Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 8: The Moathouse Finale

 

Yeah that's a pretty terrible picture of him

Back in Hommlet our heroes rest and prepare for another expedition into the dungeon beneath the Moathouse. Our Heroes:

Braeden (Human Ranger)played by Battletech Terry

Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve

Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon

Xyzzifax (Human* Wizard) played by Blaster

Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will

Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David

 All are level 2 or 3 at this point. Grognard Mike is out this week so Malice is hanging out in Hommlet and Inigo the Rogue is also absent - as he often is)

The much more entertaining players account, written in-character again "As told by the Illustrious and Mighty Xyzzifax" is here.

The Ranger and Cleric head to the Temple of St. Cuthbert seeking holy water and information. They acquire the holy water and then meet with Terjon to discuss the symbol they found on the guards/bandits/armed hostile humans in the last expedition (The Flaming Eye). Terjon knows a little about about the organization of the temple and explains that while theoretically unified under "Elemental Evil" the four major factions compete with and seek dominance over one another. He also mentions that they have always sought to control the lands around the temple as well and so are probably building an army. 

The rest of the party makes some minor purchases and checks in on friends. Samson constructs a crossbow that can be attached to Lantor's arm & armor giving him an easier ranged option when called for as having to swap between a crossbow and his greatsword has been tricky for him. Samson is happy to help and Lantor is happy to have it.

After two days in Hommlet the team returns to the Moathouse and heads down to check out some of the areas they did thoroughly explore before. Spotting a pair of bugbears via the Miraculous Recon Owl they start a pretty serious discussion about how to proceed as the bugbear fight (see Session 6) was a tough one and they do not want to end up fighting the human cultists from last session and the bugbears at the same time, possibly being cut off by one or the other. They end up deciding to have the mage wizard-lock the door to the cult area first and then go back and deal with the bugbears. It's a solid plan - shame it didn't work.

Most of the party hangs back while the Braeden and Xyzzifax sneak up towards the cultist door and I will transition here to the first-person account:

The recently promoted Minion #3, Braeden, accompanies Xyzzifax, to provide support. The Ranger loses all recently gained respect, and falls in the rankings to minion #4, when he fails to spot a noise trap, a tripwire is triggered, causing a cascade of scrap metal to fall, with the clanging and crashing echoing through the dungeon. The pair’s presence is now surely known.

Xyzzifax ceases all pretense of stealth, spreading his wings, and launching himself into the air to cover the remaining distance to the door. Upon reaching it, he immediately begins to chant, casting his arcane lock spell on the door, betting that he can resolve his spell before the guards open the door. 36 seconds later, 4 cult guards fling the door open, brandishing crossbows! All four loose bolts at the chanting wizard, yet arcane shields spring forth, and all four bolts fall harmlessly to the ground. Combat ensues!

Yes, the all-about-perception-and-sneaking ranger blows a check and snags a tripwire and blows the entire plan to hell! This turns into a pretty serious fight with eight guards including another leader type who does not go gently.

After this the mage tries to wizard lock the door again and is again interrupted by more guards who kick the door open and start another fight! They push these guards back, heal up, and decide to push on into the cult lair. 

Passing through the second door (now safely wizard locked as well) they encounter a third door and pick the lock, open the door, and immediately encounter the cult guards and leaders waiting for them with spells and weapons readied. The cult leader orders his men to kill the party and the battle is on. 

Kentor, Lantor, and Samson all take a good beating - which is becoming pretty normal. Samson drops at least once and Lantor gets Held when Lareth the cult leader manages to get a spell off and then later gets Blinded. Xyz invokes a flaming sphere which is also becoming a pretty standard tactic for him. Eventually Lareth is the last bad guy standing and finally drops as the entire party lays into him. The party gets a ton of loot from this including +1 plate, a Staff of Striking, and a Ring of Free Action, all of which will prove to be a thorn in my side for the future. 

Definitely better with the helmet on

DM Notes:

This was the big finale for the Moathouse and ended with an appropriately spectacular battle that they kind of stumbled into. That last fight went about 5 rounds and they fought Lareth, 2 guard captains, 11 guards, and a Cult Fanatic. With spells going off on both sides, some vicious melee engagements, and at least one PC dropping, it felt like a pretty dangerous fight. Certain trends are emerging:

• The Ranger is the sneaking specialist who mostly fights at range with his bow, jumping into melee when one of the fighters drops. He's very much a pragmatist and rolls with whatever comes the party's way.
• The Cleric started off as the healing guy but has moved into more of a combat role as the game has gone on. He usually opens with Spiritual Weapon and goes from there. Now he has the Staff of Striking and will quickly develop into the Kill-Stealing Cleric as he wades into battle and clocks somebody already wounded with a triple-charge staff strike and blows them into vapor. Yes, it is annoying. Yes, the player is eating it up.
• The Fighter is not really a glass cannon but he does tend to be the one who drops in most fights. He's armored up but he uses a two-hander so he cannot use a shield and that means of the melee types he has the lowest AC. He also is the youngest player and tends to charge into a fight in round one regardless of what the rest of the party is doing so he ends up surrounded and gets pounded on first and most. As the campaign goes on this continues but he does work on upping his armor class so it gets a little better.
• The Paladin is the experienced melee combatant who is taking all of the "tanking" type abilities that he can. Most of these punish an enemy for not striking him, as in giving them a negative modifier or giving him a free attack. He is very conscious of his AC and wants it to be the highest in the party - and it usually is, barring some spell going off. Also Smite is a devastating thing and he is very good at choosing his moment of glory to use it. He's still being played as Lawful Good even with alignment not being in the game and his loyalty to the party is unquestionable.
• The Mechanist is an interesting new type of character. He doesn't cast spells but he can buff his party (including himself) with various gadgets and enhancements to equipment. Here the paladin is carrying a hammer enhanced with a +1 and "returning" to give him a good opening ranged attack. The fighter now has a light crossbow built into his armor keeping his hands free for melee.
  
  Samson is also good as a skill monkey focused in on detecting traps and picking locks - any gadget-related thing he is unstoppable. Also, he can basically "Identify" magic items by touch. This is also pretty annoying at first as a DM because that whole sub-section of the game of figuring out what an item can do has been part of the fun for a long time and this just eliminates that entirely. It does get to be fun later when they find a cursed item though so it's not entirely one-sided. There have also been many jokes about "hey, bring your magic hands over here ..."
• Xyzzifax - the wizard has been the real revelation here. He speaks in an immediately identifiable voice, he has questionable morals, some fuzziness on party loyalty, and often refers to the other characters as "minions", sometimes ranking them on the fly. Game-wise he is powergaming the shit out of ToV's wizard options and showing me just how ridiculous they can be at maximum effort which I suppose I deserve since he is my kid. The familiar rules are very lenient and he has used them ruthlessly to make mapping the dungeon and recon in general a very low-effort undertaking for them. He knows his spells like a pro and knows when to cast them, when to use a wand, and when to just go with Ye Olde Firebolt. He is also not averse to jumping into a fight up close when needed, made easier with his built-in wings (He's a ToV "Beastkin" lineage, which gives a fair number of options to cover a variety of animals, one of which is wings & flight = to your walking speed). That said, he is also quick to jump out of combat when hit with anything significant as he is fairly concerned with his own skin.

