Newbieville: Dungeon Below the Shrine
Hello again, friends! I've got some other content coming soon, but in the meantime it's time for the latest Welcome to Newbieville session summary! This one got dicey, but nobody died and I'm proud of my blossoming players. At the end I'll be asking for advice, but first, the summary. Let's get into it!
As you may recall from the previous session, our heroes had (mostly) cleared out an abandoned shrine in the woods that they found while gathering herbs for producing healing potions. This included discovering a stairway down into a dungeon, but they retreated to the village before exploring it.
Between then and now, there were some hiccups: most significantly, two players had to bail because of bad weather, leaving us with only two. Additionally, our newest recruit decided that the barbarian he tried out was too boring and wanted to change it up. With only a single session of history for Grog the orc barbarian, we decided to just ret-con that it had been Thorin the dwarven paladin all along — why spend time contriving an exit and replacement when you're just trying to get newbies started?
Thus, the party is now as follows:
Belwarum — dragonborn sorcerer, hermit background (absent)
Tika — elf rogue, outlander background (absent)
Lady Elka — human monk, noble background
Sir Thorin — dwarf paladin, noble background
We opened the session with a slight flashback: when we agreed last time that the party would head back to town to rest without doing any additional adventuring (and thus began the process of leveling up some of the party), I had forgotten that the return trip would include the discovery of an abandoned old farmhouse with a well. So, we said that the party had seen it on their way but were too tired to deal with it, instead noting it for the future.
Safely in the village, the tired adventurers had a to-do list and wasted no time getting started. First, since the player of Tika — who was considering learning the identify spell — was absent and the wizard who bought the ruined tower hadn't moved in yet, Elka and Thorin went to the priest to see if he could identify their magical loot. He could, but not until the next day (he would have to change his spell preparations) and it would cost 10 gold pieces per casting.
With that task rescheduled for the morning, they went to see the herbalist, and made arrangements for some discount potions. The party supplied some portions of super-potent herbs, and the herbalist and her assistant would spend all day tomorrow making potions: two in the morning and two in the afternoon. There were still some herbs left, so Belwarum (whose player was absent) was given the rest to spend his day off crafting even more potions.
The team rested up for the night, then headed to the temple for item identification. It turns out they have a ring of fire resistance, and a +1 shortsword that jumps up to +3 when used against a dragon. With only two of the PCs ready for action, they decided to be cautious and wait until they had the first two potions before heading out for the day.
After lunch, with potions in hand, they headed back into the woods and investigated the farmhouse. They checked out the well first, and discovered that deep in the shaft there was a tunnel from a large, burrowing creature breaching the side. Before delving it, they inspected the house, and found two bears inside.
They closed the doors as non-threateningly as they could and headed back to the well.
After securing some rope to a tree, they climbed down and followed the tunnel to an eventual cavern, where two of the stalactites turned out to be darkmantles, and I discovered something important: the Alert feat saves lives. Thanks to being indistinguishable from stalactites until they move, the darkmantles were more or less guaranteed an ambush. Furthermore, if their attack is made with advantage (as in an ambush) then they engulf your head and suffocate you. The paladin's armor class protected him, but the monk was not so lucky, and I began laying out all the consequences of having her head engulfed.
Then we remembered that she had the Alert feat.
She can't be "surprised" and is not any easier to hit due to an attacker being unseen. This means the attack roll shouldn't have advantage, which in turn means a hit doesn't translate to an engulfed head. Thus, instead of being blind and suffocating, she just suffered a bit of damage and was free to beat the shit out of the flying cave-squid thing. Awesome!
After that fight, they rested a bit (carefully watching the rest of the stalactites, but they didn't move) and continued through the tunnel until it eventually opened into a square room with stone masonry walls, inhabited by a 10-foot tall bug: an ankheg. They hesitantly attacked, but a near-lethal crit and the terror of being grappled by mandibles sent them scurrying back up the tunnel. I decided that the ankheg had no interest in chasing them, so they retreated all the way back and hid in the bottom of the well (three feet of water) until they had rested a bit.
By this point, Lady Elka realized she had enough XP to reach 3rd level, so they retreated to the village for the day and spent the night. They retrieved the final two potions of healing, and with 25% more levels among them, returned to the forest farmhouse.
