DM Chronicles: The legend of the Broken Dice, Session 2, Part 2

See part 1 here.

Before getting into the actual dungeon crawl, as pointed out by Yan in the comments yesterday, I realized that PM was the only PC moving at a speed of 4 squares (20′). He was wearing Scale Mail, which has the same AC bonus as a Chain Shirt, only cheaper and bulkier.

I told PM to switch without bothering about costs and such… This was one of the instance where the Rule of Fun screamed for a fast fix. In retrospect I’m happy I did, considering that PM had mot much else going for him.

So under the Glassworks (thanks Katy for the great reference BTW) the heroes found an old tunnel leading toward the sea. The tunnel lead to an old Smugglers cave that showed clear signs of goblin occupation.

Another, recently torn-down brick wall showed a tunnel going deeper toward the town.

As the party neared the dungeon’s entrance, I introduced PM to the Marching Order concept (Ninja in Front, Healer in the middle and melee fighters up front and in the back).

I decided to draw the dungeon as it was discovered directly on my large vinyl battlemap. It makes the crawl a bit like a board game but it really speeds things up in setting up fights (and this 15 room dungeon was sprinkled with little fights).

Just before entering the Catacombs of Wrath (that name is so old school) the heroes were attacked by some ugly clawed, veined and multi-jawed humanoid monster (a SinSpawn).

While the monster is mechanically interesting (its bite causes a character to become insanely wrathful) the bite attack is so weak it never touched the PCs.

The monster was dispatched rapidly especially when they realized that it was healing it’s own wounds slowly. As usually, the monster got hacked to bits until it was clear that healing had stopped.

The players found a way in an ancient dungeon (hewn stone tunnels giving way to crumbling masonry) and were greeted with the statue of a Wrathful human female holding a book with a 7 pointed star (the adventure path’s Mark of Evil) and a usable polearm. The players elected to leave the polearm there.

They had 3 different paths to explore and chose the northernmost.

They came up to a room featuring a wooden walkway overseeing a dozen cells. Two Sinspawns were bickering in the rafters and moved in on the PCs as they entered. There, Mike and PM were introduced to fighting against foes at different levels of elevation, gaining the fabled ‘Yield, I have the higher ground’ bonus!

Of course that didn’t actually help PM who kept rolling 4s and 6s…

The party made its way deeper in the northern end of the dungeon and found an ancient torture chamber, another set of cells and a room littered with shredded paper filled with meaningless scribbles.

Then, they came in a large room checkered with wooden covers guarded by a hideous, mutated goblin chief (3 arms, and little limbs on it’s head).

Having played the highest initiative, the crazed mutant attacked the players but moved carefully to avoid the covers, giving the players the hint not to step on them (each covered a 20′ pit with a Zombie at the bottom).

The Goblin scored a solid hit on the warblade (who had his trusty low d20-rolling walking band aid to help him) but was dispatched in 2 or 3 rounds.

The group scored a magical sword! Woot!

The rest of the northmen part of the dungeon featured a weird spherical room with floating objects and some scary black electricity running along the walls, shaping runes and scribbles. No player had the guts to step in so they went back to retrieve the polearm and catch each floating object (a wand, a Scroll and a book of monsters).

The came back the middle part of the dungeon and found a pool of pure water, rigned by human skulls and guarded by a Vargouille (great scary concept, way too easy to kill!) that let out a piercing scream… paralyzing Orono (PM’s character) and no one else (sigh).

Then on the next dice roll the thing was dead.

Followed a series of empty or feature-light rooms. At that point the evening was well advanced (we had already ordered pizza and eaten it) and the players were still wondering what that dungeon was about.

The PCs came into a Shrine with an altar filled with fouled water. Steering clear of it, they listened to the door leading from it and heard a high-pitched female voice with a very regal tone.

Bursting through the door, they came into an underground catherdral featuring a pool filled with orange fire and a tiny Quasit dressed like a little queen screaming at them for defiling her mother’s temple.

Now, as others who’ve DMed this adventure already wrote in their blog or on our forum, that little queen was a hell of a boss. With a potential AC of 24, flight, invisbility at will, 2 summons, poisoned claws, Damage Resistance, Fast healing… that CR 4 thing is unbeatable in the hands of a killer DM.

I decided to nerf her AC to 20 (and ignore her Shield of Faith spell). While she sent out a freshly created Sinspawn from the pool of Orange fire (a minor Runewell it was called) and a summoned spider, she placed herself over the pool and was taunting the PCs, alternating between invisibility and attacking/casting.

Once the mobs were dispatched, the players tried to take down the boss but had a very hard time touching her (or spotting her when she was invisible). They promptly decided to ignore her (her tiny returning dagger was a non-threat to them) and started exploring the room.

That’s when I decided to nerf her tactics and play her as infuriated by the heroes’ indifference. I started cranking out the high pitched insults, and I charged into them. Draning the totemist of his Dexterity and scoring quite a few hits on the Warblade.

As much as the players were annoyed by the mechanical aspects of it, they were responding to my role playing that little insane regent quite well.

During that time, the Ninja and the Favoured Souls were incapable of hurting her and resolved to act as flanking allies

(Hey I just realized that they I should have proposed they use the Aid another action on the stronger hitters to increase their chances to hit..).

As the hit points of the Quasit wore down, I purposely let her within striking range in order to end this fight before 10 pm. Then the Warblade scored a solid hit and the queen was no more.

We stopped there with loot and XP. We don’t plan to revisit that game anytime soon because Franky is restarting his Monte Cook’s World of Darkness game on our next geekout.

Lessons Learned:

• The Favored Soul as many mid-tiered D&D classes, is underpowered and doesn’t give a player that many choices except healing and fighting with bad stats.
• It’s a good thing to nerf things on the fly in the interest of keeping the game moving and fun, be it changing a PC’s gear for better stuff on the fly or lowering the power of a monster.
• A dungeon crawl that fits in one session is a good one!

What players liked:

• The adventure, it’s story and rich web of NPCs and villain plots.
• The Warblade and Totemist are cool classes

What player disliked

• Rolling badly all evening long. Good thing PM is a lurker because I’d have gone bonkers and quit the game a lot sooner had I been in his position.
• Mike wasn’t blown away with the Ninja. (We later found out I hadn’t given him high enough stats during the abilities Point-buy)

Well, chapter closed for the time being.