It's been a lot of fun up to this point and it only gets better.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 7: Ghouls, Guards, and a Giant Crayfish

 

Back at the remote camp near the Moathouse our heroes prepare for another expedition into the dungeon beneath ...

Braeden (Human Ranger)played by Battletech Terry

Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve

Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon

Xyzzifax (Human* Wizard) played by Blaster

Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will

Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David

 All are level 2 or 3 at this point. Grognard Mike is out this week so Malice is back in Hommlet and Inigo the Rogue is also absent - as he often is)

The much more entertaining players account, written in-character "As told by the Illustrious and Mighty Xyzzifax" is here.

The goal this time is to explore the passage downward hidden in a column that they had discovered previously. The portcullis is still down so they work around that and make their way to the prison area where they had fought the zombies and start inspecting the passage. 

DM aside: Once again we have the totally engaging exercise of the wizard's familiar scoping out the various rooms and tunnels like a recon drone. I have been a fan of wizards having familiars since I started playing way back but this version is pretty ridiculous and has become an annoying thorn in my side with it's unlimited range-flying-stealthy-darkvisioned self. Yes the owl is the power choice here and of course my son jumped on that right away and has been abusing it ever since. I am seriously considering locking it back down to the earlier 5E limit of 100' or whatever it was. The running joke is that Bubo's nemesis is the closed door which is the only thing that stops his out-of-control scouting. Coincidentally just about every door in the dungeon is closed and some new doors might have been added recently ...

Once they determine it is safe to proceed the group climbs down the hidden rungs and figures out they are in a crypt area as demonstrated by the large number of burial niches and the smaller but still concerning number of ghouls. The Cleric turns most of them and they run a pretty good distance away while the party handles the one that sticks around. As the turn wears off, the other ghouls come back but the party is ready and has a chance to hit them at range on the way in, thinning the numbers and in the end only the Fighter gets bit and paralyzed.* The area is searched, minor loot is found, and the party continues on ...

Next, to quote from the players log ...

Xyzzifax and his minions venture forth after some scouting by the faithful minion Bubo, and advance down a set of stairs into a square room with a pool of water in its center. To investigate the pool, minion Samson creates a 10 foot pole, and gives it to the only one in the party stupid enough to do it, Minion Lantor, who sticks it into the pool. Before he can react, minion Lantor is seized by a giant claw which locks onto his torso and clamps down, locking him in place!**

...and the battle against the giant crayfish is on!

For one (1) round!

Even at only (only?) six members, this group is hell on single large targets. Everyone in the room opens up on the thing and the Fighter (even grappled) and Paladin just tear it up using their special abilities. I thought it would be tough enough to go a few rounds with them - nope! So the pool is searched and looted of some scrolls and jewelry and the party continues onward.

Coming down the long diagonal passage they encounter locked doors - which they unlock - and then armed guards - who proceed to feather the party with crossbow bolts! The fight starts with just 3 guards and then escalates as 3 more plus a leader type charge around the corner  to join the battle. This proves to be a bigger challenge than the crustacean as at the end we have the Paladin, the Fighter, and the Ranger all in melee with the guard captain who finally succumbs but not before dealing out some punishment of his own as his minions fall around him. 

The team quickly checks the fallen then heads out and back to Hommlet to recover and recount their adventures.

They are still not completely sure what's going on with the Moathouse but they are almost done with it. signs of Bandits up top then Bugbears, Gnolls, and organized humans in the dungeon have them discussing who or what is running this place which is a good thing to have. Mechanically it's working well with PC's feeling like they are in danger but not dropping dead like some of our older edition attempts at this one. My group works together at this point like a machine most of the time and there is a ton of banter along with teasing Lantor's player about dropping every fight. They are having a lot of fun so now I have to maintain it.

For a better fight with the Crayfish from back in 4E here's a link to one of the old session reports.  Where we had a different mix of players and characters.

*This will be a recurring theme as Lantor (the Fighter) is constantly in melee, uses a greatsword, and so has a lower AC than some and is in a position to get multi-attacked almost every fight.

** See?

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 6: Bugbear Battle

 

Time to start catching up!

This is the DM's Summary and Notes - for more details and the players' take on things take a look here.

We begin in Hommlet after a night's rest. The prisoners have been escorted to safety and various abilities have been recovered. After some light shopping the party returns to the Moathouse area and sets up a camp some distance away. Our protagonists are:

Malice (Human Bard) played by Grognard Mike

Braeden (Human Ranger)played by Battletech Terry

Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve

Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon

Xyzzifax (Human* Wizard) played by Blaster
     (He's not an Apprentice anymore, and really past Journeyman, but I just will not call him the obvious)

Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will

Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David

All are level 2 or 3 at this point

Heading down into the dungeon beneath the moathouse they start poking around some empty rooms and manage to trip a falling portcullis. The sound draws the attention of some Gnolls which starts a fairly vicious fight where Malice the Bard starts to look a lot like a 4E Warlord and the Flaming Sphere spell plays a big part. As the fight winds down the magical owl familiar spots a new set of creatures creeping down a corridor towards them.

As the party reforms to face the new threat Braedon the Ranger starts taking shots at anyone he can see and the flaming sphere rolls over to intervene as well. The beasts manage to drop Lantor the Fighter with concentrated javelin fire but their follow-up charge is thwarted by the traps laid down on the way in by the ranger. Kentor the Paladin is bearing the brunt of the melee attention now and he too drops. The bugbear leader is a tough customer as he stays on his feet despite multiple melee attacks, missile attacks, and being partially petrified! 

More of the bugbears drop but Lantor and Kentor  are healed and then fall again. The wizard uncloaks, revealing some insectile wings and starts throwing thunderwaves to drive the creatures back which actually works. The enemy leader is beaten and battered when he finally shakes off the petrification and staggers back with his one remaining warrior ... "next time, humans ..." is the last exchange as they slink off into the darkness. 

The familiar monitors their retreat as the party pulls itself together and heals up to the point of mobility. Our heroes find the way back out blocked by the fallen portcullis and Sir Kentor has to strain and break it to open the way.

Back at the camp Xyzzifax shares his origin story as a once-normal man warped by his former master into an insect-man on a quest for power.

DM Commentary

This session started with some banter and exploration but turned into one long, running fight through a small complex of rooms as the noise from the initial trap drew the attention of the gnolls and then that noise drew the attention of the bugbears. It's all fun and games until the Fighter and the Paladin both go down and the Cleric and the Ranger become the new frontline with the halfling Mechanist trying to help out. The Bard usually fights from the second line when needed - with a glaive so she has reach - but she's much happier doing that with the two tanks in front. 

Having realized that a group this large was going to be tougher to challenge and knowing how this level was set up I started making notes on who would react to the alarms and also to the sounds of fighting in different parts of the dungeon. The familiar being both recon drone and security system continues to be a bit annoying and I'm having to get picky with the wizard about when he is seeing via the owl vs. seeing out of his own eyes at times.

