D&D Adventure #5: Oakgate Complex

[Grimmie]

Yup, that's intentional. I could have it set so you see from all light sources, but then you might see rooms that you've not discovered yet if someone/something else has a light source in it.

[Dog Pants]

Something probably easier discussed out-of-character here rather than in-character over TS like I did last night is movement and looting. Just dragging your character through the dungeon looting everything while everyone else is doing admin or AFK is not good for me. In character I'll be petitioning the rest of the party for their opinions on the looting, out of character I'm just not interested in playing a PvP campaign.

Over voice it does feel a lot like you're telling me off rather than my character, haha. But I getcha.

Anyway, Threader is a young, impatient, true-neutral in-it-for-himself adventuring asshole with a huge ego who genuinely believes he can take on anything. He'll likely always charge forward without thinking, but I'll reign in on the looting now that he's been told off. It wouldn't benefit him in the long run for the whole party to turn on him, after all.

And yes good work grimmie on the mapping and DMing! Shit's funnnnn

Yeah sorry, that was an in-character challenge (I used your character name). Tabletop games are funny things, while there's nothing stopping anyone screwing the party over it's not really going to help anyone else's enjoyment. I'm sure that the opinion of many an experienced player is that it's all part of the game and it should be handled in-character, but I don't go for it personally. Take for example the conflict between Joose and TSD's characters and the rest of the squad in SLA. There was nothing out of character or against the rules of any of it, but two people lost their characters in the end. Not a huge problem when it's the first adventure, much more so when you've played a character for a while and become attached. I've had a player try to have their character permanently control my character using spells, I've had one killed by another player because they didn't like him being reckless, and I've had to kill someone's well established and beloved character for trying to do the same to me. That guy was really pissed off. All justified by people just doing what their character would do. I've seen the damage that can be done from this sort of play - two of those three examples pretty much ended the campaigns because nobody wanted to play any more - and as a GM I won't let people play characters who will be severely disruptive to the party. Ninja looting isn't a big deal necessarily, but it's the thin end of the wedge and that's why I probably look like I've made a bigger deal of it than I should have. Being a reckless gobshite, on the other hand, is great fun.

[Grimmie]

I need to start offering in-game rewards for writing these game reports up
Rolling on the random potions/oils list, or the minor wondrous items list?

The party spend a short time examining the room they burst in to. It appears to be some sort of servant quarters, a set of rickety wooden beds with souring sheets and mattresses running down the length of the room. The resident door-kicking pirate blasts the door at the end of the room down with his boot and more fire beetles crawl out of patchy masonry. Unfortunately they're accompanied by the festering hundred-year-old odour of humanoid waste as the room's identified as the latrine. Orovan and Thor are overcome by the stink (you'd think nature-lovers would be used to getting a bit mucky, no?) and the martial members all crowd in to the loo to stab at the beetles. Two get dispatched and a third crawls away in retreat.

Orovan, perhaps with his memory of civilisation ravaged by mushroom abuse, or just for a love of faeces, decides to poke his head in the latrine and look for treasure. He only finds golden nuggets, but not the valuable kind (actually, I described it as white dog-poo, to which a few people admitted never seeing IRL. It's going extinct, I tell ya').

Forenrond doubles back to check out the set of double doors for traps, examining them meticulously to find that they're even unlocked. Despite this, Threader acts as a battering ram and charges through the doors into the next room. These young pirates crave action! A huge blob of orange jelly falls from the ceiling as the room's disturbed and lands atop Threader's head, starting to cling to his armour and find weak spots to seep through. Forenrond steps forward and flips the lightly acidic slime from Threader's body like a pancake with his rapier, using his keen eyesight to spot another one hanging from the ceiling some distance into the room. It's a kitchen, and the food left out has since crawled up one side of the room to grow glistening slime moulds and rich fungus, though the stink isn't quite as overpowering here. Thor fires an arrow between Threader's legs (and reportedly tickles his nether-regions with the feathers on the way past), but the piercing arrowhead tears through the slime and splits it into two.

The slime itself is slow and inaccurate in its attacks, and the one hanging in the corner slopes off the ceiling to seek out fresh biological matter to eat away at. Pseudopod (not sauropods, like the dinosaur) grow from the slime as it makes its attack, but the front-liners are too quick on their feet to get hit. Thoon comes barrelling in, dropping Waraxe Davis and his shield in favour of a huge greatclub, finding that the blunt damage is perfect for splattering them into glistening, lifeless orange juice. Orovan wails on one with his club too. The rest of the party don't seem to have any blunt weapons, or don't want to use them, and Threader is presented with a dilemma for a moment - move and sheath his sword but be unable to punch one of the slimes, or drop it and attack and risk damaging the beautiful blade? The players discuss tactics for a moment before we remember that "Unarmed Strike" isn't limited to punches alone, and the pirate boots the half-slime across the room and decorates the stove with its innards.

