Skip to main content

This that Were and that Could Have Been

It was supposed to be the big D&D Experience weekend, but sickness and schedule conflicts kept us away.  Friday night gaming went well with only our bard missing.
---
So the group enters the intriguing cave only to find a hoard of skull spiders.  These nasty little beasties are spiders that inhabit the skulls of their victims to give them that little bit extra.  The group started whacking away at them while some stragglers took a bit longer to enter the cave.  FInally the last little gnome sorceress popped in, only to have an executioner's hood fall onto her head and start suffocating her.

There was a moment where the half-elf druid/rogue Felix almost considered poking poor Ally in the head to get the thing off, but better thoughts prevailed and three of them tried to flip the thing off.  The paladin pounded away at spiders with the ranger, while the other three tugged, sending it tumbling to the ground.  The hood crawled the wall, injured, and then was spotted and taken out by the rogue's arrow.

Ally went running through the cave trying to beat the rogue to the spider's treasure hoard.  Too bad no one told her about the rather large pit trap that she feel into.  And the rogue stol away some extra gold from the hoard before he was spotted.

Two doors from the cavern were opened into a hall with a holding pen full of zombies.  The group attacked immediately, stirring the zombies and driving them to break through the fence holding them back.  An entangle spell from Ally ties them up, but makes progress difficult for the melee fighters.  The zombies are quickly picked off, all 10 of them.

The paladin runs into the next corridor of the cavern, finding it a dead-end in more ways than one.  A huge rhioncero-like creature with a giraffe like neck and a aardvark like snout charges her, using it snoot and hooves.  She backs off, the dwarf runs away after hearing that his magic armor might very well be food for the magica item eating disenchanter (cold country variety), and the ranger steps up.

There is much running, dropping of armor, and swapping of weapons, and somehow the dwarf and paladin end up with a crossbow and long bow, while the ranger holds the creature back in melee.  The gnome hides in the pit with the tiger.

The team backs out of the corridor, the zombie pen room, and clear back to the original cavern, trying to lure the creature into the pit.  It charges the gnome, but is finally killed by the dwarf who runs up on the creature.  They take its head to sell back in town as a magical ingredient.

The next room, found behind a secret door, has four elementals in the four corners of the room behind gates.  The four gates are attached to strong, magically-enforced chains, and to keys.  The fours sides of the pillar all have 4 keyholes each paired to the letters 'o' 'p' 'e' and 'n'.  If one were to insert a key, the chain pulls the gate, and the elemental escapes if the gate isn't close quickly enough.

The party, very fearful of the elementals, ponders the puzzle.  The gnome is the last to enter, and the doors snap shut, giving the tiger barely a second to jump in.  Now, with them locked in, they turn to the paladin who prays to helm to ask for an answer.  And to Rodar's suprise, a list of the elemental types is given to her ina specific order: earth, wind, water, and fire.

The group positions themselves to use the keys, but the dwarf can't reach his key.  The gnome climbs on his back, they insert keys, turn, the doors open, and the gates just barely clang back down before the elementals escape.

The doors open to the next room where 4 large shadows lurk until next time...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

5E Starting Gold and Equipment for Higher Levels

The DMG has a rough recommendation for starting gold and equipment for higher levels, but with my groups running one-shots, we wanted to nail it down to level by level. Here's my DMG-inspired table. Generally I allow equipment to be traded in during character creation for half book value, where applicable. I also, as a GM, offer to make custom magic items for players who can't choose. A list of magical items by rarity can be found here  with stats available in the DMG. I also generally allow players to buy healing potions (2d4+2) for 50gp and greater healing potions for 250gp (4d4+4). PHB items are available at book cost at creation. I do not allow other equipment to be purchased except in game. This is generally based off the "high magic" campaign. Level Starting Gold Starting Equipment / Magic Items 1 - 160gp  OR Standard starting equipment 2 210gp Standard starting equipment 3 285gp Standard starting equipment 4 365gp Standard sta

An Analysis of Tasha's Caldron of Everything: Spells

 I am going to be evaluating "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" for incorporation into my own games. I figured I would go ahead and record this analysis on my blog here so other folks can follow along and glean some useful information from the time I spent. I tried to find an in-depth analysis elsewhere, but at this time none so detailed as this seems to be available. You will not find any of the text in its entirety in this blog. I will be referencing the first printing of the book, so please refer to that as you read along. There are no released errata for the book at the time of writing, although there are errata from other books that affect some of this content. There are 21 spells in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. This includes Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade, Lightning Lure, and Sword Burst cantrips that were originally published in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. There are 9 spells that allow you to summon creatures of various types. Three spells are notabl

GM Tip: Changing the Effective Font Size in Roll20

I've seen this complaint a few times in roll 20:  can't adjust the font in the chat window.  Unfortunately, they haven't added controls for this yet, at least not at the level of account I have.  For me the font is just too big, but I know for a lot of people it is too small. I am using chrome to do this, but I am sure it will work in other browsers. The method basically allows to increase/decrease the size of the font/controls by about a factor of 2 easily. To increase the effective font size, zoom in with the browser (ctrl-plus), and reduce the zoom on the map, until it is back to the size you want. To decrease the effective font size, zoom out with the browser (ctrl-minus), and increase the zoom on the map until its back to the size you want. The main limit of this is the limited range of the map zoom, which really limited me to fonts doubling to halving in size. Default size with chat font Decrease browser zoom and increase map zoom to reduce font e