The Gnolls were Tome of Beasts Gnolls and they're fine - the "taunting bark" ability forces an opponent to move towards the Gnoll and attack it on its turn - shades of 4th edition! The Bugbears were led by a Bugbear Champion from that book and he is a little bit nastier and made the whole thing better. He is tougher, has more attacks, and has a Recharge reaction ability to change one miss to hit so he can really put out the hurt. He ended up becoming a bit of a nemesis as he spoke, survived their best efforts, and threatened to come after them again. They would hunt for him in the next few sessions but he did not return - though he will later. 

The wizard has become one of the stars of the campaign as Blaster uses a distinct voice when he speaks and tends to refer to everyone as minions. Getting his backstory out there for the group was a good moment and made everything that much more personal for everyone. Also his in-character writeups are pretty funny if you get the chance to check those out.

Overall I really like the system. There are some potential concerns with a few things and with the size of my group but we are going to finish the Moathouse mostly as-is and then see how things stand.

Encounter Balance in Modern D&D and Tales of the Valiant

I've never been too concerned with "encounter balance" as in most editions the guidance and numbers given for it are terrible. In my experience 4E did a pretty decent job at providing something useful but that's the only one I liked. I haven't been worrying about it much with the current game but now I feel like the group is verging on having too easy of a time with a lot of the dungeon and then suddenly ending up in a life and death struggle when they hit a certain area or combination of inhabitants. 

I'm running Temple of Elemental Evil but the characters are from Tales of the Valiant. So the old school encounter setups are somewhat offset by them having old school numbers in the party and then being characters in a post-5E system and having much greater individual power than an AD&D character, slightly balanced out by using late/post-5E monsters with more interesting capabilities as the opposition most of the time. I mean, in the end they will most likely win but I do want them to work for it. 

Given the way my players are flattening a lot of the opposition now I am paying more attention to how the various CR's in an area add up and I intend to do some tweaking for some of them - mainly the big temples as they should be some epic, memorable, fights and they should involve some actual elementals which are surprisingly sparse in some areas. Between the various monster books, some allegedly solid encounter guidelines, a big dungeon map, and the 3D printer, I can drop all kinds of elemental evil on them. But ...

What is "balance" when it comes to a dungeon-crawling D&D game? Is there a solid way to define that? How about ...

• 0 characters drop = easy encounter
• 1 character drops = challenging encounter
• 2+ characters drop = hard encounter?

I mean words and descriptors get tossed around with this stuff without any real definition but the focus on systems like this is on math. ToV's system is this for 5th to 10th levels, which is where we will be living for most of this game:

• Half of total PC levels in the party is your "Benchmark"
  (so this is 15-20 for me depending on who shows up)
• Add up total monster CR in an encounter:
• Total > Benchmark = "difficult or dangerous" encounter
• Total < Benchmark= "Less challenging" battle
  (So going by this a total CR of 10 would be easy, 15 would be average, and 20 would be challenging)
• Maximum single monster CR = average party level x 1.5
• Minimum monster CR = 1/2

Now to be fair they do mention adjusting these to better fit your own party and there is a handy chart with average level in the left-hand column going from 1-20 and the top row covering number of PCs from 3-7 and then the cross reference gives you the Challenging Benchmark. 

As far as adjusting for my game I decided to count them as one level higher due to magic items in the party and figured I would start with a 6 character party as my target. That means my Min CR is 1 and my Max CR is 9 and my Benchmark is 18. To try this out I threw two Young Green Dragons at them on the return trip from Verbobonc as that made some kind of sense for the region. That's two CR 8 critters for a 16 total. We only had 5 characters for that session  which made the Benchmark CR 15 so we were right there. 

The party knew something was up as they heard traffic on the road had dwindled over the past week.  They spotted something up in the air as they traveled and made for the ruined keep that marks the halfway point between Hommlet and the city. They determined that it was a dragon about the time they reached the keep and that's when the second dragon stepped out from behind a tower. 

The fight lasted 5 rounds which is probably fine. The fighter charged one, caught the breath weapon, then caught it again when the other one landed nearby and that was it for him - down. The wizard hit them with a Slow spell and that really reduced the melee output as it means even if they have multiattack - they do - they can only make one attack per round so instead of a claw/claw/bite they get a claw or a bite. I think the first one dropped round 3 or early round 4 and the second one was attempting to flee on round 5 when it got fireballed by the wizard (wand) and blew its save. 

Going by their method and my own method mentioned up there I'd say this was in the "challenging" ballpark. One character down, most of the party damaged in some way, they had to use at least one potent spell followed by a powerful wand ... sounds like "challenging" is a good description. 

The party mix in this case was fighter, cleric, ranger, wizard, mechanist. Typically we would have a bard and/or a paladin in there too but not this time. I have seen discussion online that having a second healer in the party really amps up the difficulty in challenging them and I do concur with that - between a full cleric, a paladin who can heal here and there, and a bard that can give out the option to use healing surges during combat they do tend to be very resilient. I will watch the specific party mix  to see if I notice any patterns developing.

I will say I do find this kind of thing fairly tedious. I lean much more towards the "natural world" kind of approach where asking around, looking for rumors, and doing research will tell you what kinds of things live in an area and then knowing that some of those are extremely dangerous will guide your decisions. The world is the world and your characters are living in it - it doesn't level up or down with them. 

If I were to take this way too seriously and actively recalculate each possible encounter every session for the number of players I had it would rapidly drain significant fun from the run. So I won't ever be doing that. These things may work alright as guidelines but don't take them too seriously. All of the math presumes that each creature has been given a CR that accurately reflects the danger they pose to a party. Given the variation one could have in a typical group I think that's optimistic at best and misleading much of the time. If everyone in the party has fire resistance then that red dragon is somewhat less threatening than if no one does. There are ranges give for things like damage output and hit points at each CR but having lived with these kinds of frameworks for 25-ish years now I remain skeptical. That said I will give it a chance, keep trying it out, and see what I find.

This did not go well for our greatsword guy

The Tales of the Valiant Temple of Elemental Evil Campaign Details

 

Well we are 22 sessions into the campaign now and the party is at 5th level. That's despite using individual per-session XP. One character is lower but he's only showing up about every third session so that's how it goes. I wanted to share some thoughts about how the game is going.

First up - how we run: We get together on Saturday nights and run about six hours. Now the first hour or so is eating and catching up so we actually play more like 4-5 hours. We play in-person, sitting around a table, moving miniatures on a battlemat when useful, typically rolling real dice. 

This campaign started in July of 2024 and while the goal is "weekly" we do have occasional skips when the DM (me) has other obligations but I've made this a priority so I keep those to a minimum. I have things 2 out of the next 3 weekends so we will likely only have two sessions in March. If a player can't make it we just play short. With 8 players though, "short" means 5 or 6 players most sessions - we almost always have one or two out - and it's very rare that we cancel a game due to lack of players. I'd say we would have to drop under 4 available to really consider that and it almost never comes up. We did have a long pause at the end of the year when I lost my dad but we've been rolling pretty steadily since then.

