See part 1 here.
Spiders Blind, Strikers Shine!
Fresh victim of the fiendish rolling boulder trap, Yan’s Bjerm the Fighter fell 50’… Only to land unhurt on a huge spider web while pieces of granite were punching through it left and right.
As he got up, he noticed 3 Human-sized bristly spiders (a new monster from the adventure) moving toward him. Roco (Rogue) and Takeo (Warlord) promptly jumped down to join the fight, while Masaru (Warlock) and Naquist (Cleric) stayed 50′ up.
The spiders were very hard hitters (they were designed as Brutes) and had an encounter power based on throwing bristles all around them, damaging targets slightly and blinding them.
While blinded for some time and getting damaged rapidly, the fighter held his ground and the Rogue and warlock started dishing some serious damage.
When Naquist the Cleric’s turn came, he noticed that all his ranged attacks were limited to 5 squares (25′). He had however no intention of jumping down to join the fray. After 2 or 3 rounds of this, I was getting worried that Math’s fun factor, already iffy from the previous encounter, would be borked for the whole evening.
That’s when he said a magic phrase:
“I’m staying back so I can deal with the Imp if he ever shows up”
The imp was NOT supposed to show up… but could I really resist?
On the next round, the Imp popped up beside Naquist and poisoned him good!
(Be careful what you players wish for, you could have a DM listening)
Naquist was now in a fight with a Hit and Run opponent that he positively HATED (strong emotions = good in a RPG). While the Spiders were getting killed slowly by the rogue, fighter and warlord (helped by the warlord’s healing), the Warlock and Cleric teamed up and took the imp down with concerted efforts and some lucky crits.
Success on all accounts, game saved!
Oh yeah, the chest was empty and the silver was just thin plating.
The party rested and finally ventured forth in the portal, that showed a swamp-like environment.
Dude, that’s like a colorful snake man!
Once through the portal, the party found themselves knee deep in brackish water. They were in some sort of underground swamp, surrounded by dead fruit trees and littered with small islands.
Now according to the adventure, this relatively small area (the whole swamp fits easily on two Standard size battlemaps) containend several level five monsters, including a few elites and patches of quicksand.
I wrote to the author about it and we agreed that, as written, this could become a bloodbath. It so happens that the Playtest group was lucky and managed to dodge a multiple monster trigger.
I therefore made the whole swamp into one encounter… the technicolor snake!
Called a Shimmering Boa, this Elite level 5 Soldier came in hidden (underwater) near the exploring PCs. It then triggered its recharging shimmering scales power during the surprise round, stunning all PCs (which leads to being dazed after a save).
Luckily for the players, the power never recharged over the 10 rounds the combat lasted.
As players rolled to save from being stunned in their next round, Roco failed his save. On its turn, the snake bit and grabbed the halfling rogue, dealing a lot of damage, and promptly gobbled him up.
As he was “eaten”, I was using hand gestures to describe the scene and my jerking motions to simulate a snake trying to eat something bigger than itself made quite an impression on the players.
Now, it was round one of a fight against a level 5 Elite monster (PCs are still level 1). I had a PC that was down to 15 hp (Being swallowed and being dealt 10 points per round) and technically out of line of effect for healing.
That’s when I made the call that the Rogue could be healed. While this call was well received and fueled by the Rule of Fun, it led to Franky (Masaru’s player) expressing that the constant nearly dead/new again yo-yo of D&D 4e’s Hit Point management was stretching his willful suspension of disbelief.
I must say that he is right, but given the harshness of this adventure, I preferred to err on the side of Gamism rather than focus on narrative logic.
The fight was eventually won by the PCs. Once again, the warlock shined by dealing massive amounts of damage, while poor Roco missed all his attacks from inside the monster.
This prompted a discussion on frustration management in 4e and how we could make a house rule to make low rolling streaks less painful for players, more on this in the next adventure prep post.
I realized that by that time of the evening (10h00 pm) I was rather tired and I had taken a few more beers than I initially planned to. This made me a somewhat duller strategist and I didn’t move the snake at all on the combat board, falling on my old D&D 3.x reflexes.
Had I been a bit sharper, I could have weaved the snake around the PCs more, staying within range of healing to give the rogue a chance but give the players a harder time and force more dynamic movement. Once again, the fight felt a bit like like a Battlestar getting pounded by the Cylons.