They figured they probably still couldn't handle the ankheg, so they ambushed the bears in hopes of finding something useful in the house. The ambush went well (no injuries), but they found no loot. Next they decided they could head back to the shrine and enter the dungeon. You know, "just to scout it out a little bit."
I won't bore you with a detailed description of the dungeon layout, but they did find the very same room they had reached via tunnel earlier, still with an ankheg inside. Amazingly, despite the paladin's armor, they managed to stay quiet enough not to draw its attention, and retreated. They carefully moved from doorway to doorway, corner to corner, carefully examining areas without entering any rooms that seemed suspicious.
Except, eventually, the room which was littered with small animal bones and contained nothing but an ornate, unguarded treasure chest.
Yeah. You veterans know exactly what's coming.
They carefully examined the chest for traps (they've seen the rogue do this in the past). We were very clear about whether hands were involved. Eventually they were, and initiative was rolled against the mimic while Lady Elka's hand was stuck to its face.
Whoops.
That fight was... intense. Mimics have a challenge rating of 2, meaning that by itself, it's a decent challenge for an entire party of 2nd-level adventurers. Although Elka was a level ahead of that expectation, they were still only half a party. Nevertheless, with pretty good teamwork (and a 22-point smite from Sir Thorin — his first divine smite!) they managed to defeat the mimic without either of them dying.
That was quite enough adventuring for one day (even though it was about 1pm) so they headed back to the village to take the rest of the day off. By this point (thanks in part to XP only being divided between two people instead of a whole party) Sir Thorin had reached 3rd level, meaning the whole party is now the same level. Cool how forgiving 5th Edition is on that point.
There are still some things yet to be found in the dungeon so I've got content for next week (plus some folks have some level-up bookkeeping to finish), but I'd also like to bring in something outside the dungeon. See, this is the players' introduction to D&D, but they've only fought monsters for XP and loot so far; they haven't saved anyone or gotten to be heroes yet. I'd like to start introducing a source of tension, some kind of threat, which could develop toward being the eventual climax at 5th level.
I'm thinking that next session I'd like them to become aware of a person or group which is in some way at odds with the town, with room for things to escalate a bit between now and the climax. Do you have ideas for who (or what) this antagonist could be? Let me know in the comments! I'd love to hear your ideas.
Until next time, take care of each other, okay?
As you may recall from the previous session, our heroes had (mostly) cleared out an abandoned shrine in the woods that they found while gathering herbs for producing healing potions. This included discovering a stairway down into a dungeon, but they retreated to the village before exploring it.
Between then and now, there were some hiccups: most significantly, two players had to bail because of bad weather, leaving us with only two. Additionally, our newest recruit decided that the barbarian he tried out was too boring and wanted to change it up. With only a single session of history for Grog the orc barbarian, we decided to just ret-con that it had been Thorin the dwarven paladin all along — why spend time contriving an exit and replacement when you're just trying to get newbies started?
Thus, the party is now as follows:
Belwarum — dragonborn sorcerer, hermit background (absent)
Tika — elf rogue, outlander background (absent)
Lady Elka — human monk, noble background
Sir Thorin — dwarf paladin, noble background
We opened the session with a slight flashback: when we agreed last time that the party would head back to town to rest without doing any additional adventuring (and thus began the process of leveling up some of the party), I had forgotten that the return trip would include the discovery of an abandoned old farmhouse with a well. So, we said that the party had seen it on their way but were too tired to deal with it, instead noting it for the future.
Safely in the village, the tired adventurers had a to-do list and wasted no time getting started. First, since the player of Tika — who was considering learning the identify spell — was absent and the wizard who bought the ruined tower hadn't moved in yet, Elka and Thorin went to the priest to see if he could identify their magical loot. He could, but not until the next day (he would have to change his spell preparations) and it would cost 10 gold pieces per casting.
With that task rescheduled for the morning, they went to see the herbalist, and made arrangements for some discount potions. The party supplied some portions of super-potent herbs, and the herbalist and her assistant would spend all day tomorrow making potions: two in the morning and two in the afternoon. There were still some herbs left, so Belwarum (whose player was absent) was given the rest to spend his day off crafting even more potions.
The team rested up for the night, then headed to the temple for item identification. It turns out they have a ring of fire resistance, and a +1 shortsword that jumps up to +3 when used against a dragon. With only two of the PCs ready for action, they decided to be cautious and wait until they had the first two potions before heading out for the day.