People ask about keeping a game going for the long term and honestly it's not that hard to find the plan: commit to running a game and stick to it. Now actually executing it can be challenging, but it has to start with that commitment from the person running the game. Individual players will miss here and there but if the GM is available then things can happen. I probably have enough on this to make a whole new post so let's leave it there for now.

As far as the system we chose for this one I am very happy with Tales of the Valiant. It feels like 5E+. My players are also very happy with it and they too feel like it's a step up from 5th in both the mechanics and what their characters can do within the framework of the rules. I have used 2014 Monster Manual monsters, new monsters from the adventure itself, a whole bunch of creatures from the Monster Vault (the ToV monster book) and a few from Kobold Press' Tome of Beasts series. It's seamless. That said I like the newer critters better as far as having interesting options before and during a fight so I use them most of the time.

For the adventure we are playing through well it's the TOEE - it's a big old-school dungeon with traps and secret doors and exploitable fragmentation amongst the enemy factions. Now are my players exploiting this division in the ranks? No ... but they could if they wanted to. Hommlet makes for a nice base area where we have had quite a bit of interaction with the locals and the wizard is planning to build a tower himself and supplant Burne as the official resident mage*. Nulb has not seen as much action but I suspect some see it as a future opportunity while others are probably looking to make it the target of some kind of war crime as a warning to the Temple, Hommlett, Verbobonc, or possibly all three - time will tell. 

One of the other fun things about this adventure is dusting off my wandering monster skills. traveling the countryside near Hommlett? Random encounter checks! Pushing through various temple dungeon levels? Random encounter checks! Taking the road to Verbobonc? Random encounter checks! It has been fun using the tables provided in the adventure and tuning them up to keep things both thematic and at least somewhat challenging. 

That leads into my one concern about the whole thing and that's that my party is very strong in a fight - and there are theoretically 8 of them. Now this is an old-school module and was not rewritten into 5E's encounter balancing numbers based on a 4-person party so it is meaner - if the old one had 8 bugbears in a room on the first dungeon level then the new one has 8 of them there as well. BUT ... they wipe the floor with most of the things they encounter unless it's a very nasty batch. They have old-school numbers with new-school power levels so it's not quite as even as I had hoped.

I did some of this to myself by giving them more access to magic items than just "what they find in the dungeon" via a traveling merchant I used to use in the old 3E Return to the Temple campaign and also by being able to go to Verbobonc to seek out magic item crafters and a bit of a market. Most of it is checking for a few random items when they seek them but ToV does have rules for crafting - as did 3E and 4E - so I want to give them some options to play in this area. Even then, the strongest items have come straight out of the adventure itself so it's not -all- my fault.

The two hairiest fights so far happened when a)they pulled the inhabitants of 4 rooms all at once by making noise at a bad time and b) the fight for the Water Temple which had multiple lighter creatures and a juggernaut fighting in melee while some clerics stayed back and cast at them. A serious fight means that usually the greatsword-wielding fighter (no shield) drops, then the paladin may or may not go down, then the ranger switches to melee and the cleric wades in with his staff of striking and the wizard and bard start pulling out the big spells like haste or fireball.

Part of the challenge here is that even though I went through beforehand and figured up all of the XP available in the adventure my party ended up going in through a side entrance and punching their way into the dungeon starting in the middle instead of starting at the top and working their way down like most people would - theoretically at least. So they were immediately in some tougher encounters than I had expected but I pulled no punches and their larger numbers helped them power through. We've had no permanent deaths though we have come close a few times.

Seeing that I began to realize that I may need to do some tweaking. Really, I started doing this from the beginning and it takes three paths:

• I started using later monster designs right from the start. These are generally better than the early 5E "bag of hit points" style monsters and have started to find their way back to 4Es ways of making things interesting. With the Monster Vault pretty much replacing the Monster Manual 1 for 1 I have a good supply of opposition.
• As they have pushed into the temple dungeon proper I am keeping in mind that this is more of an organized facility than a random set of monster lairs - noises and alarms will draw a response. One of the signature features of the temple is the competition among the 4 temples and the ways players can exploit the factionalism to avoid being overwhelmed. Well, my players do not seem concerned about being overwhelmed and are not at all concerned with infiltration or deception thus far so I'm going to play it as more of a rivalry between the elements than open conflict. That should lead to some challenging escalations as they plunge ahead.
• I have also, somewhat reluctantly, started digging into the encounter design math given for ToV. I find most of these systems terrible as they fail under scrutiny almost immediately. 3E was bad pretty much from the start, as was 5th edition. 4E's encounter design was the best in my experience but even it was not always great. An overland trip to Verbobonc gave me the chance to try it our with some wandering encounters on the road, culminating with a pair of dragons and ... I am withholding judgement for now. I want to see how it works in the dungeon environment and it really only aims at a "challenging" encounter with some guidance as to harder or easier around a calculated benchmark. I am somewhat skeptical that a thing like a dragon can be reduced down to a single numerical rating when it comes to danger factor but I will give it a try.

Bottom line we are playing regularly and consistently, my players are having fun, some memorable characters are developing, it's a classic D&D  module, and I am enjoying it quite a bit myself. I can see that it may be quite a challenge to keep things interesting for another 5 or 6 levels but I am looking at that as a positive. Barring some unforeseen complications I expect we will finish this adventure this year, probably this summer or fall. I have given some thought to what might come after but for now I am going to aim to finish this one up right.

* Of course he also refers to the other PCs as his "minions" and ranks them, offering the occasional opportunity to move up in his rankings so it is in character.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 5: In the Dungeon of the Moathouse

 

We begin with a round of stew and stories back at camp as the ranger and the paladin and the fighter all utilize their backgrounds to buff the rest of the party - this is a Tales of the Valiant thing where some backgrounds get a nifty ability to add temp hit points by various means. Beyond the mechanics this has added some fun during exploration and combat as party members speculate on what's going in to the Paladin's chili pot next.

Note: This is the DM's take on the session. For an in-universe player's perspective on the thing click here.

As we sit in camp the party eventually realizes that there is an 8th figure seated at the fire - Inigo Vulnstack, a roguish elven associate of Braeden's (the ranger) - has appeared seemingly out of nowhere and offered to join the group's expedition. With the ranger vouching for him, the rest of the group accepts - another sword will no doubt prove useful.

This was the session where one of my regular  players who has thus far been absent was finally able to join us and so we worked him in as quickly and simply as possible, which turned out to be pretty damn appropriate for the character he created. The relationship with the ranger was invented on the spot to be fleshed out later. This was probably the least painful way to bring in someone new and a bit of a surprise to my players as I have dropped in new characters in far more complicated ways such as being carried off in a sack by beggars, as the only intact statue outside a basilisk's lair (where a convenient stone to flesh scroll was discovered), and via the traditional found chained-to-a-wall-upside-down-and-naked approach  - but I went easy this time.

As the day dawns Bubo the Owl familiar plays recon drone again and surveys the moathouse from the air. They poke around the upper level a bit more finding an empty tower and an abandoned hideout of some kind in the main hall but soon enough it's time to head down the staircase and into the dungeon.