Thing is, having DMed at Gen Con way more tired than I was that night, I’m now convinced that the Diet Coke/Beer cocktail I drink all evening long is responsible for me being like that. Next time I’ll test how I am at 10h30 PM when I stick to bottled water.
We ended the game when the PCs found an old Aquaduct and an entrance underneath it.
I doubled XPs and everyone made it to level 2.
Very good game over all, if a bit too crunchy and not really story-driven… yet (It gets a lot better one or 2 sessions down the line).
Lessons Learned
- Whenever a player asks to do something that makes me want to say no, I need to stop for a moment, try to understand what is behind the request, and find a way to meet with the player’s motivation.
- I need to refrain from using killjoy DM comments when arguing. Not fun.
- I need to spend 2 games without taking more than 1-2 beers and limit my caffeine intake, just to compare.
What players liked:
- The feeling of exploration and the very cinematic trap
- Math’s monologue, very entertaining!
- The description of the snake eating a PC (except for the PC in question that is)
What players disliked:
- Math getting denied his supercoolness 2 games in a row (We made up for it with some nice finishing moves with Sacred Flame, Beacon of Hope and Lance of Faith).
- Steph’s inability to score a hit while being digested/healed every turn.
See you in 2 weeks!
Credits: Clyde Caldwell (Cover art)
For your defence you did try once to move, but Bjern denied its movement to the snake with his combat superiority.
You could have use its standard action to move anyway and Bjern would not have been able to make another Attack of opportunity, but the snake would have forfeited it’s attack for the turn.
As for the yoyo effect, well I’m getting used to it (being the fighter is pretty much intense) especially when you take 25 hit point start from 13 (barely bloodied) to -12 (2 point from being instantly killed) then healed back to 13. Start pounding those spider again…
But I for one was hitting almost all the time and had a good time with some nice move. Against the spider when I ready my attack and push the spider as it arrived near me. Prevent it from being in range to attack while still marking it.
True that… very effective power when you stop to think that a level 1 fighter prevented a Large Snake (lvl 5 Elite) from moving…
As I said, great game overall… Some kinks to work out, as usual.
I always have a hard time understanding people having more of a problem with 4e HP yo-yoing than they did in previous editions. I know it’s a common complaint, but I was never able to take hit points seriously in D&D anyway, and 3e’s spontaneous cleric healing always seemed to make a yo-yo in any game I ran already.
Thankfully, my players seem to be onboard in the same way I am in 4e, even when I had to explain how a Warlord was able to heal somebody in a Gelatinous Cube.
Dave T. Games last blog post..Review: “Mistborn”
I think it was over on Amagi games, as a throw away while discussing another gambit, that Levi suggested giving players a “frustration” token when they missed. If they hit, they cleared their frustration pool, but if they kept missing, they’d grow a larger pool. When they had five frustration points in hand the player could turn them in for an Auto hit.
While it might take some adjustment, it might help Steph (or anyone else) after a run of failure.
@Dave: It’s really hard sometimes to stretch the abstraction… Especially when you try as a DM to describe what’s happening as HP fly left and right.
It’s like the Gelatinous Cube example. Does the acid damage strip a hero’s resolve and ‘luck’ before it starts melting flesh?
I would not want it any other way, and when Franky tells me that he’s got a hard time dealing with the Yo-yo-ness of HP, it tells me that his is not being beaten up enough to prevent him from opening the Fridge Logic door. 🙂
@ScottM: It’s funny that you should say that. Right now the 2 main email conversations the group is having are about:
Changing powers to have better group synergy (always a sign of a healthy gaming group)
Using Levi’s frustration token idea.
Well I’ve had my share of failure night’s but the worst is when you fail all your roll and are out of the fight for it…
In the case of steph he was immobilized(almost out of the fight) and the only thing he could do was stab at the snake but kept failing (out of the fight). At least if you can move you can still position yourself for flanking, or in the least provide a distraction, etc… In this case he was out of the fight but even worst it was not costing the snake anything to continue digesting him each round so he could not even serve has a distraction.
I can easily understand the frustration…
Well, it could just be that the first couple rounds of burns are superficial – highly painful, and maybe even scarring, but treatable with salves unguents or a good rush of adrenaline in a pinch.