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terryclothToday we had the DM-switching D+D game over at Tom's house. Eric ran the game today, and we didn't finish, so he'll be doing it two weeks from now as well. Which is fine.
So, the gaggle of (newly minted) reserve guardsmen had a couple weeks to burn through the money they made delivering the package, before they found themselves once more before Seargeant Slate, receiving their next mission.
"This wizard says this guy Ricardo stole his book, gloves, and staff, and demanded we send the guards to get him back and capture the culprit. Since the culprit looks to have fled the city, we need you to go out and get him."
Of course, they didn't trust the wizard, and went to interrogate him first. He hadn't actually *seen* the person in question steal the items, but he was sure it was him since Ricardo had been trying to steal them for a long time. They also investigated the storeroom where the items had been, but there were no clues, and the scent was cold.
So off into the wilderness they went, towards the village Ricardo, a local woodsman, was usually to be found. On the way they were attacked just after sunset by a pack of gnolls, and once everyone was finally awake it wasn't too hard to take care of them. The leader was taken down by Sierra and Tachi's pets while the humans mopped up the followers -- he never managed to hit the bobcat or dire weasel, and once the weasel started sucking blood it was all over.
One of the gnolls was captured alive, and released in the morning after an interrogation revealed nothing of interest.
They arrived at the village the next day, although it proved to be more of a trading post, with everyone living in tents. Sierra, the witch, and a new bard Linn decided to go vamp the trappers, with no results except the suggestion to ask at the trading post, the only shop in town, then offered sexual favors in return for a room for the night, while Felinne the archer [the only female in the group played by an actual woman] sat in the corner and watched the whole thing with horror, or at least open disgust.
None of the townies were good looking enough, though, so the whole party ended up just camping near the town, so as to ask Honest Joe some questions in the morning. Joe pointed them to the 'Crystal Caverns', where Ricardo had said he was heading.
The caves did have sign of Ricardo's passing, but the trail led the party into the lair of a pack of giant spiders, who poisoned several members of the party and badly wounded Burne and the 'scout -- no, archer' Diego. There were also some wolves, and a six foot stream that half the party couldn't jump, but no other sign of Ricardo. After an extensive search for secret doors or... well... ANYTHING, the party was forced to give up and admit that this was a complete red herring, and that Ricardo must be very good at covering his tracks when he wanted to -- perhaps he was a druid and simply had 'Trackless Step'.
So they went back to town and asked Joe where else Ricardo might have gone, and he pointed them at a tower of undead known to the bard as a cursed, evil place that no one ever came back from, although the undead threat had stopped menacing the area after the last group of adventurers failed to come back. Figuring that this was another trap, but liking the treasure they'd found hidden in the spiders' lair more than they hated the spider poison, the party decided to go check it out the next day, after their druid had time to memorize some lesser restoration spells.
The next day they reached the tower. They asked their scout -- sorry, backup archer -- if he was any good with locks and traps HINT HINT since he was in leather armor and wielding a shortbow, but Diego insisted that he wasn't a rogue, and was no better with them than anyone else, so they sent Burne to open the door instead, and he was promptly skewered by spikes. Not that that slowed him down, mind.
However, at this point Diego decided to actually do the scouting and, like, checking for traps and opening locks and crap that, wonder of wonders, he was actually kind of good at. The first floor was completely empty, except for the skeletal (non-animated) corpse of an adventurer.
There were stairs going up and down, and the party had a shouting match about which way to go, and then another about the wisdom of shouting at each other and alerting their enemy. Eventually Burne decided to go upstairs, and everyone was forced to follow him or abandon him, and as he was their only really effective fighter it wasn't a hard choice. Diego rushed ahead of him to scout ahead, immediately triggering a trap that sent everyone tumbling down into the lobby as the stairs turned into a slide. The trap waiting in the lobby had already been disarmed, though.
The second floor had a hallway that was really obviously a trap, but that Diego couldn't figure out, so it was opened with a mage hand from a distance and set off harmlessly. The next trap Diego couldn't find released a bunch of skeletons, however, which trapped the scout in a side room and surrounded Burne... Burne and Felinne were both almost killed, but not *actually* killed, and eventually the party noticed the screaming and clanging as Diego in full defense mode held off the last skeleton, and came and killed it too.
The boxes had mysteriously re-closed, though, and proved to be nailed to the floor and impossible to destroy, as they were made out of admantium. There was one more obviously trapped door to open, so they closed all the doors leading into the skeleton room, and had Sierra, who was invisible to undead, open that door -- but the trap hadn't reset yet. Behind that second door was a magic shield and longsword, a pretty good haul.
There was at least one, and probably two or three more floors to search, though, as well as however much basement the tower possessed.
last session next session
The game went pretty well, although Eric was distractible and did not deal at all well with the party 'jumping to conclusions' that there might be more information about Ricardo in the spider cave just because, you know, they'd seen his tracks there, and extensive interrogation of the townsfolk had led to the caverns as the only lead. Obviously they should have immediately headed back to ask more questions of the same people they'd spent eight hours grilling for information the day before! Of COURSE once you trigger the plot point in the spider caves the dialogue trees change, haven't you ever played Neverwinter Nights?