The familiar thing may turn into a serious annoyance at some point as it feel more like a Shadowrun rigger thing than typical D&D fantasy as there's no limit on duration or distance like there would be with a spell. Basic 5E familiars were only good out to100' or so - this came up in a prior campaign - but ToV's ritual makes some significant improvements. In general I play with an attitude that the bad guys don't care about your pet rat or bird or whatever until it attacks them but I will probably be keeping an eye on this one for AoE spells and things to interrupt Bubo's ridiculous efficiency - he ain't flying 100' overhead in a dungeon. There is also a lot of humor tied to him now too as it was noted that if he just had a printer option he could spit out a map after doing recon of an area ... then the dot-matrix sounds start coming out and the whole group cracks up. 

My party managed to completely miss the giant spider hiding in the ruined tower because they were very careful about opening the door to it, looking in, but never stepping in, and then closing the door and walking away - even after noting that they saw shiny coins on the floor!

They also let the bandits get away as I had the main bandit lair close and lock the main doors as they saw the group approach. My guys did not try to force them, and then left overnight so I had the bandits sneak out using their escape route. I do have them lurking in the area for a hopefully fun ambush next session but right now as far as they know whoever was in the moathouse just ran off.

Heading on down into darkness various light spells are cast and stealth is employed here and there and a trash pile briefly investigated but as they begin exploring a set of dungeon doors and torture chamber they spot zombies - then more zombies, and more zombies! Reinforcements appear from behind each door until they have fought 12 zombies in all! Recovering from the fight and searching the area they are also apprehensive about what might come through the other door but they do find a secret door and ladder down hidden side one of the columns. 

I could have adjusted the zombie encounter to spring all of them at once but I stuck with the original script of two more zombies from each cell in succession each round because I just like it and it's a little more memorable. With a 8 PC's no, they were not likely to be in serious danger but i wanted to play it out as written. I did use the Monster Vault version where they have a chance to stay standing unless hit really hard and some of them did manage to last longer than they should have.

They do eventually press on though and find a small room with a very slippery floor and ... another door. After some moments of physical comedy here involving bad rolls and heavily-armored-low-dex fighter types they do eventually get themselves organized and open up the other door into the bedroom of a large, angry ogre. Battle commences!

But poor, poor Lubash only lasts two rounds as Xyzzifax the wizard pulls out the Lesser Wand of Petrification he looted in the dungeon outside Saltmarsh and zaps the ogre with it. Lubash promptly fails his save - a Con save no less - and is now Restrained. Undaunted he throws javelins at the party in the doorway as they take shots at him. Then at the end of his turn he fails his save again, and on round 2 he fails it yet again and turns to stone before their very eyes.

Now this was a bit disheartening for the DM as he is supposed to be a tougher encounter but this wand took him out fast. Even if he had made a save or two he was running out of hit points fast as that condition gives attackers Advantage on all attack rolls and gives him Disadvantage on all attack rolls. So it was turning into a very one-sided fight regardless of his actual petrification. Thankfully this item only has 1 charge so it's a 1/day item with a small chance to crumble after it is used but what can I say - they picked a dangerous target and with a little bit of luck they managed to neutralize an otherwise dangerous opponent. 

After this there was exploration and looting and more poor word choices as the heroes discovered another secret door with a staircase and landing ... and some prisoners! Information is gathered and thanks are offered, and they decide to escort the new acquaintances back to Hommlet and safety. 

So far it's so good though I will say there can be a lot of overhead running 8 PC's ranging from 1st to 3rd level. It's manageable for now it just means we run a little slower than we would with  4-5. Right now I am not dramatically changing up encounter numbers even with this many characters in play - I am just working in the Monster Vault versions of the creatures and I will probably work in some other monster book sources as well as the game goes on. I expected more variability in turnout but so far that has not happened. I may tweak some wilderness encounters - since they are mostly later additions anyway - but  once they get to the temple proper I probably won't need to as they don't do stealth well and will probably be pulling in chunks of each level as they start fighting through them. If it gets too stupid I will make some changes but I don't want to punish them for doing well - I just may need to do something to balance out the numbers a little more evenly. Back in the early days 8 PC's was not terribly unusual but 8 5E type PC's are quite a bit more capable then what we had back then. I'm not doing anything yet but I might as things develop.

There was a ton of laughing this session as it felt like we finally had the whole band back together and we were cracking up at inappropriate humor all through the run. It was a lot of fun and that helps to keep these things going.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 4: The Moathouse

 

Back in the village the party hands their borrowed gear back and hands the prisoner over to Rufus for questioning and detainment. Then it's off to weapons trading and evaluation and some intra-party deals for components. The village leatherworker makes a deal to patch up some armor for some of our heroes and shares a little background information on the area as well. Then it's time to head for The Moathouse!

Here the party gets cautious: they set up a base camp some ways away from the ruined fort and then have the wizard spy out the place with his brand new familiar. After this they approach and manage to stumble into some giant frogs right outside the main gate. This is a fairly quick fight but it does put some fear into the halfling mechanist as he realizes he might be a swallow-able size for some of the frogs. My veteran players know what to watch for and so slice open the the frogs and find a nice gem for their troubles. 

The upper level of the place is cleared without too much injury ...

• The fighters do the traditional front line thing and hold off a giant lizard in one room. After it is defeated they slice it open and find a magical shield and so likely establish a precedent I will be dealing with for the entire campaign.
• The halfling once again finds trouble as he steps into a room alone and gets chomped by a giant tick. this combat marked the first use of the "I can cast a touch spell through my familiar" option as the wizard manages to shocking grasp the things while remaining at a very safe distance. 
  (and yes, they cut the tick open too but it was item-free)
• They killed a giant snake as well, continuing the tradition in this campaign of giant snakes dying in one round of combat. They are probably going to try and make something out of its hide as the ranger opted to skin the thing afterwards.
• The halfling's personal trilogy of terror wraps up when he steps into a room first (again) and is set upon by a room full of giant rats that put him down quickly, forcing the fighters to wade into the room while the cleric and bard and wizard take shots from the doorway. They do win fairly quickly though no animals are sliced open afterwards. 

A more detailed narrative account of the tale from the players' point of view can be found here.

DM Commentary

It was good to finally get to the moathouse and get some good old-fashioned violence in. Any of you who have played through this know that the dungeon level is where it actually gets nasty - the upper level is fairly easy in comparison and while it's a good warm-up it's almost misleading as to the level of difficulty you are going to see underground. That said maybe the halfling will learn not to go first.

There was also a fair amount of interaction in town, mainly at the inn and with Gipson the leatherworker so my team is not solely consumed with loot and bloodlust. There are still new people to meet and new contacts to make there so it should keep things interesting for a while longer. I have some ideas about adding a few more characters in to the mix as well.

The game continues to run pretty smoothly though it is still challenging to run with 7 when combat lasts a round or two. My position on 5th from  very early on has been that it's the simplest version of the game since 2nd and I still feel that way but it's not quite at the B/X level. I ran 8 in 3E for quite a while so it can be done and it will come easier with time. 

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 3: Hommlet Ho!

