The goblins were chained to their guard post. Each had about 5-feet of chain, enough that they could rest upon some disgusting bed rolls made of poorly-tanned hides, and stand watch at the wall. The PC’s surmise that the drow must have enslaved the goblins… interesting. They looted the remaining flasks of acid and alchemist’s fire.
They heal up a bit, and continue around to area 33. Davben pushes ahead, knowing out of character what is coming… his former character, Belack, had been hit by five of six readied javelin attacks when he rounded this corner the first time all those levels ago. This time he only faced three readied acid flask attacks, and I think he only took splash damage. After the readied attack, he nails the middle of three kobolds who are on the north side of the crenelated wall in area 33. It dies outright, but he misses the second kobold in the chain.
Roderick comes around the corner and throws a flask, succeeding in dealing 1 point of splash damage to the western kobold. Margel’s attempted heavy crossbow attack is thwarted by the improved cover the kobold’s enjoy, so the party faces a second round of flask attacks. Roderick is struck by one, but it's only acid, so he won’t burn next round, too. Davben ends things by rolling 10 damage on the first attack in his eldritch chain, then scoring a natural 20 on the second in the chain, and confirming it. I’m not sure if you can actually crit on the second in a chain, though I’m not sure why you couldn’t (you can crit with the secondary attacks in a volley; you just can’t sneak attack with them), but he just treated it as full 10 damage to both (as the secondary target’s damage is usually half of the primary’s). I’m not sure how you would actually roll the extra damage for that…
The party finds that these kobolds have also been chained to their positisions… they look in area 34, and find several goblins and kobolds locked up in cages and chained to the walls. All detect as evil… Sir Roderick is presented with a moral conundrum. Here are all these evil creatures, locked up, unarmed, and helpless… is it right to kill them, or not? For now they decide to just close the door and deal with them later. Davben is all for just letting them go; Roderick is definitely not okay with that.
They check the door to area 38, which is a pantry. The foodstuffs here are of slightly better fare than last time the party was here, though there is still a barrel of elf pudding, untouched by the drow. Sir Roderick goes up to the west door and detects evil through it, noting there are four evil auras within 60 feet (which is conveniently the length of area 39).
Davben continues the attempted ruse to draw foes into an ambush, stepping through the door and closing it behind him, and waving for the others to come, and screaming. They all start to move his way (they were over in the western half of the room), and when they get beyond the mid-point, and Davben opens the door to area 38 again, two of the drow have good enough Spot rolls that they see the two humans in the pantry (there’s also the fact that Davben is the one hauling around the Sunrod, but hey, whatever).
Initiatives are rolled: Margel, Davben, the drow fighters, then Sir Roderick. Margel fires his crossbow at one of the front drow, dealing 3 damage. Davben turns and flies up and forward (though still low enough to be attacked from the ground), then fries one of the rear drow for 13 damage, and chains to a second one for 6 damage, knocking both unconscious. In the heat of the moment I think I forgot to have him roll SR. Earlier in the night I had tried to get him to start rolling two d20's each time he attacked… one for the attack roll and one for SR, but he never did start. I'm going to enforce him doing that going forward, as EttDwP will have a lot of drow. He won't have to do it if the foes don't have SR, but when they come up against drow or fiends, I'll just require he roll them together. It will end up saving time, anyway.
The two remaining drow fighters advance east toward the party, taking positions in front of Davben's location, forward to the right, and forward to the left, one of them hitting the warlock for a critical hit, and dealing poison, which Davben saves against, easily. Sir Roderick strides forward, taking position underneath Davben, and slaying the one that was injured by Margel's crossbow bolt.
Margel drops his crossbow, equips his shield, and draws his longsword as he moves forward, standing beside Roderick, and just in front of the single remaining drow. At this point someone in the party (Davben, I think) says in Common for the drow to throw down her weapons. They intend to capture her and question her, if she can speak Common. The drow throws down her sword and withdraws to the west end of the hall, along the center of the hall, and ending one square west of the doorway to room 36.
The party spends a round preparing to capture her. Margel kicks away her dropped sword, and the others talk and do other things that aren't very memorable. I also ask for Spot checks from everyone in the party… no one notices the drow Sorcerer (6th level) who is now hiding in the doorway to room 36; he had snuck there from his post in room 24 after hearing the combat. When the drows' turn comes once again, the fighter draws her crossbow and fires a poisoned bolt at Margel, hitting, but the Ordained Champion saved; it didn't work on any of them the whole night. I also cheated on the action economy a bit, as the drow could only draw and fire if the crossbow was already loaded… eh, whatever. He could just as easily have been using a longbow; the crossbow was an artifact of me using pre-published stats from another book.