So, the gaggle of (newly minted) reserve guardsmen had a couple weeks to burn through the money they made delivering the package, before they found themselves once more before Seargeant Slate, receiving their next mission.
"This wizard says this guy Ricardo stole his book, gloves, and staff, and demanded we send the guards to get him back and capture the culprit. Since the culprit looks to have fled the city, we need you to go out and get him."
Of course, they didn't trust the wizard, and went to interrogate him first. He hadn't actually *seen* the person in question steal the items, but he was sure it was him since Ricardo had been trying to steal them for a long time. They also investigated the storeroom where the items had been, but there were no clues, and the scent was cold.
So off into the wilderness they went, towards the village Ricardo, a local woodsman, was usually to be found. On the way they were attacked just after sunset by a pack of gnolls, and once everyone was finally awake it wasn't too hard to take care of them. The leader was taken down by Sierra and Tachi's pets while the humans mopped up the followers -- he never managed to hit the bobcat or dire weasel, and once the weasel started sucking blood it was all over.
One of the gnolls was captured alive, and released in the morning after an interrogation revealed nothing of interest.
They arrived at the village the next day, although it proved to be more of a trading post, with everyone living in tents. Sierra, the witch, and a new bard Linn decided to go vamp the trappers, with no results except the suggestion to ask at the trading post, the only shop in town, then offered sexual favors in return for a room for the night, while Felinne the archer [the only female in the group played by an actual woman] sat in the corner and watched the whole thing with horror, or at least open disgust.
None of the townies were good looking enough, though, so the whole party ended up just camping near the town, so as to ask Honest Joe some questions in the morning. Joe pointed them to the 'Crystal Caverns', where Ricardo had said he was heading.
The caves did have sign of Ricardo's passing, but the trail led the party into the lair of a pack of giant spiders, who poisoned several members of the party and badly wounded Burne and the 'scout -- no, archer' Diego. There were also some wolves, and a six foot stream that half the party couldn't jump, but no other sign of Ricardo. After an extensive search for secret doors or... well... ANYTHING, the party was forced to give up and admit that this was a complete red herring, and that Ricardo must be very good at covering his tracks when he wanted to -- perhaps he was a druid and simply had 'Trackless Step'.
So they went back to town and asked Joe where else Ricardo might have gone, and he pointed them at a tower of undead known to the bard as a cursed, evil place that no one ever came back from, although the undead threat had stopped menacing the area after the last group of adventurers failed to come back. Figuring that this was another trap, but liking the treasure they'd found hidden in the spiders' lair more than they hated the spider poison, the party decided to go check it out the next day, after their druid had time to memorize some lesser restoration spells.
The next day they reached the tower. They asked their scout -- sorry, backup archer -- if he was any good with locks and traps HINT HINT since he was in leather armor and wielding a shortbow, but Diego insisted that he wasn't a rogue, and was no better with them than anyone else, so they sent Burne to open the door instead, and he was promptly skewered by spikes. Not that that slowed him down, mind.
However, at this point Diego decided to actually do the scouting and, like, checking for traps and opening locks and crap that, wonder of wonders, he was actually kind of good at. The first floor was completely empty, except for the skeletal (non-animated) corpse of an adventurer.
There were stairs going up and down, and the party had a shouting match about which way to go, and then another about the wisdom of shouting at each other and alerting their enemy. Eventually Burne decided to go upstairs, and everyone was forced to follow him or abandon him, and as he was their only really effective fighter it wasn't a hard choice. Diego rushed ahead of him to scout ahead, immediately triggering a trap that sent everyone tumbling down into the lobby as the stairs turned into a slide. The trap waiting in the lobby had already been disarmed, though.
The second floor had a hallway that was really obviously a trap, but that Diego couldn't figure out, so it was opened with a mage hand from a distance and set off harmlessly. The next trap Diego couldn't find released a bunch of skeletons, however, which trapped the scout in a side room and surrounded Burne... Burne and Felinne were both almost killed, but not *actually* killed, and eventually the party noticed the screaming and clanging as Diego in full defense mode held off the last skeleton, and came and killed it too.
The boxes had mysteriously re-closed, though, and proved to be nailed to the floor and impossible to destroy, as they were made out of admantium. There was one more obviously trapped door to open, so they closed all the doors leading into the skeleton room, and had Sierra, who was invisible to undead, open that door -- but the trap hadn't reset yet. Behind that second door was a magic shield and longsword, a pretty good haul.
There was at least one, and probably two or three more floors to search, though, as well as however much basement the tower possessed.
last session next session
The game went pretty well, although Eric was distractible and did not deal at all well with the party 'jumping to conclusions' that there might be more information about Ricardo in the spider cave just because, you know, they'd seen his tracks there, and extensive interrogation of the townsfolk had led to the caverns as the only lead. Obviously they should have immediately headed back to ask more questions of the same people they'd spent eight hours grilling for information the day before! Of COURSE once you trigger the plot point in the spider caves the dialogue trees change, haven't you ever played Neverwinter Nights?