 

Originally I had planned to use one of several possible intro adventures covering the journey to Hommlet but as the session approached I decided to chuck that and just jump right into it - enough with the delays and prologues, we know how to play D&D here. So we did. I made the players talk about why their character would be coming to Hommlet and dropped some leads/rumors for them that they might have heard prior to their arrival. Most of these involved rumors of banditry and a possible stirring of the old cult and this would come back to bite me right in this first session.

Starting out they all met at the inn - Hommlet only has the one - then realized they shared some common goals and so decided to work together. Smartly they divided up to check out the village and talk to some of the more notable establishments and inhabitants. Our Heroes are:

• Malice (Bard 1)
• Braeden (Ranger 1)
• Sir Kentor (Paladin 2)
• Sir Lantor (Fighter 2)
• Xyzzifax (Wizard 2)
• Samson (Halfling Mechanist 1)
• Jaric (Cleric of Trithereon 1)

Jaric went to the local temple - Hommlet only has the one - to touch base with the local Priest of St. Cuthbert. He got some basic information out of the assistant priest and then came back the next day for an appointment with the main man. It turns out that the priests of orderly, obedient society for the common man aren;t super-thrilled to find a cleric of the rebel rabble-rouser Trithereon in town asking questions but Variable Dave rolled badly on his insight check and left the place thinking he might have a new best friend. 

Xyz went to talk to his fellow wizard - Hommlet only has the one - named Burne, a semi-retired adventurer and learned a few details among which that they are willing to pay a 5gp bounty on Bandits.

Braeden met Jaroo, the Druid of Hommlet - as Hommlet has only the one Druid - and learned that in addition to bandits gnolls have been seen in the local woods. Jaroo also offered his assistance with local nature and magical questions if needed, and that his apprentice, one Conn Shaunnery, is missing. 

Malice and Samson decided to talk to the village elder, the mayor, effectively, of Hommlet. In a bit of a rambling conversation they learned about the bandit troubles, temple troubles, the village of Nulb, a nice halfling family that used to live nearby, merchant traffic, and the local militia. 

Kentor and Lantor decided to spend their time getting to know the inn - the Inn of the Welcome Wench. Buying several rounds for the house they hear tales of bandit raids, lights at the Moathouse, and strange creatures seen in the countryside - including a griffon spotted flying over the Gnarley Forest.  

Gathering back at the inn a plan comes together to attack some bandits involving a wagon, some mules, and deception. Deals are made and the next day the party heads out disguised as merchants with several members using stealth to escort the bait while staying out of sight. 

After several hours this does pay off as a group of bandits emerges both in front of and behind the wagon and demands the "merchants" dismount. As they do this a fight breaks out, crossbows twang, and magic words are uttered as our team of seven heroes takes on twelve well-armed brigands. By the time it's over the heroes are all still standing (Malice was dropped once and Braeden was in rough shape for most of it) and all but one of the bandits are deceased. This leaves them a potential prisoner and after some debate - and some interrogation - they decide to take him back to town to face justice.

DM Commentary

Lordy lordy lordy this went in a different direction than I was expecting which is both entertaining and challenging. Lots of exploring Hommlet - sure, that's natural. Then they got stuck on the bandit thing despite my attempts to connect that to the Moathouse and the Temple and spent a bunch of time and energy on that. Don't we just go to the Moathouse? Doesn't everyone? If you play Village of Hommlet and know anything about it isn't the first stop the Moathouse? For about 45 years now? Also every time I myself have run or played in it over the years that's been the next thing after establishing yourself in the village. It's nice to know I can still be surprised after all this time but the creeping realization that they were not going to the Moathouse meant that I had to throw together a decent bandit encounter on the fly. This isn't hard in itself but there is some effort to balance "well these bandits are getting pretty brazen" versus "most of my party is still 1st level" means thinking up a band that could reasonably pull off a small caravan holdup while trying not to make a TPK a foregone conclusion. It worked out so the old instincts are still working but that time I spent re-reviewing the Moathouse and its dungeon beforehand was kind of wasted. 

It was fun watching them come up with their scheme though. 

Another disappointment was knowing that I have 3 different cart/wagon miniatures and could not find a single one of them as this plan was taking shape. So many miniatures but I didn't have these ready so we ended up improvising. This was a problem back in the Isle of Dread campaign a few years ag so I went out and picked up a few just to avoid this same situation. Ah well.

The prisoner thing is another unexpected development. The wizard and the bard both have Sleep spells and both fired them off, taking out part of the front group and the back group - preventing a lot of crossbow shots at the least. This lasted long enough to keep several of the bandits out for the whole thing and after a burst of executions they realized it might be smart to keep one alive. Now we aren't playing with alignment in this campaign so there aren't some of the traditional D&D arguments here but people who have settled on some morals for their character had some differences of opinion regardless.  No one was coming to blows over it but it was a discussion. With multiple casters in the group and one of them being a bard - even a more murderous bard than I typically see - and a lot of human & humanoid opposition, I suspect prisoners will be a recurring thing so I'm going to have to examine what kind of jail accommodations Hommlet has. My suspicion is "not enough" Down the road though this could lead to interesting developments as Verbobonc might send an representative to find out who is taking all of these poisoners and either admonish or reward them. It could also lead to a dedicated interrogator being sent down. We will have to see but that was one thought that I had on long term impacts if it continues. 

Finally it is challenging to manage a 7-player table at times, mainly in the sense of giving everyone some spotlight time. Sure, when it's your turn in combat you get a chance to shine but outside of that it's important to give everyone some time and I am very conscious of that. Combat also takes quite a bit longer than it did with 4 as in addition to more player actions there will usually be more enemy actions and it just eats up the available time. Not a problem yet but it's something I will have to watch. 

Rules-wise Tales of the Valiant continues to shine as far as character abilities and general running of the game. The index continues to fail us regularly (things not in the index from this session: cover, hiding, stealth, darkness) but that's really the worst I can say.

 As a final final note we have set up an Obsidian Portal site for this campaign so if you'd like to see more details and a session recap from my players' point of view here is a link to session 3.

Stay tuned for "Session 4 - Maybe Now They Will Go to the Damn Moathouse".

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 2: Beneath the Tower of Zenopus

 

We begin in Saltmarsh at the Wicker Goat inn as our party prepares to return to the ruined tower. Our heroes (all at level 2 now):

• Paladin Steve: Sir Kentor -  Human Paladin
• Boom-Gun Brandon: Lantor- Human Fighter
• Shootist Will: Mechanist Cedric Theodore -Human Cleric
• Blaster:  Xyzzifax - Human-ish Wizard

They were all present for the last expedition and the dwarf warlock again remains in town getting to know the dwarf-owned mining operation.

There was some rules discussion pregame, mainly about how magic works in 5E and has been tweaked for ToV. I also reminded them about some of the interesting items on the gear list like oil, alchemist's fire, caltrops, antivenin, holy water, and the good old 10'pole.

Then it was time to gather the party and venture forth! Veering off from their prior course the group found themselves kicking in a door to a very large room notable for a group of stone sarcophagi, a collapsed wall on the north side, and a number of giant rats peering back at them!

Taking the lead Sir Kentor takes a number of serious rat bites as does Lantor but they clear out the vermin in short order. This leads to the inevitable opening of the six closed sarcophagi which leads to a number of interesting things:

• The first one has a skeleton holding a fine jeweled dagger.
• The second contains a skeleton holding a very nicely crafted sword
• The third conceals a skeleton with a bejeweled necklace.