Glibberig spots a board game resting on a table to the side and goes to investigate while others kerb-stomp and perform wrestling moves on the remaining slime puddles. Thor impressively leaps onto one of the food preparation tables, elbow-drops a slime and rolls off to one side. Once the orange puddles are little more than grease smears against the tiles the room can be examined more thoroughly, and some searches made. There are rusty pots and pans, impressive collections of mould, clay wax-sealed jars full of cooking oil (Orovan grabs a handful) and a colony of phosphorescent fungus, in which the Druid dips his spear, gaining both an orange and a blue glow to the tip. Lovely. The board game doesn't appear to have any instructions to it, but has a set of three bone dice with real silver pips, they're valued at 1sp each.

That's 117xp from last week's encounter, and 150xp from this week, bringing Forenrond extremely close to dinging!

If any of you hit level 3 while in the dungeon, we'll say that you'll need to wait till you surface and get a good rest in (Oblivion style) to reflect on your accumulated experience and better yourself.

[Grimmie]

Grats on clearing Level 1, guys!

[Dog Pants]

Good work Grimmie, very enjoyable so far. Highlight of last night for me was Threader toe-punting that slime into the cooker.

[Mr. Johnson]

http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/ ... day_2.html

[Grimmie]

Anyone wanna give livestreaming/recording a bash?

I know the livestream program has an option to broadcast both your microphone and game audio at once, and also has an option to save your broadcast to your My Videos folder, so there's one option.

There are also some pretty easy to follow tutorials for XSplit, which seems to be a bit fancier in the way you can cut your desktop up into segments. I believe it also has the ability to automatically broadcast to Livestream and Twitch, if that's your sorta thing.

[Grimmie]

Breaking news: Roman can make tonight, so assuming Shada's around too, we can play tonight if everyone would like?

[Dog Pants]

Yay! Assuming I'm not parenting (although I can play D&D and feed a baby at the same time).

[Mr. Johnson]

Can do!

[Grimmie]

Lots to catch up on, huh? Let's see how much I can remember.

Our intrepid heroes descend in to level two of the dig, the stairway comes to the end of a corridor that extends back in the opposite direction, but at the foot of the stairs is a sizely black raven pecking at a little puddle of thick orange slime. Those who took part in Vicious Circle recognise it as a Fiendish Raven, as identified by the librarians at Orhedge. Deciding it to be weird and out of place in an old dungeon, Threader tries to boot it. The raven leaps up and flaps ineffectually at the pirate in response. The gnomes seem mostly disinterested and Orovan goes as far as to take a break and have a bit of a smoke. Forenrond dispatches the raven with a single stab of his rapier and the party go about exploring the level in peace.

The first door on their left meets Threader's shoe soles and the old doors splinter and crack open instantly to a busy room full of barrels, sacks and boxes. They're mostly perishable goods that have long rotted away, jars of damp powders and such. Orovan turns up a small stone jar of Sovereign Glue, a substance renowned for its incredible adhesive properties. A few of the party spot the head section of a long, black centipede lurking behind a wide pillar to the north, and those with good hearing head a humm and snap in the distance. There's a brief melee with the creature, which appears much different to the helpful resident undead-scoffers encountered in Art of the Cudgel, far scalier and more armoured. The room directly opposite gets a hard couple of kicks, but the solid oak door doesn't budge an inch. Going for a more traditional approach, the party try the door handle, and then the keys they found on the level above, which unlock it.

Inside is a patch of the phosphorescent fungus encountered in the rooms above, and racks upon racks of wine. A small spider inside poses little threat and gets stabbed up. Orovan, with his apparent eye for all things intoxicating, values the white wines fairly well and bags them, bringing him to a "heavy" load and reducing his speed. But hey, it's bottles of Oakgate Estate Vintage 730, worth the extra weight.

The party progress north past the wide column and their vision further north is blocked by another similar column along the central span of the corridor. Orovan recognises the sound as similar to the summoning sound the wizard Thoroar made when calling on his Celestial Fire Beetle way back in Green Shell Suit, and the party suppose there's an inept wizard hanging out at the end. Inept why? Threader finds a slowly suffocating octopus hanging out by the pillar, slowly dragging itself forward. There's a skeleton (inanimate) hanging from a spider web to the west. From around the corners come Dire Rats, scaly and oversized, their long rodent teeth dripping with thick saliva. They're not too bad, but then more centipedes start approaching with a humm and snap every round.

Satisfied with the way the fight's progressing, Threader lunges west and barges a set of double doors open, coming face to face with a spider similar to the ones they've been tackling (the size of a dog) and their mother (the size of a horse). He squeals for backup, and Thoon and Thor come to his aid, helping to tackle the beast. Glibberig begins to play inspiring music on his trusty banjo to help the group out, giving them advantages on certain mental saves and a boost to their combat power. Slowly, a thick orange slime (much larger than the ones upstairs) slithers around the corner and attempts to sock Forenrond in the dick, but misses. Half the party concentrate on the spider and the other half on the slime, and things begin to go downhill.

