snapping turtle image from Wikimedia Commons

This session was not recorded.

Dave & Bart assault the water cult church

Scouting Rivergard Keep — I’m Dave; I’ve got a strong arm and a sharp sword — infiltrating the water cult — potty breaks as leet strat — stealth action game — mercenaries are great; they will work for you for money — how to kill a boss without an attack roll — the way below opens.

After our TPK in the last episode, we rolled in with one new toon, one old toon, and only two players—not for the campaign, just for this session.

The Adventures of Dave & Bart begins.

Davkas (“Dave”), Bard 6 (Jim)

Bart, Paladin 4 / Fighter 2 (Tim)

This was a very different style of play than what we’ve done before. It was mostly stealth, infiltration, and in-character roleplaying in order to blend in and bluff, mostly on the part of Jim, via his old debuff/heal bard Davkas.

After scouting Rivergard Keep, which is the first tier water cult complex, the party went room to room, blasting mobs like the seasoned pros they are.

If you want to leave a social situation, say because you’re actually trying to infiltrate and dispatch the people you’re with, excusing yourself and saying that you have to take a dump is really a dope strat, as you will see no less than three times in this episode.

New thing this time!

The Abridged Version

We’ve added an abridged version of the episode, which eliminates all the combat dice-rolling wargamey bits. The full and abridged versions will live in the same feed and should otherwise be identical. There’s a chirp tone to indicate that a combat has been skipped over. Starting with Episode 16, we should verbally indicate as well.

Onto the Notes

marching order

Druid-barding — the Mearls-Meld — hirelings Jimmy & Timmy, Pip & Pop, Genevieve & Alistair — discussion of side treks — fight 40 orcs y/n — we change the hexmap scale — our next season — fire cultists — Forgotten Realms names need work — tracking orc captives — surprise — orcish syllabic naming conventions.

“Hand-holding twin albinos.”

“They polish continually.”

We changed the hexmap scale from 10 miles to 1 mile. The whole module makes way more sense that way. Highly recommended.

 Next season of the podcast, Jim might DM Out of the Abyss, the new new WotC module.

From now on, when I roll random encounter checks, I’m going to roll to see what table I roll the encounters from: the low level table or the high level table.

Here’s how I’m going to do it:

• roll a d20
• if the roll is OVER the level of the highest level PC in the party, use the Early Travels (low level) table
• else, use the Later Travels (high level) table

Shadow fails save vs Ironfang‘s flaw

mop-up

it’s over before the first round is

False welcome — long, intense battle — achievement unlocked.
This was some fight.

The party walked into a trap. I thought it was an obvious setup, but apparently people can’t read minds?

In any case, the baddies came in waves and surrounded the party.

All the mobs in the whole place came in to fight.

But my players have excellent tactics. This ain’t their first rodeo.

As you see below, they placed Geth in a side doorway, and Gallidon cast sanctuary on him, which means mobs have to make a Wis save to even attack Geth. On top of that, Geth dodged for his actions, which means mobs have disadvantage to attack him.

I don’t think he got hit after that.

Meanwhile, Shadow and Gallidon just wore the mobs down.

Until they routed. But, as one of the knights tried to escape, Geth shot out his vulture-mount from beneath him:

This episode is mostly fighting, but it’s a really good fight.

Picking off gargoyles — hellhounds — shepherds abiding in the hills — Harburk the Impaler — videogame excursus.

The bit when the party returns to Red Larch and finds that Harburk (“Hauberk” in our game) has taken over with Jalessa as mayor—that’s not really in the book. Not with as many umlauts anyway.

Here’s what the book says (emphases and bracketed comments mine):

. . . the folk of Red Larch are scandalized to learn that many of their most respected fellow citizens were part of a secret cabal. This discovery launches a whirlwind of gossip, innuendo, and recrimination. The other citizens of Red Larch shun the Believers for the next several months [months??? how long do they expect this game to go?], and the Believers turn against one another. Many retreat into seclusion. Leadership of Red Larch passes to Harburk, but he’s too busy as constable. After a month [?], Jalessa Ornra becomes Red Larch’s mayor. She’s liked and known for common sense, so the townsfolk rally around her.

But that’s obviously not what I did.

One, because you literally can’t present that. People recover quickly in this game. A night’s rest, and you’re back in business. No way this campaign is going to last in-game months.

Two, that’s boring, maybe?

So I decided to have Harburk take a very extreme line on this cult security business.

BECAUSE I WANTED TO SEE WHAT THE PLAYERS WOULD DO

I find that the quality of games improves if you try to cultivate a genuine sense of curiosity about the world and the player characters, but specifically the player characters. Think, “I wonder what would happen if they X,” and then show them X and find out.