Now during these explorations the skeletons are left undisturbed - at first. A few minutes in the wizard decides to very quietly use his Mage Hand to retrieve the dagger which flies up out of his grasp and moves towards the party. This is also when a pair of hungry giant rats emerges from the ruined wall to the north and moves in to attack as well. Another short fight ensues with the wizard staying back and throwing Fire Bolts while Cedric, Lantor, and Sir Kentor charge in. The rats are slain and the dagger is smacked across the room - apparently beating the magic right out of it - and then things settle back down. 

• The fourth burial structure contains a skeleton and a cloud of gas which knocks out the Paladin for ten minutes. The rest of the part uses this time to detect and identify the items so far and determines that the sword is in fact "Verminax", a +1 vermin-slaying blade. The dagger also has not had all of the magic beaten out of it as it is actually a +1 dagger as well.
• Number 5 has another skeleton with more jewelry
• The final un-raided tomb gives them some trouble until something inside it helps to push it open and a skeleton jumps out and starts swinging! The paladin sees his moment and proceeds to land a critical hit with a smite detonating the undead thing in a blast of holy light - one shot, one kill. 

Gathering themselves up and performing some minor healing the party moves out of the opposite side of the room and heads down to kick open another door. This one is empty though there are faint tracks in the dust on the floor and the upper part of the room is shrouded in darkness. As they move in cautiously a giant spider drops on Xyz from above but he dodges the move only to suffer a bite from the vicious arachnid. The rest of the team attacks but the spider scuttles back and runs up a wall, shooting webs as it goes. Our heroes pursue and finally dispatch the beast with no serious damage other than to the wizard's morale. They discover a twin to their dagger embedded in the spider's hide and also identify the tracks in the dust as goblin marks. These seem to run between two of the four doors in the room so the standard protocol is enacted and ...

Kicking in our fourth door of the day we see an even bigger room than the first one containing some cots and clutter and ten very startled goblins - not surprised, as they heard the fight with the spider next door - but definitely startled, particularly the two that were clearly approaching the door quietly hoping the noises would stop before they got there.

The party moves in, the goblins move in, and the wizard unleashes the first Thunderwave of the campaign and blows away 3 of the goblins in one blast. Though they land a few solid blows most of the goblins are dead in seconds and the boss turns to flee but is also slain before he can get far. The last survivor drops his weapons and tries to surrender but is blasted by a firebolt as Xyz says "you are too weak". The room is looted with no particular items of note turning up.

Moving on the next door it turns out to be ... open! Within is a large statue of a wizard with a hand outstretched towards the door. The team quickly figure out that the statue can be rotated and that doing so unlocks the door it points at while locking the other three. Notes are taken and the group moves on having worked out via their ongoing mapping efforts that the corridor beyond may lead back to the "snake room" they discovered the day before. 

As it turns out they are right! They kick in what they now find to be the north door of the round room with the stairs and the big snake - as opposed to the south door they opened earlier. Sir Kentor drinks a potion of growth they found earlier and they charge in to confront the huge serpent. The snake rears up and ... takes a critical hit from the Large Kentor, a ridiculous critical from the fighter and then Lantor Action Surges for yet another mighty blow from his greatsword and slays the thing before it can land a single attack!

Taking a quick look around and upstairs and seeing nothing the adventurers push open the secret door they noticed previously and move down a long corridor that ends in what is likely another secret door. It too is kicked open revealing a wizard's workshop, some statues, a very surprised wizard, and his cutlass-wielding companion. As the violence begins the wizard recovers enough to make Lantor his new friend (a Charm spell) but is blasted by Xyz and slashed by the paladin before he can do anything else as Large Kentor steps around the table and bashes the bodyguard just as his eyes clear up and he says "wait, what"? The paladin is momentarily regretful but he was on the wrong side charmed or not.

After this the party does finish exploring the stair-connected rooms finding a few interesting items including a wand and some scrolls and potions. One of these is a scroll of stone to flesh and there is a fair amount of discussion on whether to use it on one of the statues in the workshop. In the end though they decide to hang onto it for possible future need and head back out of the dungeon to return to Saltmarsh. 

DM Thoughts on Session 2

This was a fun run and they were finally getting into some areas where there was a chance for some interaction beyond swordplay. That's one of the things I like about this dungeon in that even though it is relatively small there are several encounters where one can talk things over with the inhabitants or maybe learn something interesting about another area of the dungeon. Then in session1 they end up hitting a bunch of undead and vermin with zero chance to communicate barring the one cultist encounter

As it turns out they were not terribly interested in conversation. Here we had the goblins and the human wizard and guard as opponents and it was still a "nope" from the crew. Hey, they can tackle this thing however they want to but there were opportunities for more DM fun if they had left even on of those open. Ah well.

Rules-wise we used a lot of "helping another" type mechanics here. In the latest version (ToV PG Page 206 "Working Together")you don't even have to roll - you just give the acting character advantage on the roll. That's a little less dramatic but OK. Luck is working very well, being acquired and being used throughout the session. Combat flows very quickly at these levels and having my condition markers and area effect templates close at hand keeps that speed going. 

That said combat also flows faster when the second level paladin crits on a smite for 43 points of damage - 8d8! Honorable mention goes to the poor snake who got hit by a critical from the paladin, then another from the fighter, then a second attack from the fighter, all of which was enough to kill it before it could act once. Sometimes the dice gods just have it in for you.

As far as the dungeon we didn't make it to some of the other interesting parts but they hit most of it and had a good time. The original has the sword as just a generic +1 longsword so I jazzed that up with a name and a bit of a history and some extra utility in very specific situations. I'll probably add some wererats in at some point to give it a chance to shine. With it and a pair of +1 daggers the group has at least a few magic weapons available if needed. 

I have not been using much in the way of random encounters but that will change as we get more into the main adventure. The temple is an active organized base for an evil organization so it will be a little trickier than the tower. 

We should have a bigger group next time, likely the full 7 players I expect to be at this full-time, so there will likely be a bit more going on as the party makes it way to the Village of Hommlet.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 1: The Terrible Tower of Saltmarsh

 

With characters made but a few weeks left before the full team could gather I talked to the available players and we decided to get together and play some prequel sessions. This came together fairly quickly so was searching a bit to find some decent and short intro adventures. I didn't have anything home-brewed for 5th so I went back to my Saltmarsh idea. Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, as presented in 5E's Ghosts of Saltmarsh, is nicely divided into two parts. This was a perfect fit since I had time for two sessions so I read through the thing, focusing on the Haunted House part  in particular. This was a good fit for an opening adventure of a new campaign and a new set of rules. It also pushed the nostalgia button pretty hard as Saltmarsh was the first published adventure I ever played in back when it was new - and all of us playing it were still fairly new too. 