As the drow fires her crossbow, the sorcerer unfurls his scroll of fireball, and Davben sees as he reads it, and fires a glowing bead toward the party. It erupts for 20 points of damage. Margel failed his save, taking all of it, while Sir Roderick made his save, taking only half. Davben activates an interesting immediate-action item he has, which once per day dampens a spell effect down to its minimum value (third eye: dampening?). So he only takes 5 points of fire damage.
Well, Sir Roderick doesn't put up with a backstabbing sneaky attack like that, and double moves toward the door, having just enough movement to slip through the doorway and into room 36, thus threatening the sorcerer, who is positioned just to the west of the door.
Margel has a straight-line shot to the drow fighter who just shot him with a poisoned bolt, and charges, dealing 5 damage, which disabled the drow fighter (they only have 5 hit points each).
Davben moves forward and directs his attention to the more dire threat, using his eldritch blast against the sorcerer, hitting despite cover, and dealing 12 points of damage.
The drow sorcerer, threatened by Roderick and standing there with a mere 4 hit points remaining, tries to make the best of the situation. I debated what to have him do for a moment… It would likely have been better to 5-foot step to the southwest and cast Web, centered somewhere beyond the doorway, so that it caught Roderick but not himself… but the angles weren't in his favor, and I didn't want to get too exacting in how I placed the webbing. So instead the sorcerer stepped to the southwest, and cast Glitterdust, centering it on the eastern side of the doorway, catching Roderick and Davben in its radius. Davben saved, but Roderick failed. Excellent… this sorcerer has a chance.
The drow fighter 5-foot steps back from Margel, draws a potion, and downs it, vanishing from sight. I take the time to explain about being able to attack into a square where an invisible foe is (or you think an invisible foe is) and attack with a 50% miss chance. I point out that the invisible foe and the blindness are similar in that regard. Roderick has a slight advantage during this first turn, as he saw where the sorcerer last was, so he knows where to attack, at least this turn. I also point out the situation is similar with the drow that Margel is facing, and how tactically it is usually better to make yourself invisible, then move, so foes don't know where you are, but in these situations that would have incurred AoO's, so they made the best of it.
Sir Roderick takes his turn, steps forward, and slays the drow sorcerer with a single blow. Margel steps forward, and at Davben's blurted request, he attempts to knock her out, missing. Davben moves forward to her last known position and takes a swing with his fist, also missing… but wait! Davben belatedly recalls he has See the Unseen, and thus can find invisible foes without difficulty, though he still wouldn't have hit. We move forward with the actions; Davben's enhanced vision will come into play as we move forward. Another round of misses, and the drow starts to move away, drawing a dagger in the process. Davben's turn comes again, and he swings with his fist despite the dagger. His gamble pays off; the drow didn't take the AoO, because it would have dropped her to unconsciousness and the dying state. Davben's swing connects, and his single point of damage is enough to drop her unconscious, but not dying, at 0 hit points and 1 point of nonlethal damage.
That's where we ended it for the night. I congratulate them on their fortuitous direction of movement through the complex. If they had instead left room 15 heading west, toward area 19, that sorcerer would have been a much harder opponent. A low wall had been constructed on the north end of area 24, giving him standard cover. The door from 24 to 19 was left open, and he was watching southward. When the PC's entered his alarm area (the T-intersection between areas 18, 16, and 13) he would have been on alert, and webbed them in that hallway, then launched glitterdust to blind them, and lightning bolts to fry them while they were stuck in the web. Very fortuitous for the party.
They made it about half-way through what I have planned out, so it was a good evening. The extra instruction went pretty well, but I need to be better next week at slowing down instead of running with the normal urge to speed play along. Everyone found the night helpful, as all three of them are running new characters.
Roderick is getting a better feel of the rules, but still felt there were times things were just passing by with him not understanding (I think usually on other people's turns, maybe). I said that next week I'll work to slow myself down, and asked him to please make use of next week, and if there is anything he doesn't understand, stop me and have it explained. I'll really have to be conscious of slowing myself down next week. I'll look through the foes they have yet to fight, and make a list of the specific things I want to teach with their tactics; that should help focus me and slow me down when those tactics come up.