The small spider's dispatched in a single stab from Threader, but the larger one lunges towards Thoon and pierces his metal armour like a can opener, dealing a fair chunk of damage to him. Threader gets hit shortly afterwards and suffers from a sucking wound bleeding with spider venom, which weakens him substantially. The slime (which the party reckon is the summoner in question) gets beaten with boots and clubs, Forenrond dropping his new rapier for a quick attack against it. It strikes out with a pseudopod and advances, slithering over the dropped sword and doing huge amounts of physical and acidic damage to the split party. Forenrond tosses a flask of Alchemist's Fire at it, and though he lands a solid blow the flames roil over the surface of the slime harmlessly, leaving Orovan and Thor to take a point of splash damage each. Beaten and bruised, and rapidly running out of hit points as the slime miraculously heals each time it moves, they beat a retreat. Thoon stays behind the seal the doors to the mother spider and Forenrond dashes back around the slow slime to grab his prize sword and wipe the acidic goop off it. Orovan finds himself to be outpaced by the slime, but Thoon sweeps by to collect his loot bag of wine bottles and lighten his load, allowing the whole party to escape upstairs.

You all make it up safely to the surface, and Thoon and Threader's shields lose their light effect after a few short minutes. The students help to close and barricade the doors to the underground levels and offer to take any of your heavy belongings over to your reserved tents when they see you're all a little worse for wear.

[Grimmie]

Shortly after coming up from the basement level, Orovan falls over from his accumulated non-lethal damage and lethal damage and becomes unconscious.

[shot2bits]

oh dear, do i just need to sleep it off or do i need someone to stabilize me?

[Grimmie]

You're all bruised and battered as it is, but you'll probably be fine with some bed rest. You heal nonlethal damage at the rate of 1 hit point per hour per character level, so your dodgy beer won't be an issue in a few hours.

Doesn't look like we're gonna have a chance to play on roll20 this week guys, so why don't we deal with what's happening back at camp on the forum?

[Mr. Johnson]

Thoon looks at his battered companions and proclaims:

I need a drink.

It might be worth asking around about the slimes and how best to defeat them, or at least getting some healing potions.

[Dog Pants]

Good call, lets ask around about the monsters. I have all the charisma of a used condom, so I'll let someone else do the talking. If anyone's still looking beaten up tomorrow morning I'll whip out the porn wand.

[Mr. Johnson]

I can do my paladin healing thing.

...I do my paladin healing thing.

[shot2bits]

When Orovan comes to again he grumbles and says

Urgh, bad trip.

He produces his home made pipe from his pocket and starts filling it with a variety of herbs.

We where attacked by strange slimes and spiders called "Bono" and you all attacked a helpless bird stuck in a cave, there was even a poor dying octopus Shankley put out of its misery.

He puts his hand into his pocked and it closes around the dice from the board game, he shrugs off an overwhelming feeling of reality, taking a long harsh puff on his pipe.

[shot2bits]

Once Orovan is a bit more "with it" he will ask the half orc dude if there's any significance to any of the items he picked up along the way

[Grimmie]

Right, let's see. Are you guys happy to stay in camp till you're all healed up?

I hadn't really thought about figuring out the restoration of hit points (and ability damage, threader's at -3 str) over time on such a grand scale before, I don't think you've ever really come up against something that's knocked you down this badly, so we've hand-waved it as "You'll be okay after a few days." As the DM I figure it's mainly my job to go delving into the rule books and fish out the easiest way for you to do something you want to do, in this case healing.

Here are your health points as they stand, and what you need to heal.
Thoon: 6/17 (11hp to heal)
Threader: 3/14 (11hp to heal, 3str to heal)
Thor: 3/13 (10hp to heal)
Orovan: 2/17 (15hp to heal, 5 non-lethal)
Forenrond: 8/14 (6hp to heal)

So how can you heal?
* With 8hrs bedrest, you can get back your character level in HP and ability damage, so 2hp, and 2 ability points.
* With a full day bedrest, you can get back twice your character level in HP and ability damage, so 4hp and 4 ability points.
* A successful heal check of 15 allows you to deliver "Long term care" to six people, and double the above stats (4hp/4ap for 8 hours, 8hp/8ap for 24 hours)
* Thoon can Lay on Hands for 6hp/day
* Orovan can transmute 2d4 berries into all-day nourishment at 1hp of healing using Goodberry, if he has it prepared
* You can swig potions of Cure Light Wounds for 1d8+1 healing

To complicate matters, Halil, your half-orc sage friend, takes a look at those waxy blue candles Orovan picked up. After rubbing some of the wax between his fingers, he identifies them as Restful Candles (Arms & Equipment Guide page 33), which speeds up the healing process over a period of 8 hours. That effect stacks with Long Term Care.

So yeah! Lots of ways to do it. With a little distributed hand-laying, and some care from Halil, you could all be back on your feet and fighting fit in just over a day. Forenrond will be first back on his feet first (after Glibberig of course, who didn't take a single point of damage).