So I started things off telling the players they needed to think of why their characters would have made the journey to Saltmarsh and what  they might be looking for as they poked around town for news & rumors. our cast of characters:

• Paladin Steve: Human Paladin
• Boom-Gun Brandon: Human Fighter
• Shootist Will: Mechanist Human Cleric
• Blaster:  Human-ish Wizard
• Official Spouse: Dwarf Warlock

So ... a couple of new bits of information there. Steve settled on trying out the new Paladin which most of us thought he would. Will is embracing the troupe-style play by making a cleric as his "backup" character while still intending to play a mechanist in the main campaign. Blaster went with wizard and not an elf which is uncommon for him but he has a concept he is pretty fired up about. Finally, the Official Spouse joined the game for her first RPG session ever! She figured she ought to play at least a few games so she would understand what we're all talking about and maybe get more of the jokes/references - even more nostalgia triggers are firing off here now.  

I want to mention that Brandon is Steve's son and Steve is a friend I have known since the 80's.  Blaster is my own son, and with the Official Spouse joining this run is a family-heavy affair and it is a blast. If you get a chance to play with your kids as they grow up it is incredibly rewarding. 

So with a 5-person party of first level characters roaming around the village of Saltmarsh, nostalgia feelings active, they head off to that same Haunted House I did with my friends back in 1981, right? 

No.

I made the mistake of mentioning that outside of town there were actually two main areas of interest. The haunted house is one but there is also ... the Tower of Zenopus! Yes, they put that reference in the 5E version! Did they put the dungeon in it? No! Of course not! Did the greedy wizard immediately focus on "definite wizard's tower" over "possibly haunted house" and push the party to go that way? Yes, yes he did.

Insert DM scramble here. The blog's namesake tower is the intro dungeon from the Holmes Basic Set circa 1977. It was the first dungeon I ever saw, ever read, and ever ran for some very uncertain friends around 1980. I pulled up a 5th edition version of it that I found a while back - because I couldn't find the one I did myself years ago - and started describing stone steps down into darkness ...

Side track - if you think it's tricky to tell people what D&D is about now you should envision what it was like then when there were no video or computer games to use as references, fantasy movies were mostly terrible, and the concept of an RPG was so unknown we hadn't even had the satanic panic yet. it was tricky to say the least.

So, drowning in more nostalgia feelings than I had expected I started describing the sights and sounds as our brave heroes formed up a marching order, cast some light spells, and descended into the dungeon. 

The short version is "they went right" and ended up in the ghoul room where "Two fanged and clawed humanoids are lurking...". This is where the group discovers that Sir Kentor (the paladin) has a -1 Dex modifier as he pulls off a mighty "zero" for his initiative. Despite this the group manages to take down the ghouls in just a couple of rounds with no one being paralyzed. The warlock is figuring out that a) eldritch blast is a pretty handy thing in a fight and b) a pseudodragon familiar (she's pact of the chain) with unlimited range for seeing and hearing through it is a damn handy thing everywhere else.

Ghouls are a tough first encounter for a new party but there were only two of them and the party is strong with ranged attacks. Paladin-Fighter-Fighty Cleric is a strong front line and a Wizard-Warlock backfield means they can do some damage at range. I was just glad we didn't immediately get into a multiple party member paralysis situation.

The party finds a long dirt tunnel leading out of the room and the familiar gets sent off down the thing first until it finds a group of people in a room chanting around an idol. That draws the rest of the PC's in and despite being offered a chance to join in the ritual our heroes choose violence when the Paladin throws a hammer at the lead cultist as he finishes his invitation. This goes poorly for the cultists and they are soon relieved of their lives and their nice shiny silver masks. The quick assessment is that this was a group of Orcus cultists (given the statue) trying to animate another ghoul (given the dead body laying at it's feet) and they probably did a good thing here. The cleric and paladin rebury the body and then we all move along.

This is a new section added as an optional piece by this version. It's a good addition as it adds a little more to the goings-on both in the dungeon and potentially to the town. Orcus cultists in the big graveyard outside of town? Sounds like trouble!

 

Heading south the group moves into a  smaller room and finds 3 skeletons leaning against the walls. apparently they are angry skeletons because they animate and attack! This is another short, though bloodier, fight as the party takes down the undead but the cleric takes a rusty sword to the gut (a critical) and goes down as well. Now the party gets a quick refresh on how death saves work and the cleric lives though it's a little tricky for him as he is the only one with healing magic - the paladin used his lay on hands earlier after taking some damage in the ghoul fight. 

This is normally an empty room but I wanted to keep things lively so I'm dropping wandering monster entries into these for now. The cleric only had 10 hit points so he couldn't do much about that hit. That's just how it goes at low levels sometimes - one hit can drop you.

This is an important lesson re-learned. Our heroes decide to pull back to the village to regroup and get the cleric back into shape. They end up with roughly 150 gold each after some wheeling and dealing with the local silversmith and retire to the inn to review the day's events. 

The next morning the party stops by the local temple to pick up some healing potions and the warlock decides to stay in town to do some "research". The rest gear back up and head back down, retracing their old steps. 

The next room they enter is full of piles of trash and they quickly spot multiple giant rats who look to charge as they enter the room but ranged attacks cut down many of them and Sir Kentor manages to kill one with an opportunity attack thanks to one of his talents when it tries to bite the fighter instead of him.

The party is getting more organized here as they wiped out most of the rats at range and then finished them off in melee on round 2. Strategies are starting to form.

Kicking down another door we find a seemingly empty room until someone looks up - and sees a couple of giant spiders hanging on the ceiling. The party does manage to get the drop on them and kill one quickly which is fortunate as the other starts shooing web across the room trying to entangle the fighters. It's not enough and soon the fight is over. 

This could have been a dangerous fight but the spiders did not have great luck and there were not enough of them to offset some bad rolls. 

Our heroes press on and find a long hallway with a couple of door options. Opening one reveals a round room with stairs going up... and the biggest snake they've ever seen lounging on those stairs. It notices them and raises its head but otherwise does not move. They decide it's time to head on back and recruit some help before they try to fight or sneak past this thing and so the second expedition ends with a rapid withdrawal to the surface and then to the village.

There was some dissension here between "oh we can take 'im" and "we're doing well so let's not screw it up at the end of the night." They chose caution and made it out OK. Once we worked through things these 4 had gained enough XP to make 2nd level.

Some initial thoughts on the game:

• I see people talking like ToV has power creep over 5E and it might but it's not because of stat inflation. Sure, you get more points but you lose the racial stat bonuses so you can end up slightly lower as the points do not make up for sticking another +1 or +2 on top of a 16. Having to buy those at full cost keeps the ability scores down more than you might think.
• The index for ToV is not great. Look under H for healing - nothing. Look under P for potions  - nothing. Look under C for cure - nothing. Look under S for skills - nothing. That's just a few seemingly obvious things from the first session. It's not crippling but it is inconvenient.
• My guys are a well-oiled machine when it comes to playing D&D. They know what they are doing at this point even with some new rules. It snaps back into place for me too hanging the initiative trackers on the new screen, knocking off hit points, watching for conditions ... it's a lot of fun and flows really easily. 
• Luck is looking like a pretty decent mechanic as it was earned and used for various things all during this session. My players love it.
• The updated version of the tower is good - you can find it here.

So there's our first run done - the next one is this weekend so more to come!