After lunch, with potions in hand, they headed back into the woods and investigated the farmhouse. They checked out the well first, and discovered that deep in the shaft there was a tunnel from a large, burrowing creature breaching the side. Before delving it, they inspected the house, and found two bears inside.
They closed the doors as non-threateningly as they could and headed back to the well.
After securing some rope to a tree, they climbed down and followed the tunnel to an eventual cavern, where two of the stalactites turned out to be darkmantles, and I discovered something important: the Alert feat saves lives. Thanks to being indistinguishable from stalactites until they move, the darkmantles were more or less guaranteed an ambush. Furthermore, if their attack is made with advantage (as in an ambush) then they engulf your head and suffocate you. The paladin's armor class protected him, but the monk was not so lucky, and I began laying out all the consequences of having her head engulfed.
Then we remembered that she had the Alert feat.
She can't be "surprised" and is not any easier to hit due to an attacker being unseen. This means the attack roll shouldn't have advantage, which in turn means a hit doesn't translate to an engulfed head. Thus, instead of being blind and suffocating, she just suffered a bit of damage and was free to beat the shit out of the flying cave-squid thing. Awesome!
After that fight, they rested a bit (carefully watching the rest of the stalactites, but they didn't move) and continued through the tunnel until it eventually opened into a square room with stone masonry walls, inhabited by a 10-foot tall bug: an ankheg. They hesitantly attacked, but a near-lethal crit and the terror of being grappled by mandibles sent them scurrying back up the tunnel. I decided that the ankheg had no interest in chasing them, so they retreated all the way back and hid in the bottom of the well (three feet of water) until they had rested a bit.
By this point, Lady Elka realized she had enough XP to reach 3rd level, so they retreated to the village for the day and spent the night. They retrieved the final two potions of healing, and with 25% more levels among them, returned to the forest farmhouse.
They figured they probably still couldn't handle the ankheg, so they ambushed the bears in hopes of finding something useful in the house. The ambush went well (no injuries), but they found no loot. Next they decided they could head back to the shrine and enter the dungeon. You know, "just to scout it out a little bit."
I won't bore you with a detailed description of the dungeon layout, but they did find the very same room they had reached via tunnel earlier, still with an ankheg inside. Amazingly, despite the paladin's armor, they managed to stay quiet enough not to draw its attention, and retreated. They carefully moved from doorway to doorway, corner to corner, carefully examining areas without entering any rooms that seemed suspicious.
Except, eventually, the room which was littered with small animal bones and contained nothing but an ornate, unguarded treasure chest.
Yeah. You veterans know exactly what's coming.
They carefully examined the chest for traps (they've seen the rogue do this in the past). We were very clear about whether hands were involved. Eventually they were, and initiative was rolled against the mimic while Lady Elka's hand was stuck to its face.
Whoops.
That fight was... intense. Mimics have a challenge rating of 2, meaning that by itself, it's a decent challenge for an entire party of 2nd-level adventurers. Although Elka was a level ahead of that expectation, they were still only half a party. Nevertheless, with pretty good teamwork (and a 22-point smite from Sir Thorin — his first divine smite!) they managed to defeat the mimic without either of them dying.
That was quite enough adventuring for one day (even though it was about 1pm) so they headed back to the village to take the rest of the day off. By this point (thanks in part to XP only being divided between two people instead of a whole party) Sir Thorin had reached 3rd level, meaning the whole party is now the same level. Cool how forgiving 5th Edition is on that point.
There are still some things yet to be found in the dungeon so I've got content for next week (plus some folks have some level-up bookkeeping to finish), but I'd also like to bring in something outside the dungeon. See, this is the players' introduction to D&D, but they've only fought monsters for XP and loot so far; they haven't saved anyone or gotten to be heroes yet. I'd like to start introducing a source of tension, some kind of threat, which could develop toward being the eventual climax at 5th level.
I'm thinking that next session I'd like them to become aware of a person or group which is in some way at odds with the town, with room for things to escalate a bit between now and the climax. Do you have ideas for who (or what) this antagonist could be? Let me know in the comments! I'd love to hear your ideas.
Until next time, take care of each other, okay?
______________________________________
Enjoying the Find Familiar blog? Check out my other work!
Follow me on social media too!
Comments
Post a Comment